From City Beat: Can worker-owned businesses, innovative affordable housing practices and other cooperative efforts decrease economic inequality? A local co-op incubator is holding a national event here this weekend to explore those possibilities. Co-op Cincy, formerly known as the Cincinnati Union Cooperative Initiative, will bring more than 200 cooperative workers, business leaders and community and […]
From Locavesting: Now, the Evergreen Cooperatives network is taking matters into its own hands with a new fund that will acquire existing companies from retiring business owners and sell them back to the employees. This conversion strategy is gaining popularity among advocates of worker ownership in the face of a “Silver Tsunami” of retiring baby […]
From the Huffington Post: On Nov. 13, Evergreen launched the Fund for Employee Ownership with the aim of creating 10 new owner-operated businesses in the Cleveland metro area over the next five years with 600 additional owner-operators. With patient capital ― in other words, funding from investors who have no expectation of turning a quick […]
From Crain’s Cleveland: An ambitious new initiative from Evergreen Cooperatives, a network of worker-owned businesses in Cleveland, is getting national attention. Last week, Evergreen announced it has launched the Fund for Employee Ownership, which will acquire businesses and convert them to employee ownership. It aims to buy companies from retiring owners at fair market value to […]
From The Democracy Collaborative: CLEVELAND, OHIO — NOVEMBER 13, 2018 Evergreen Business Services (EBS) today announced the launch of The Fund for Employee Ownership, which will strategically acquire businesses in Northeast Ohio to preserve the quality jobs they provide by converting them to employee ownership. EBS and the Fund are part of the Evergreen Cooperatives, a […]
Read full article at Nonprofit Quarterly: At NPQ, we have written about the growing prominence of employee ownership, but mostly from the perspective of the value of preserving businesses and jobs in the community. Still, these community benefits will only be realized if business owners agree to sell to their employees. So, what would drive a business […]
From the Akron Beacon Journal: After 88 years, Buehler’s Fresh Foods soon will no longer be owned by the founding family. But the new owners are extremely familiar with the grocery stores. The 13 supermarkets are being sold to the company’s eligible employees through an employee stock ownership program, or ESOP. A new company named […]
From Grassroots Economic Organizing: City governments are shaping up as key actors accelerating worker co-op development. It started in 2009 when the City of Cleveland accessed a federal guaranteed loan to help finance the Evergreen Cooperatives. Since then, nine more city governments have moved to promote worker cooperatives through municipal projects, initiatives, or policies because […]
Industry: Solar Location: Cincinnati, Ohio Number of employees: 5 Became employee owned: 2013 Assistance: Cincinnati Union Co-op Initiative Financing: Shared Capital Cooperative Learn more Sustainergy – Our Team Co-op News – Future of work: Cincinnati experiments with co-op/union hybrid (2018) Yes – From Grocery Stores to Labor Unions, Cooperatives Were the Answer (2017) Cooperative Grocer – […]
Industry: Food and Beverage Location: Colombus, Ohio Number of employees: 15 Became employee owned: 2013 Assistance: Ohio Employee Ownership Center Learn more Project Equity – Pattycake Bakery Columbus CEO – Co-ops: Sharing for Success OEOC – Columbus area Pattycake Bakery becomes a Worker Cooperative Employee Owned Small Businesses in Food and Beverage Employee Owned […]
