What could stadiums, pipelines, and data centers have in common?
The Ownership Economy Newsletter, Vol. 146
đ Welcome Back!
Readers, Iâm happy to report we have added another member to The Stakehold summer team. Co-author and friend Michael Palmieri will ship your next few newsletters while I take a breather to be with my (soon to be growing) family. Enjoy his first edition! - MCH
Happy Friday! Editing my first edition of The Stakehold got me thinking about community benefits agreementsâformal agreements that developers and other organizations enter into with communities in which their project will be built.
One example: The Denver Broncos are negotiating a community benefits agreement with with community members from the host county for their new stadium that might commit the Broncosâ owners to things like âbuilding affordable housing, expanding childcare options and creating opportunities for local artists.â
There is a long history of sports stadiumsâoften publicly subsidized, like the Cleveland Brownsâ planned $1 billion new stadiumâthat do not quite deliver for local communities. Denver could serve as a model for development projects across the country, creating a formal mechanism that sets up stakeholders to benefit from a project they will have a hand in building and maintaining.
This is not quite shared ownership, but perhaps a distant cousin? And it could be applied to any projectâincluding the 1000+ planned data centers across the US or the Tallgrass pipeline in Nebraska (h/t Scott Kleeb).
About me: Iâm a nerd for employee ownership and (strangely) thought it was a good idea to get a PhD focused on it. At the Ohio Employee Ownership Center I am lucky to work daily with business owners, employee owners, and academics in the employee ownership community. And finally, I am super excited to be in conversation with all you Stakeholders! - Michael Palmieri
đĽ Top Shelf News
Gavin Newsomâs Executive Order on AI includes language on worker ownership, writes NCEOâs Scott Rodrick
The Perpetual Trust Ownership Network is hiring a Network Coordinator. (Maybe this will put me in Markâs good graces, given that he co-founded the organization!)
In Europe, the Steward Ownership Network (StOne) won a highly competitive grant from the European Cooperation in Science & Technology (COST)
In case you missed it, Fidan Kurtulus and Eric Hoyt recently published a landmark ESOP study:
Using three national datasets, they find that ESOP adoption in manufacturing companies leads to productivity increases between 5.6%-6.7%, with those gains increasing as ESOP accounts increased in value
đ In This Issue
Events + Opportunities. This weekâs events + new jobs
Employee Ownership, including ESOPs and worker cooperatives
The Ownership Economy, including community-owned real estate
Academic News, including new papers
(Editorâs note: Thank you for filling out the poll! None of you use the links, and you were 50/50 on whether this section is useful, so we cut it in half.)
đ
Events + Opportunities
Visit our Events page for recently announced and other events.
This Week
May 23: The Economy of Francescoâs International Conference on Franciscan Economics in Sansepolcro, Italy
May 26: CUNY Law School Community Economic Development Clinicâs Building Mutual Social Economy Bridges in Queens, NY
And Steward Marketâs Live Demo + Q&A
May 28: The first day of the International Cooperative Banking Associationâs 2026 Symposium at the UN Headquarters in Manhattan, NY
And Humanity @ Work & Life and ASETTâs Building Mutual Social Economy Bridges Reception in Boston, MA
Opportunities
40 Million Owners opened applications for an Employee Ownership M&A Analyst
The Missouri Center for Employee Ownership is hiring a Community Partnerships Coordinator
Employee Ownership
Employees at Hustle, a San Francisco-based social messaging company bought it from Social Capital
EOX added Direct Employee Ownership as a flexible, low-cost path to ownership transition on its website
The leaders of Text-Em-All, an employee ownership trust, won the Small Giants Founder & CEO Hall of Fame Award (h/t Zoe Schlag)
Ownership Works launched its own newsletter, The Ownership Exchange
Sophie Hares from MasterCard interviews Pete Stavros about the 180 companies where the Ownership Works model has been applied
Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
The Rutgers Institute is running a national survey of ESOP companies and their workers. Contact Doug Kruse if you (or someone you know) would like to participate
SteadyRain, a 100% employee-owned digital agency, acquired fellow ESOP company Smooth Fusion (h/t TXCEO)
The House Appropriations Committee urged the Commerce Department to address the financing gap holding back ESOP growth in small and mid-sized businesses, writes Corey Rosen
Verit Advisorsâ Jake Cravens outlines the benefits of partial ESOPs
đď¸ Journey to an ESOP episode covers the work done during the negotiation process of ESOP transactions
In the latest episode of Alternative Exit, Bob Whalen discusses how he turned a 94-year-old family business into a 100% ESOP
Worker cooperatives
Solar Shaw of Colorado and Wasatch Food Coop in Salt Lake City are now worker-owned. Congrats!
A National Survey of Worker Cooperatives is under way. If you would like to participate, or know a business that would, reach out to Mike Palmieri (yes, the same one)
Adam Schultz and others are building a school in Durham to teach founders and workers how to create cooperative enterprises
Tamah Yisrael reflects on her keynote speech at the California Co-op Conference
ICAâs May 2026 Coop Insider newsletter is out
The Ownership Economy
On ImpactAlpha, Roodgally Senatus covers Calvert Impacts recent investments in employee and community ownership
Two foundations filed a shareholder proposal demanding clarity about Home Depotâs use of customer data
Michal Leibowitz of the New York Times profiled Deep Springs College, a student-owned and operated institution in the California desert (paywalled)
We spotted that The Ownership Economy has ratcheted up their LinkedIn postsâgive them a follow for their more-than-bullet-point analysis
ICYMI: đď¸ The Screw this⌠Letâs try something else podcast released all six episodes of its podcast telling stories of communities making changes from the ground up (h/t Jessica Friday):
Community-owned real estate
The UKâs Community Right to Buy became law, though Yasmin Ibison of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warns that the most deprived communities will need targeted funding to benefit
Jessica Friday revisits Hazel Sheffieldâs recent interview on community land trusts
The Farm Bill that passed through the US House includes a provision to reinstate the Rural Cooperative Development Grant program through 2031
Neil McInroy argues that Community Wealth Building isnât soft social policy; itâs economic development done properly
đ Academic News
The University of Miami created the Community Ownership Learning and Action Lab, and it released its first report, as well as a webinar
New papers
In his new article, Tej Gonza breaks down how Slovenia quietly built its new employee ownership law
Lisa Herzog published a new Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on economic democracy
Hereâs a hot take: Stephen C. Miller believes Catholic Social Teaching supports free market capitalism
Allen Tellisâs recently completed dissertation, The Well-Balanced Republic: Liberty, Domination, and the Maximal Production of Antipower, has a chapter on the âstrategic interventions meant to ensure widespread ownership of productive property,â including employee ownership. Congrats!
