Listen to THE FIRST EPISODE of The Learning Curve!

I spoke with Matthew Epperson, a solidarity economy practitioner, educator, and community organizer by passion and by training, on shared ownership structures.

We discuss shared-ownership models like Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP), worker and consumer co-ops, different company examples, how employee ownership works with unions, and what is giving us hope in the shared ownership space.

Join Matthew on Zoom April 29th at 2 pm EST for the Boston Impact Initiative's Advancing Regenerative Capital (ARC) fellowship showcase! He'll be presenting for the Hive Mind Community Investment Cooperative, a multistakeholder cooperative permanently affordable housing fund focused on housing historically marginalized folks in the Deep South.

Resources & Ways to Connect

• Matthew Epperson’s LinkedIn

• Employee Ownership Centers by state

• Local Co-Op Development Centers affiliated with CooperationWorks!

  • I also recommend searching for “co-op development center [your city/town]” to find those unaffiliated with CooperationWorks!

• US Federation of Worker Cooperatives: Co-op directory to find ones near you

• Co-Op Development & Work Resources: job-finding, professional development, training and education, and connection among the co-op and solidarity economy sector.

• Union Toolkit for Cooperative Solutions: report from CUNY (City University of NY) School of Labor & Urban Studies on strategies used by labor unions to support shared ownership like co-ops and employee-owned businesses.  

Links to Items Discussed:

Companies: 

• Mondragon

• Resonate: Note, Resonate seems to be defunct/not accepting new members, but Subvert is a similar music streaming co-op. 

• FairBnB (Website seems to be down temporarily)

• Driver’s Cooperative (NYC) 

• New Era Windows Cooperative

• South Mountain Company

• Apis & Heritage Capital Partners 

• EB PREC (East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative)

• Walmart & other major national chains’ employees requiring government assistance. 

• More info on REI, Patagonia. 

• Room & Board

• Bob’s Red Mill 

• Correction: Joann’s Fabrics article

Media:

• The Take documentary

• “From Founder to Future” by John Abrams 

• Margaret Mead Quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Notes on Production

This is my first time making a podcast, let alone a video version! I produced and edited it myself, so if there are some minor audio issues I apologize. I am learning, and while there are always ways to improve I'm really excited with how this first episode turned out.

I also made the theme song myself! I hope you like it, it's the first piece of music I've published and I'm quite proud of it too :)

Feedback: I'd love to hear from you on the episode content - was it helpful, clear, or felt like something was missing? (Please be nice - I'm aware that I say "um" too often, I'm working on it for the next one!)