The Co-op Impact Conference brings together leaders from all kinds of cooperatives (worker, consumer, producer, housing, credit unions etc.). Hilary Abell, PE Co-founder, represented our role in the Workers to Owners collaborative on a panel discussion.

Urban Manufacturing Alliance 2018 Gathering

Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 26-28

Alison Lingane presents a break out session that focused on busting the myths about employee ownership, and features examples where it is a preferred exit strategy.

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Even within impact investing, there are diverse perspectives on the purpose of capital, depending upon heritage, traditions, and worldview. Hear from four leaders in the field regarding their journey and understanding of this question, including an attorney specializing in Sharia law, a specialist in worker-owned cooperatives, and a long-time equity activist. This interactive session will share perspectives among participants of how they came to their understanding of the purpose of capital Presenters: Jed Emerson, Founder/Strategic Advisor, Blended Value Group Alison Lingane, Co-founder, Project Equity Umar Moghul, Partne, Roberts Moghul & Partners LLP Morgan Simon, Managing Director, Candide Group

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The Economic Underpinnings Of The Future Of Social Innovation

 

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Webinar: Worker Transitions vs. Roll-ups

Date: Thursday, August 3, 2017
Time: 10-11am Pacific / 1-2pm Eastern

This webinar will help business owners compare selling a business to the employees versus selling via a private equity roll-up. In this webinar, attendees will:

• Learn the mechanics of employee-owner transition
• Examine best practices for setting your employees up for success
• Explore case studies of why the roll-up route is not good for the employees or long-term success of the community
• Understand the context and perspective of purchasing cooperative member businesses
• Have an opportunity for extensive Q&A

Presented by Castle Wealth Advisors and Project Equity, and joined by the CEO of BLUE HAWK Purchasing Cooperative, Lance Rantala. Visit our toolkit designed specifically for purchasing cooperatives and view the webinar slides >>

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Here Today But Planning for Tomorrow: The Next Gen and Your Business

Date: Friday, May 19, 2017
Time: 8:30 – 10:00 AM
Location: San Francisco SBA, 455 Market Street, San Francisco, CA

This workshop focuses on how to plan ahead for a smooth transition of the family business and assets to the next generation. Panelists will discuss how business owners can engage into fruitful conversations with their children about their future, awaken their interest in joining the family business, and address the legal and financial implications of estate planning, as well as their options in terms of next-generation leadership (appoint a family member to take over, sell to a team or coop of current workers, or sell to an outsider). Participants will be invited to reflect on their personal and business goals, their options and challenges to transition the business to next-gen leaders, and to draw a timeline and preliminary checklist of issues to address.

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Worker-Owned Food Enterprises: Keep Your Money TRULY Local!

Project Equity is co-sponsoring this invitation-only event convened by Citi Community Development, the Democracy at Work Institute, and the National Urban League (additional co-sponsors are the Sustainable Economies Law Center and the ICA Group). This conversation about legacy business retention, with a focus on minority ownership and shared ownership forms, aims to move the needle on an exciting trend in business succession planning and sustainable economic development: converting businesses to employee ownership. Many small businesses – even successful legacy businesses two decades old or more – do not have a succession plan. Thousands of local businesses are at risk of closing as owners near retirement age. This potential closure crisis comes at a time when small business plays a vital role in maintaining the character and affordability of our neighborhoods. The “silver tsunami” of retiring business owners represents a real opportunity to broaden and anchor small business ownership by using shared entrepreneurship strategies to retain legacy businesses. This Initiative convenes business owners, business advisors, and economic development professionals to promote minority business ownership, with particular interest in African American-owned and operated businesses and on businesses that employ people of color, who can become co-owners through employee ownership transitions.

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Achieving Community Empowerment through Place-Based Impact Investing in New Mexico

Date: Thursday, January 26, 2017, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm (Panel 1:15 – 1:45 pm )
Location: UNM Continuing Education Conference Center, Auditorium, 1634 University Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM

This full-day summit, for foundations, financial institutions, investment managers, philanthropists, and public officials, is focused on the role that place-based impact investing plays in empowering New Mexico communities and for enhancing grant making strategies across various issue areas. We can use our collective wealth to leverage opportunities for promoting community health and well- being and maximize resources within and across New Mexico. Participants will learn how various parts of the state’s ecosystem are coming together to create new opportunities on how to better leverage capital and engage their community in collective development.

Examples of National Placed Based Impact Investing Initiatives and Models

• Business Conversions to Worker Cooperatives: Good Jobs and Community Wealth Building (Alison Lingane, Project Equity)
• Best for Program (Hardik Savalia, B Lab)
• Guarantees to Lower Risk (Eric Summerford Pearson, El Paso Community Foundation)

 

Webinar: Succession Planning for Purchasing Coops and their Members

Employee ownership: Keeping businesses independent when family can’t take over

Recorded December 6, 2016 Succession planning is an urgent need among an increasing number of businesses, especially as baby boomers near retirement age. Because purchasing cooperatives are an important part of helping their independent business members stay independent, competitive and rooted in their communities, the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA) has partnered with Project Equity to better understand the succession challenges of purchasing cooperative member companies, and to assess how employee ownership transitions can help keep these companies independent over the long term.

Moderator: Bryan Munson, NCBA
Presenters: Stephen K. Irvin, President & CEO, Amicus Solar Cooperative
Jack Bailey, President & Chief Executive Officer, Independent Distributors Cooperative-USA
Alison Lingane, Co-founder, Project Equity

View slideshow and visit our page just for purchasing coops >>

Opportunity Finance Network

Cooperative Conversions: The Small Business Lending Opportunity of a Generation

Date: Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016, 2:30 pm – 3:45pm
Location: Atlanta, GA
Panelists:
Micha Josephy, Cooperative Fund of New England
Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Melissa Hoover, Democracy at Work Institute

 

Living the Next Economy Convergence 2016

Cooperatives: Business Models for the Next Economy

Date: Friday Oct. 21, 2016, 3:15 pm – 4:45 pm Breakout Session #3
Location: Oakstop, 1721 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612

In honor of National Cooperative Month, we want to show off how cooperative business models promote shared ownership, wealth creation and community resiliency. This panel will discuss:

• How cooperative businesses can be organized, governed and share wealth
• Local and national resources for starting and developing a thriving cooperative business
• Examples of how cooperatives are serving their communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond

Track: Beyond Business As Usual Moderator: Sushil Jacobin, Tuttle Law Group Panelists: Rani Croager, Uptima Business Bootcamp Josh Danielson, Loconomics Hank Herrera, New Hope Farms Alison Lingane, Project Equity

 

Date: Tuesday Oct. 5, 2016, 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: Plum Organics, 1485 Park Ave., Emeryville, CA

Engage with entrepreneurs choosing to structure their businesses as an employee-owned model via a Cooperative or an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Gain insight into the benefits and challenges from current employee-owners. Grasp the power these models have to transform our approach to localism and employee engagement.

 

Panelists: Alison Lingane, Project Equity 
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks, National Center for Employee Ownership
Shannon Adkins, Future State
Ryan Honeyman, Lift Economy

 

 

Date: Tuesday Oct. 4, 2016, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: Lobby of Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union, 2001 Ashby Ave, Berkeley, CA

 

Attendees will enjoy a powerful learning experience and gain insight into the high-level process of converting a business to the cooperative model and meet a business owner who is making the transition. This event will appeal to existing business owners and employees that wish to examine a transition as well as those that may be thinking of starting or expanding a business and have interest in strengthening their model.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Co-founder, Project Equity 
Kirk Vartan, Co-owner, A Slice of New York
Maria Williford, Worker-Owner, Dig Coop & Mariposa Gardening

 

Webinar: Creative Sources of Capital for your Cooperative

Recorded September 28, 2016

Join us as we discuss 3 ways to raise community investments for your worker-owned coop with Cutting Edge Capital. We will cover a new approach that is now available due to the eagerly awaited Jobs Act, as well as Direct Public Offerings (DPOs), and–specific to California–how CA coop corporations can raise up to $1,000 per investor by selling memberships to residents of CA. You’ll walk away with an understanding of the key differences between the approaches, high level requirements, and pros and cons. Plus of course, examples and success stories, and Q&A.

Presenters: Kim Arnone, Cutting Edge Capital
Sarah Kaplan, Cutting Edge Counsel
Alison Lingane, Project Equity View recorded webinar

 

Date: Tuesday, September 13 & Friday, September 16, 2016
Location: Fort Mason Center and Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco, CA

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity Tomas Duran, Concerned Capital Michelle Long, BALLE Donovan Woollard, Radius Ventures

 

Moderated by: Penelope Douglas

Presenters: Deborah Cullinan, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts David Erickson, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Alison Lingane, Project Equity Jeremy Sookhoo, Calvert Funds Vinitha Watson, ZooLabs

Date: June 30, 2016, 9:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Location: University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

 

Hilary Abell discusses how to build a successful cooperative development ecosystem that meets community needs. How to engage ecosystem actors, initiate cooperative development projects and gather community support.

 

Presenter: Hilary Abell, Co-founder, Project Equity

 

Date: June 23, 2016, 5:45 PM – 7:00 PM,
Location: Community Bank of the Bay – 180 Grand Avenue 15th Floor, Suite 1550, Oakland, CA

 

Are you considering establishing a retirement savings plan for yourself and your workers? Do you need help navigating through the retirement plans available on the market? Are you interested in learning about the benefits of a employee ownership as an exit strategy for your business?Project Equity, Small Business Majority and Community Bank of the Bay teamed up for this interactive workshop on how to make retirement security a reality for small businesses. We will help you navigate the retirement landscape, sort through options and include new and innovative approaches to secure your future.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity Rhea Aguinaldo, Small Business Majority
Winter Williams, Community Bank of the Bay

Date: April 29, 2016
Location: Sacramento, CA

 

Workshop: Transitioning your Business to a Worker Co-op This workshop presents the process of transitioning your business to a worker co-op by sharing the story of one solar company’s journey. California Solar Electric (CSE), a Grass Valley solar company, is in the process of transitioning its business to a worker-owned cooperative as a member of Project Equity’s Cooperative Business Incubator. While focusing on CSE, alternatives and specific legal elements were discussed.

 

Presenters: Lars Ortegren, California Solar Electric
Sushil Jacob, Tuttle Law Group
Alison Lingane, Project Equity

Date: April 11, 2016
Location: Minneapolis, MN

 

 

Presenters: Rob Brown, Cooperative Development Institute
Sushil Jacob, Tuttle Law Group
Alison Lingane, Project Equity

 

 

Presenters: Melissa Hoover, Democracy at Work Institute
Alison Lingane, Project Equity

 

Webinar: The Lending Opportunity of a Generation, Investing in Businesses Converting to Worker Ownership

Recorded March, 2016 Learn about the $10 trillion lending market that will be created by the ownership changeover of private enterprises as baby boomer business owners retire. The opportunity for lenders and other capital providers to participate in these sales transactions is expected to grow significantly over the next 5-20 years to encompass hundreds of thousands of small and mid-market businesses. This is also an opportunity to create worker-owned business that strengthen our local economies and communities. Business owners can sell to their employees when they retire, creating new worker cooperatives with deep local roots.

Presenters: Dorian Gregory, Cooperative Fund of New England
Camille Kerr, Democracy at Work Institute
Alison Lingane, Project Equity

View recorded webinar

Date: March 11, 2016
Location: Oakland, CA

 

Panel: Funding the Unemployment Gap to Create Good, Sustainable Jobs In this panel, you will be introduced to strategic thinkers who are creating new opportunities through community capital for our most vulnerable workers. You will learn about solutions that remove the disconnect between traditional lenders and borrowers; programs empowering young people through entrepreneurship and education; the impact of legislative changes to raising the minimum wage; and community members who are becoming owners and agents of capital themselves, and are using it to serve their immediate needs.

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity
Sean Daniel Murphy, ICA Fund Good Jobs
Alejandro Castelan, Juma Ventures
Annie Campbell Washington, City of Oakland

 

Webinar: The Cooperative Growth Ecosystem: Inclusive Economic Development in Action

Recorded January, 2016 The Cooperative Growth Ecosystem report, part of the “Building the Inclusive Economy Series,” an initiative of Citi Community Development, highlights cutting-edge economic development models for city leaders and community development practitioners interested in embedding equity, community wealth and sustainability into their local growth plans. The webinar introduces the report and is tailored to economic development practitioners, lenders, investors, funders, cooperative developers, technical assistance providers and organizers.

Presenters: Melissa Hoover, Democracy At Work Institute
Hilary Abell, Project Equity
Cy Richardson, National Urban League
Joyce Pisnanont, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development

View recorded webinar

Date: November 10, 2015
Location: Minneapolis, MN

 

Workshop: Conversions Advanced workshop on conversion, conversion trends and conversion tax issues for business entities converting to cooperatives. The panel also addressed common conversation trends and tax issues.

 

Presenters: Camille Kerr, Democracy at Work Institute
Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Jason Wiener, Jason Wiener PC

 

Webinar: Why Worker Coop Conversions and Ownership Make Sense Now

Recorded October, 2015 In this webinar, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank, we review the main features and benefits of worker owned cooperatives, talk about why worker ownership is an important community economic development strategy, and introduce strategies for how traditional businesses can convert to coops. An important approach for worker coop conversion is supporting retiring business owners to sell the business to their employees. The pending ‘silver tsunami’ of retiring baby boomers makes this issue not only important, but very timely.  Most businesses do not have succession plans which portends the tremendous risk of losing large numbers of these businesses altogether, or having them sold to out-of-state buyers or private equity firms that often relocate jobs or the entire business.

View recorded webinar

Date: October 9, 2015
Location: San Francisco, CA

 

Workshop: Redefining Scale: Depth vs. Breadth

 

When scale is re-defined as depth of impact, how does this affect how we need to organize ourselves, measure ourselves, and fund the work? We heard from three initiatives that are going deep in their communities in different ways: a neighborhood-based youth organization, a city-wide organization supporting high-performing social change efforts, and a national organization that focuses on strengthening local businesses. These stories challenge assumptions about scale and reframe sustainable impact.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Fagan Harris, BaltimoreCorps
Olis Simmons, Youth Uprising
Leslie Lindo, BALLE

Date: September 21 & 22
Location: Berkeley, CA

 

 

In this workshop we presented a new Cooperative Growth Ecosystem framework to help participants analyze and mobilize the pieces of a thriving local ecosystem to grow worker cooperatives. We heard stories from two regions describing their work- everything from finding partners and starting an advocacy campaign, to building skills and capacity, to setting shared goals and ways to measure collective impact. We took an in-depth look at the San Francisco Bay Area, where three organization collaborated to create a Bay Area Blueprint for Increasing Worker Ownership, which looked at multiple pathways to scale, including: supporting small worker coops through a new Worker Coop Academy, developing startup coops designed for growth, and converting conventionally-owned businesses into worker coops.

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity
Ricardo Nuñez, Sustainable Economies Law Center
Melissa Hoover, Democracy at Work Institute

 

 

We discussed the many aspects of transitioning from a ‘typical’ business structure to a worker cooperative, including motivating factors for owners and/or workers, and factors that promote success. This workshop elaborated on factors that contribute to  successful transition, including readiness factors and the key preparation steps a business should take when considering a transition. All content is based on a dozen case studies of businesses that have transitioned from a ‘typical’ business structure to a worker cooperative, through conversations with business owners, workers, and organizations that support businesses to ‘convert’.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Andrea Hurd, Mariposa Gardening & Design

Date: September 15
Location: New Orleans, LA

 

 

What does it look like when we define scale as “going deep” within a specific community, measuring by depth of impact instead of by number of people reached or number of communities served? We heard from three place-based initiatives that are going deep in their communities in different ways: a city-wide organization supporting high-performing social change efforts in Baltimore, a group working to transform the experiences of kids prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system in Philadelphia, and an Oakland-based organization strengthening local economies through worker ownership. When scale is re-defined as depth of impact, how does this affect how we organize ourselves, fund the work, and measure our progress?

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity
Joanna Visser Adjoian, Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project
Fagan Harris, BaltimoreCorps

Date: September 7
Location: San Francisco, CA

 

Workshop: Business Succession & Employee Ownership

 

This workshop presents a broad overview of the key elements for effective succession planning with a focus on utilizing employee-owned coops for business transfer resulting in employee governance, community job retention and sheltered wealth preservation for the business owner. The session covered the economic development advantages of coops and included several case studies of transitions to employee-owned models.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Kristin York, Sierra Business Council

Date: Tuesday, August 25th
Location: 1350 7th St, Oakland (across from West Oakland BART)
Time: 6pm – 8:30pm

 

Project Equity has been invited to co-host a Locally Inspired event with Sustainable Business Alliance. SBA coordinates these monthly conversations with local business owners and community residents to share stories, educate and create connections within the community. We’re excited to share some of the amazing stories that have come out of the 2014 Worker Coop Academy and elsewhere.

 

Webinar: Succession Planning: Opportunities and Benefits of Employee Ownership

Recorded August, 2015

Are you a business owner thinking about succession planning? Or are you wanting to support locally-owned businesses to stay in their communities? Project Equity and the National Center for Employee Ownership share essential information on important succession planning options available to business owners through employee ownership. We review the main features of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and worker-owned cooperatives, and discuss the benefits and distinctions of each, including resources for how to learn more, and how to get support.

View recorded webinar

 

Webinar: Scaling the Development of Worker-Owned Cooperatives

Recorded July, 2015 Get insight into how to scale the development of worker-owned co-ops: how to build the capacity for this model within your community, how to train those creating or converting to shared ownership, how to impact policy, and influence or harness other factors in your ecosystem.

View recorded webinar

Date: July 11
Location: Worchester, MA

 

 

Worker co-op academies are popping up around the country (and beyond!) as a strategy for increasing worker ownership. Representatives of Project Equity and Green Worker Co-op shared their models for curriculum design, funding, and collaboration. Presenters discussed approaches for facilitating success from the ground up and and share how they’ve addressed some of the challenges to doing this work.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Omar Freilla, Green Worker Cooperatives
Stephanie Guico, New York Worker Cooperative Coalition

 

 

Owners of conventional businesses are increasingly looking to employee ownership as a model for transitioning out of their businesses. How can worker co-op organizer and supporters position themselves to support this opportunity to scale up the movement? This two-hour session will be divided into three parts that respond to this question. In the first part, representatives of Cooperative Development Institute will overview conversions as a strategy and highlight their experience supporting development of the Island Employee Co-op in Maine.In part two, Alison Lingane of Project Equity will invite representatives of businesses that have successfully transitioned to share their experiences. She’ll highlight various factors that owners should take into account in preparing for transition. In part three, representatives of the Democracy at Work Institute will share some of the tools and techniques that they’ve developed for supporting conversions, from legal documents to financing mechanisms to governance models. Additional representatives of various conversion projects will share stories of their perspectives of the conversion process.

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Camille Kerr, Democracy at Work Institute
Rob Brown, Cooperative Development Institute
Naomi Giszpenc, Cooperative Development Institute

Date: June 10-12
Location: Phoneix, AZ

 

In the recent economic crisis, employee-owned businesses and cooperatives have often proven more resilient than traditional businesses. Globally, an estimated 1 billion people are members of cooperatives and two years ago the United Nations declared it the International Year of Cooperatives, saying that co-ops could be the fastest-growing business model by the end of the decade.Part A featured businesses that have chosen employee ownership and financing – either as an ESOP or a worker cooperative, and the founder of Project Equity spoke about how worker ownership can create pathways to prosperity for low-income communities. Part B widened the lens to discuss what communities and cities can do to cultivate the commons and enable more ownership opportunities. Participants learned how land trusts and real estate cooperatives can be used to keep rents affordable for local businesses and prevent gentrification, and how a city can kick-start and incubate cooperatives.

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity
Aaron Tanaka, Boston Impact Initiative
Armando Robles and Alex Linares, New Era Windows (worker coop)
Mandy Cabot, Dankso (ESOP)
Leslie Watson, Northeast Investment Cooperative
Andrew Delmonte, SBDC at SUNY Buffalo State
Ed Whitfield, Renaissance Community Coop
Pen Loh, Tufts University

Date: May 6
Location: Washington D.C.

This national event is held each year before the Cooperative Hall of Fame Gala at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. It brings together leaders of all cooperative sectors – agricultural coops, food coops, rural electric coops, credit unions, worker coops, housing coops and others – for a look at emerging issues in the coop movement. Project Equity co-founder Hilary Abell was honored to be a keynote speaker, along with Kevin Edburg of Cooperative Development Services, and to present her half-hour talk called “Worker Cooperatives: Learning from Success and Aiming for Scale”.

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity
Dennis Johnson, Cooperative Housing Resources, LLC
Kevin Edberg, Cooperative Development Services

Date: May 1 & 2
Location: Sacramento, CA

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity Jessica Gordon Nembhard, John Jay College E. Kim Coontz, California Center for Cooperative Development Adrionna Fike, Mandela Foods Cooperative

 

Presenters: Hilary Abell, Project Equity David Smathers-Moore, TeamWorks

 

Presenters: Alison Lingane, Project Equity Andrea Hurd, Mariposa Gardening & Design

 

Presenters:

Ricardo Nuñez, Sustainable Economies Law Center
Alison Lingane, Project Equity
Sushil Jacob, East Bay Community Law Center

 

Webinar: Converting Businesses to Worker Cooperatives

Recorded April, 2015

The Democracy Collaborative and Project Equity organized this webinar to present the findings of our Case Studies: Business Conversions to Worker Cooperatives. We cover the motivations behind converting, readiness factors, steps to transition to a worker owned cooperative, and we hear from three businesses that have converted.

View recorded webinar 

 

Webinar: Blueprint For Increasing Worker Ownership In Low-Income Communities

Recorded March, 2015 Learn about the Bay Area Blueprint for creating pathways to ownership for low- and moderate-income workers: small businesses, fast-growing start-ups, and business conversions.

View recorded webinar