🎓 Congrats Evan!

May 02, 2025

Evan is graduating this week, so this will be his last week at EO+WD—at least for now. Connect with and congratulate him on LinkedIn!

Remember that book chapter on purpose trust ownership in rural communities that Dr. Hand worked on with Zoe Schlag and Tiffany Vargas? That book is available for pre-order

Representative Mike Kelly and Jimmy Panetta introduced the Promotion and Expansion of Private Employee Ownership Act (H.R. 3105), aimed at supporting S corporations’ ESOP transitions
Adriana Abizadeh shares that the Kensington Corridor Trust, aimed at elevating local voices, has raised $15 million over the past five years
Britt Rice Electric of College Station, TX (where the other Dr. Hand is from!) transitions to an ESOP
Bloomberg Opinion’s article and posts about furnishing company Room & Board’s transition to an ESOP last year rocketed around the employee ownership-verse this week (h/t Adam H.)

Also see our full list of upcoming events

May 6-8: Community Spaces Network and Community Vision’s Social Purpose Real Estate Summit
🆕 | May 8: Praxis hosts The Case for Action: How Inclusive Leadership Drives Ownership Success for NCEO members. Join NCEO’s HR Peer Networking Group here to attend
May 8-June 19: Ownership Capital Lab’s four-part educational course for foundations and philanthropic institutions on addressing the racial and gender wealth gap through investments in the Ownership Economy

🆕 | May 12-18: The Economy of Francesco’s Incubator for Non-Extractive Organizations in Krapanj Island, Croatia
- Purpose Economy’s Annika Schneider will be there discussing steward-ownership
🆕 | May 23: The Georgia Center for Employee Ownership, America’s SBDC, and the U.S. Small Business Administration host their Empowering Employee Ownership forum

Beth Kowitt highlights the difficulty business model transitions are under current legislation (h/t Expanding ESOPs)
Jon Stojan highlights CodeWeavers’ transition to employee ownership over private equity among a generation of business owners retiring (h/t Zoe Schlag)
Expanding ESOPs asks Jason Miller, Director of Succession Planning for Berman Hopkins CPAs & Associates, seven questions about employee ownership
Danny Brown, worker at Scotty’s Contracting & Stone, reveals how working at an ESOP helped build security for his family (h/t Expanding ESOPs)
The Social Capital Insider expand on the $15 minimum wage movement, pointing to ESOPs as a wealth creation tool for workers (h/t Chris Benguhe)

Check out The Baker Project’s new website, designed to assisting companies in finding the perfect employee ownership model
The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade launched a program to remove financial barriers for transitions to employee ownership
Kali Young highlights Organically Grown Company transition to steward ownership (h/t Brenna Davis)

Judith Crown explores how worker cooperatives help generate wealth for individuals with limited opportunities, including formerly incarcerated people (h/t The ICA Group)
The city of Saint Paul is partnering with Nexus Community Partners to promote transitions to worker cooperatives
Heather Landy highlights KKR’s collaboration with Stanfords’s Jamil Zaki on how empathetic leadership can help build ownership cultures (h/t Pete Stavros)

Certified EO covers the highlights from their presentation at NCEO’s conference on techniques for maximizing employee ownership engagement
Rutgers shares the highlights from the 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum
Georgia Center for Employee Ownership was hosted at the BREW event— watch the event here!
Julie Menter gives an overview of her conversation at Reimagining Corporate Ownership

Purpose LatAm spotlights Patagonia’s transition to giving Earth a controlling stake in their country in this podcast series 👇

Thanks for reading EO+WD | Employee Ownership + Workplace Democracy! This post is public so feel free to share it.