Winding down (a bit)
EO+WD Weekend Newsletter, Vol. 81
Welcome Back
It has been a heck of a year for shared ownership! We started putting together a list of all that happened in 2024 but… it was too much. If you’d like to contribute to a retrospective, holler. In the meantime, here is ImpactAlpha’s 2025 look-ahead.
One fun thing: EO+WD is wrapping up 2024 with our own milestone: we’ve hit 500 subscribers! And over 250 of you open the newsletter every week, which makes us proud.
See you in 2025; until then, we’re cogitating on the maxim to work from rest, not for rest 🥂.
🗞️ News To Know
Thomas Dudley passed the reins of Certified Employee-Owned to Joe Belsterling
Employee-owned Kirsch CPA Group is hiring a senior tax accountant
Colorado just announced the Employee Ownership Tax Credit to Strengthen and Thrive program for employee-owned businesses
Gary Community Ventures, Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and The Bridgespan Group published the Assemble100 report with insights on ownership investing (PDF version).
Transform Finance and Ownership Capital Lab published their December briefing, Capitalizing the Employee Ownership Opportunity. Thanks for the shoutout, amigos!
The ESOP Association will begin lobbying for the confirmation of Donald Trump’s appointee to lead the Department of Labor
📇 Transitions
Employees of the Albuquerque based architecture firm Dekker, will now own a portion of the company through an ESOP
Michigan interior contractor Ritsema Associates transitioned to ESOP after nearly 70 years in business
🔍 Research & Analysis
In The Future of Work: Employee Ownership and Economic Transformation, Graeme Nuttall, shares insights for Australia from the UK’s employee ownership success story (h/t Alan G)
Also from Alan G: Scott Bader, a UK employee owned chemical manufacturer, published its 2036 Vision as a model for combining employee ownership with long term environmental and social goals
Carta published its second Ownership Trends in Private Equity report
Bruce Dobb highlights good news for worker-to-owner advocates as the EDA reauthorization legislation passes Congress
Sam Tabachnik reports on Colorado as the leader in state-level support for employee ownership
The Employee Owned Contractors Roundtable reflects on its inaugural summit in Washington, DC.
Kevin Kuros, director of Massachusetts Center for Employee Ownership, explains why Massachusetts is now investing in employee ownership
Connecticut Center for Employee Ownership board chair Amy Huot advocates for employee ownership of CT businesses
Debra Rectenbaugh Pettit discusses the concept of “employee owned cooperatives,” with Morning Bell Coffee Roasters in Iowa as an example
🌇 What’s Coming Up: Events
January 10-12: The Rutgers Institute’s Annual Kelso Workshop in New Brunswick, NJ
January 13-17, 2025: The Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning includes a session featuring Natalie Reitman-White on using purpose trusts for business succession
🆕 | January 24: The Skoll Centre’s Towards Purpose: Redesigning Business From Within
February 3-4: NCEO hosts Is an ESOP Right for You? in Austin, Texas
February 20, 2025: The Employee Ownership Transition: A Deep Dive, a workshop on the process of selling to an employee ownership trust (in Scotland)
April 9-10 2025: The Aspen+Rutgers Employee Ownership Ideas Forum in Washington, DC. Tickets will be released via the Aspen EOP mailing list
🆕 | May 6-8: Community Spaces Network and Community Vision’s Social Purpose Real Estate Summit (h/t Gretchen B)
October 23 2025: The 3rd Annual Employee Ownership Conference in Ankeny, Iowa
Thank you so much for covering this space!!!! You’ve been a big help with my research!