Welcome Back! From Colin:
David Erickson of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published the Making Missing Markets Initiative, arguing that “social and economic vulnerabilities” often overlap. The report states that community- and employee-ownership models are important mechanisms for keeping wealth anchored within a community (good idea!).
The piece is targeted at traditional financiers to give an understanding of what impact investing may look like in the near future. On the one hand, we Stakeholders are pleased to see such insights from important decision makers and are hopeful financial infrastructure follows as prescribed. On the other hand, this must be how Christopher Columbus felt when he “discovered” Guanahani…
Top Shelf News
Mark Hand and Tiffany Vargas explore pillars of profit, power and purpose in the Oxford report, What is Your Organisation For? The assessments for purpose, decision-making power, and financial participation (pg. 25) are particularly salient, even if many CEOs wouldn’t like the results
University of Colorado Boulder announces new Center for Community Ownership, with funding led by $1M grant from the Colorado Health Foundation
ICYMI: We got to sit down with Antony Bugg-Levine to discuss his new book, Investing in America, and the opportunities he sees for employee ownership
👉 In This Issue
If you’re new here, friend, welcome! You may want to start with Stories & Dealflow.
Events and Opportunities
News
Stories and Dealflow
Research and Insights
🏙️ Events and Opportunities
For events more than a week away, see our main Events page.
Nov 17: Yoak hosts Business Design For Systemic Change: Meeting the Field | Inland Cooperative Services hosts WACEO and Paulson’s Exchange: Business Succession and Employee Ownership, in Spokane Valley and online | NCEO’s Investing in the ESOP 1042 Rollover
Nov 18: Ohio State’s Capital Strategies for Cooperation conference | OEOC’s ESOP Diversification Rules Explained | St. John Fisher University hosts Built to Last: Exploring Employee Ownership as a Business & Succession Strategy in Rochester, NY
Nov 19: Day one of Corporate Rebels Summit in Amsterdam
Nov 20: Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing presents the virtual Private Equity & Employee Share Ownership Symposium | 100% for Purpose presents Mission Locked: Patagonia, Newman’s Own and Mozilla Talk Purpose Ownership
Nov 23: Castlemaine Co-op shares How Our Community Bought a Two Million Dollar Building
Opportunities
For more, including for jobs *at* employee-owned companies, visit our Jobs page.
New Economy Coalition | Finance Director | Resource Mobilization Director | Communications Director
Prairie Capital Advisors | Associate - ESOP Consulting
Aspen Institute Financial Security Program | Research Manager
Jan 10 Deadline: Apply to join the fourth cohort of the New Economy Leaders Academy, a collaboration of The Human Edge, Common Purpose and P4NE
Applications open Nov 18: Start.Coop’s Shared Scale Purchasing Group Incubator, with informational webinar on Nov 20
🗞️ Ownership News
Employee Ownership
USFWC announces partnership with National Cooperative Bank
Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations appoints 30 new employee ownership fellows
NCEO announces Michael C Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work, as the keynote speaker for their 2027 Annual Conference in Pittsburgh
Association of Cooperative Educators presents their 2026-2027 Executive Committee
📺 British Government’s new Cooperatives & Mutuals Champion Andrew Pakes makes his first speech in Parliament
The Ownership Economy
Cairnspring Mills and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation partner to open Blue Mountain Mill
Jason Weiner teases a new open-source initiative at CurrentShift, A Tinkerer’s Workshop
San Francisco passes they city’s first-ever public bank ballot measure
Ownership Stories & Dealflow
ESOPs
The Wall Street Journal profiles The Gund Co., a St. Louis manufacturer with 30% ESOP ownership who have never laid off an employee in 75 years (paywalled)
📺 The Eric Ries Show interviews Andy Powers, President, CEO and Chief Guitar Designer of Taylor Guitars
Co-Ops
📺 Check out the 2026 Film Fest Submissions at U.S. Co-ops
CooperationWorks! shares the origin story of Blackberry Food Co-op (OR)
Camilla Capasso profiles Italian pasta cooperative, Mirra Farm (ht GEO)
More Perfect Union spotlights worker co-ops as counter-strategy to corporate monopolies
The Ownership Economy
Think Differently’s Eller Everett compares Purpose Foundation with Unicorn Grocery as two ways ‘ownership looks different’
Public Commons: Reimagining the Civic Commons shares insights into American shared spaces while the UK creates the first national Lido Fund to support historic pools as local gathering places
🇨🇦 Fireweed Food Co-op looks to scale their innovative “buying group” pilot
Kennett Community Grocer (PA) set to open Nov 23 after 8 years of community organizing
Dealflow
US ESOPs: Pacific Medical (CA) becomes 30% ESOP-owned | Cleveland Electric (GA) converts to 100% ESOP, with ~20% employees qualifying to participate | Family-owned Martin Landscaping (NC) | SGA Marketing (CA)
3LS Professional Services (TN) acquires Accreditation Guru (NY), a consultancy for behavioral and human services organizations
🇬🇧 Extramile Digital, a digital marketing agency, transitions to EOT
🇬🇧 Produce Sector Trend: Richard Hochfeld (RH) Group, a UK grape and topfruit importer, transfers 90% ownership to EOT
For more, check out our Dealflow page.
Research & Insights
The latest arguments, analysis, and academic research (📚)
Employee Ownership
Rutgers’ Adria Scharf debuts a series of Director’s Reflections
Employee Ownership Canada drops the November edition of The Ownership Update
📺 EO Funds: Ownership Capital Lab posts recordings of How investors classify and diligence EO funds, cohosted with Transform Finance, and Innovation in EO holding companies
Project Equity’s Amanda Calder considers how access to employee ownership can build rural wealth
Impact Entrepreneur’s Laurie Lane-Zucker contrasts the ephemerality of a mission statement with the solidity of ownership
NCEO’s Scott Rodrick identifies which IRS cost of living (COLA) increases are most relevant to ESOPs and related plans
ImpactAlpha’s Dana Stranz asks, “Alternative ownership is ready to grow. What’s stopping it?” (paywalled)
ESOPs
🎙️ Menke’s latest ESOP Radio episode discusses the current bank financing landscape for ESOPs
Timothy J. Miller of Kreischer Miller shares his three takeaways from The ESOP Associations’ 2026 Northeast Regional Conference: Sustainability, Strategy and Ownership Culture
Boutique law firm Kostelanetz analyzes purchase requirements in 1042 transactions, exploring whether seller notes qualify as “cash or its equivalent”
For the ESOP-curious:
Prairie Capital Advisors latest edition of Think Forward asks former owners and leaders for their lessons learned
Ed Renenger, SES ESOP Strategies CEO, talks to the Open For Business pod about ESOPs as exit strategy
EOTs
🇬🇧 Robert Postlethwaite summarizes Danish research into UK EOTs, confirming that they outperform comparable companies as Denmark begins to implement their own employee ownership regulations
Co-ops
🇨🇦 Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives asserts that co-ops should raise capital together (ht GEO)
Scaling Co-ops: LaDonna Sanders-Redmond asks what food co-ops could learn from the operating model and growth strategy of Aldi (ht The ICA Group)
The Ownership Economy
📚 Inca Petra Kuenkel edits a new open-access book, Transforming Economies: Pathways to Regenerative Civilizations
Gabrielle Newell proposes a ‘radical REIT’ that invests in worker- and community-owned real estate projects
As Doug Lepisto recaps the recent “Broadening Ownership Through the Great Ownership Transfer” event, we’re curious where ETA can overlap with employee and community ownership
Anagali Duncan and Krissia Tuzroyluk, both of Native Americans in Philanthropy’s Native Youth Grantmakers and Indigenous Tomorrows Fund, discuss what power-sharing looks like to them
Lafayette Square Institute and Center for USA Lending launch the Federal Credit Lab, a database of US federal lending
Economic & Workplace Democracy
In Economic and Industrial Democracy, Emma Lees examines cooperatives across sectors in Spain and their role in achieving a more inclusive, sustainable and democratic economy
Ownership on Purpose
100% for Purpose releases Governance Report: Nonprofit and Trust Ownership for Good
Beata Dunn of ReGen Law Partners explores whether directors should be stewards of a company’s purpose as well as the financial performance
🎙️ Connecting with Purpose drops a new episode, How to Lead Through Change
🎙️ The Conscious Capitalists host Les Szabo, Chief Strategy & Impact Officer at Dr. Bronner’s to discuss how a company can grow to $300M without compromising its purpose
A new Impact Cliffs article for Forbes analyzes the tension between successful financial exits and successful mission exits (ht Sorenson Impact) (paywalled)
📺 Right Lane Consulting’s Steward Ownership Forum examines foundation ownership: “Purpose led must still perform”
Harvard Business School’s Cindy Perman explores steward ownership in the US ahead of TOP26 Conference
Digital Ownership
Platform Coops eG releases summary and complete recording of their recent call with Democratic Tech Fund: Democratising Tech means Democratising the Economy
🎙️ The Ownership Economy drops a new episode with Winston Ma on why the public has a claim on AI