Communities

Conversions of businesses to employee ownership is a timely strategy for inclusive, place‐based community economic development, and one with a huge potential for impact, given the Silver Tsunami of retiring business owners.

Community Wealth Building

Broad-based employee-owned companies create quality jobs for employees and preserve businesses in our communities. They help people become business owners who otherwise wouldn’t, growing assets and community wealth.

We can amplify the impact of our efforts to increase employee ownership by engaging actors across the entrepreneurial ecosystem. By mapping the local ecosystem, we can focus stakeholder interest on specific strategies that help employee-owned businesses grow and thrive.

The Cooperative Growth Ecosystem framework helps us engage diverse actors in communities across the private, public, nonprofit and financial sectors to catalyze business conversions, supporting low‐wage workers to become owners and stabilizing businesses in our communities.