On Your Own Reconnaissance

EO+WD Weekend Newsletter, Vol. 56

Happy Friday!

An uplifting weekend newsletter for when you tire of the news of the week.

One Big Thing

• The Lafayette Square Institute, a new policy shop focused on housing, job quality, and worker benefits, has officially launched

What We’ve Been Writing

• Tiffany, Dr. Hand, and our colleague Zoe Schlag at Common Trust have all been working this week on a chapter about purpose trust ownership for a book on business transitions in rural America. Watch this space!

What’s Next 

• Common Trust and Purpose US invites you to their June 4th Assets in Common book launch. Register here

• Join Kaiser Permanente and Project Equity for “Succession Planning and WO: Future-proofing Your Small Business” on June 25th

• Also on June 25th, join at least two of your fellow EO+WD readers for “Owners Session: Employee Ownership for Manufacturing Businesses Event”

• Two transatlantic employee ownership gatherings are happening this summer! Dr. Hand will be presenting at the second Rutgers-Oxford Research Symposium on August 30th. The Employee Ownership Foundation is also hosting its second annual Oxford Symposium August 6th-9th

What We’ve Been Reading

• Podcasts

  • The Better Money, Better World podcast features Todd Leverette from Apis & Heritage (h/t Brian N.)

  • ImpactAlpha interviews Damien Dwin of Lafayette Square on their approach when investing in working-class individuals

• Think pieces

  • The Delta Fund explains how investing in employee ownership can pave the way for reducing inequality and fostering wealth creation (h/t Brian N.)

  • Explore how employee ownership impacted Jon Shell’s life and family

  • Brenna Davis breaks down the difference between purpose and mission

  • The Employee Ownership Foundation released its report on the latest research and developments in employee ownership

• Company profiles

  • Discover how perpetual purpose trust-owned Vernier Science Education is reshaping its industry

  • Border States marks forty years of employee ownership

• Updates from the UK (h/t Alan G.)

  • EOA, Co-operatives UK, and the West Midlands Combined Authority have launched the West Midlands Ownership Hub

  • Scottish Enterprise is on track to meet its 2030 employee ownership target. The Scottish Employee-owned Business Census 2024 has the data

  • ICYMI: Dive into the landscape of employee ownership in the UK with this comprehensive 2023 study

• In Case You Missed It 

  • Read Tom Strong’s article on employee ownership, tailored for workforce development practitioners

  • Check out early clips from "Own It!,” a Louis Kelso documentary (h/t Joyce H.)

The Employee Ownership + Workplace Democracy Research Cluster (EO+WD) is a joint project of UT-Arlington professor Mark Hand and students at UTA and SMU.