Why Worker Cooperatives Conversion and Ownership Make Sense Now

Registration for this webinar is now closed.

Employee-owned businesses bring unique benefits to workers, businesses and the broader economy. Worker co-op conversion is an innovative strategy to assist retiring business owners who are motivated to sell the business to their employees when they can take on the challenge. The pending "silver tsunami" of retiring baby boomers makes this issue not only important, but very timely. Baby boomers own 66 percent of all privately held businesses with employees (nearly four million companies).

For business owners who want to keep their business in the community, who want their employees to be well taken care of when they retire, and who want their mission and the core strengths of their business to remain intact, employee ownership is an attractive opportunity.

During this Connecting Communities^® webinar, experienced practitioners will explain the process of "converting" a traditional business to a worker co-op, some approaches to financing these employee buy-outs and additional insights from case studies. We will review the main features and benefits of worker-owned cooperatives and talk about why worker ownership is an important community economic development strategy.

Speakers:

• Alison Lingane, Co-founder, Project Equity
• Rob Brown, Director, Cooperative Development Institute’s Business Ownership Solutions program

Participation in this webinar is free; however, advance registration is required. Register for this session at the Connecting Communities website. 

For more information, please email communities@stls.frb.org.