Doughnuts, music festivals, and AI shoes

The Ownership Economy Newsletter, Vol. 142

Welcome back!

We recently watched Kate Raworth’s TED Talk on her now-famous doughnut economics, which argues for an economy that is regenerative and distributive

• The ownership economy seems clearly a part of that puzzle. Raworth has hinted at this, and co-authored a paper with a “doughnut design for business” tool built on the work of employee ownership advocate Marjorie Kelly

• So…who is going to invite Raworth to keynote their next [employee/steward/purpose trust] ownership conference?

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🥃 Top Shelf News

• Voting for SOCAP panels is still open—vote for your friends and fellow Stakehold readers!

• Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling will now head the DOL, which regulates ESOPs

  • This follows the exit of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whose initial nomination was supported by a six-figure lobbying campaign by ESOP advocates

• The Rutgers Institute launched its Employee Ownership Applied Research Lab to connect research and practice

  • Also from Rutgers: Using establishment-level micro-data from the US Census, Fidan Ana Kurtulus et al. find that ”ESOP adoption increases labor productivity at the workplace by 5.6 – 6.7%,” all else equal

  • … and registration is open for the Aspen-Rutgers 2026 Employee Ownership Forum in DC in June

• In The Drift, Francis Norwood’s ESOP Fables takes aim at private equity employee ownership models and ESOPs:

  • “…if history is any guide, experiments with employee ownership typically end up juicing returns for the investor class rather than benefiting workers”

👉 In This Issue

• Events + Jobs

• Employee Ownership

  • Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)

  • Worker cooperatives

  • Employee ownership trusts

• The Ownership Economy

  • Steward ownership + purpose trusts

  • Platform cooperatives + digital ownership

  • Community ownership + land trusts

  • Good jobs + fair wages

• Academic Updates

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📅 Events + Jobs

For events farther than two weeks away, see our main Events page.

• April 27-29: The Mission Investors Exchange 2026 National Conference in Atlanta

• April 28: Employee Ownership Canada’s Building an Ownership Culture webinar

• April 30: Tamarack Institute’s webinar on collective decision making

• May 1: The Center for Community Wealth’s Testing the Case for Financial Aggregation in Community Ownership webinar

• May 2: Cooperative Development Foundation’s 5k in DC

• May 4: Purpose Foundation’s fireside chat with Eric Ries on his new book, Incorruptible

• May 5: The first day of the ESOP Association’s National Conference in Washington, D.C.

  • Plus the IFG New York 2026 Conference, where David York will speak on steward ownership and purpose trusts

  • …and HBS Ownership Project’s seminar on establishing norms in employee owned companies

• May 6: Project Equity’s Exit, Succession Planning, and Employee Ownership Options in San Francisco

  • Also WICEO and Common Trust’s introduction to EOTs webinar

• May 7: VEOC’s Introduction to Employee Ownership Trusts featuring Matt Cropp and Christina Newbrough

• May 7-9: The Economy of Francesco’s event in Assisi, Italy

⏪ Recaps

• Delilah Rothenberg highlights what the institutional investment community can learn from employee ownership conferences like NCEO’s

👷 Jobs

• Cooperacion Santa Ana in California released an RFP for a feasibility study and business plan

• California Center for Cooperative Development is hiring their next Executive Director

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Employee Ownership

• Texas-based Austin Courts & Floors is now (directly) employee-owned. Congrats!

• In the UK, the producer of Shambala—one of the UK’s largest music festivals—became employee-owned just in time for summer 🌞

• John Abrams announced a second edition of From Founder to Future; reach out if you have a story he should tell!

• Illinois Center for Employee Ownership introduces its new Executive Director, Adam Schuster

• In response to recent arguments about Ownership Works’ approach to employee ownership, Candide Groups’s Aner Ben-Ami channels Mel Robbins, basically arguing “Let them”

• David Ellerman writes about Owen D. Young, American industrialist and early proponent of shared ownership

• 🇨🇦 In Canada, ESOP Builders announced their acquisition by Rewrite Capital Advisors

📈 Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)

• Indiana home improvement company BEE Window and Michigan healthcare marketing firm Meraki are now esmployee-owned. Congrats all!

• The ESOP Association announced Economist and author Kyla Scanlan as the keynote speaker for their 2026 CEO Summit

• Last week we told you about the NCEO’s relaunch of its ownership culture survey; for another option, check out WORC’s current Ownership Impact Index

• DELCO Today writes about Wawa’s distinct ownership model, which has turned cashiers into millionaires

• 🎧 The latest Journey to an ESOP & Beyond argues that financial literacy is a crucial component of employee ownership

  • The newest episode of Alternative Exit discusses a co-op to ESOP transition and the role of AI

✊ Worker cooperatives

• A Denver rideshare cooperative is hoping to find a way to treat drivers better

• 2026 is the International Year of the Woman Farmer, a move welcomed by the cooperative community

🔒 Employee ownership trusts

• The Stakehold’s latest guest post is from NCEO’s Corey Rosen, who argues that TSA should be purpose trust-owned

• Colorado IT company RainTech and California landscape architecture firm CMG (check this out) are now owned by employee ownership trusts. Congrats, all!

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The Ownership Economy

• Elle Griffin has raised $100,000 for her book, We Should Own the Economy. Congrats Elle!

• Impactalpha’s David Bank makes the case for investing in the ownership economy (paywalled)

• Ground Works Consulting released a research brief on how small community-owned organizations can more effectively change policy

• In Shelter Force, Steve Dubb explores how public banks could play a role in local economic growth

Steward ownership + purpose trusts

• AllBirds’ AI pivot is the start of an argument for purpose trust ownership as a more resilient alternative than becoming a public benefit corporation

• Steward-Owned highlights recent remarks from Professor Johan Lambrecht on the advantages of steward-ownership for succession for family businesses

• Astrid J Scholz’s accounted the “Z School,” a new course on business model foundations for entrepreneurs that want to create a firm true to its mission

Platform cooperatives + digital ownership

• Taylor Jo Isenberg highlights recent work on the AI transition, including a new piece from Alex Bores on a proposed AI dividend

• A new initiative from Project Liberty will analyze how data cooperatives can function in the new AI landscape

Community ownership + land trusts

• In Maine, eighty land trusts have formed the largest land trust conservation network in the country (paywalled)

• The San Antonio City Council approved a $20 million investment (paywalled) in land trusts that would create >500 units of affordable housing

• Central Iowa Community Land Trust acquired its first homes

• The Housing Collective’s recent webinar covered how to start a community land trust

Good jobs + fair wages

• Nancy Folbre dissects Arindrajit Dube’s research on fair wage, arguing that gaps still exist, particularly concerning gender

• A new article explores why employees are miserable at work, and what leaders can do to change that

• The ratio of wage growth to price growth, says G. Elliott Morris , puts the Trump administration in a bind: “Actual deflation—bringing prices back down—is essentially impossible without triggering a recession, as Paul Krugman and others have argued”

  • A thought: Perhaps it’s worth less focus on the denominator we can’t do anything about (prices) and more on the numerator we can (wages + profit-sharing + equity-sharing)?

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📚 Academic News

• NCEO’s Corey Rosen analyzes a recent report from the Rutgers Institute on business owners’ perspectives on selling to employees

• A new textbook from Jongick Jong explores the strategic management of cooperatives

• Trebor Scholz explores how cooperatives can help workers build a more democratic internet

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