logo
  • Nonprofit News
  • Management
    • Boards and Governance
    • Communication
      • Framing & Narratives
    • Ethics
    • Financial Management
    • Fund Development
    • Leadership
    • Technology
  • Philanthropy
    • Corporate Social Responsibility
    • Donor-Advised Funds
    • Foundations
    • Impact Investing
    • Research
    • Workplace Giving
  • Policy
    • Education
    • Healthcare
    • Housing
    • Government
    • Taxes
  • Economic Justice
    • Economy Remix
    • Economy Webinars
    • Community Benefits
    • Economic Democracy
    • Environmental Justice
    • Fair Finance
    • Housing Rights
    • Land Justice
    • Poor People’s Rights
    • Tax Fairness
  • Racial Equity
  • Social Movements
    • Community Development
    • Community Organizing
    • Culture Change
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Gender Equality
    • Immigrant Rights
    • Indigenous Rights
    • Labor
    • LGBTQ+
    • Racial Justice
    • Youth Activism
  • About Us
  • Log in
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Webinars
    • Leading Edge Membership
    • Sponsored Webinars
    • Economic Justice
  • Tiny Spark Podcast
  • Magazine
    • Magazine
    • Leading Edge Membership
Donate
Colorado, Employee Ownership

Colorado Says It Wants to Be the “Delaware” of Employee Ownership

Steve Dubb
March 26, 2019
Share82
Tweet23
Share
Email
105 Shares

March 22, 2019; Denver Post

Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis “is taking action on one of his top economic development priorities—promoting employee ownership of businesses and companies in the state,” reports Aldo Svaldi in the Denver Post. Polis, Svaldi notes, when he was in the US House of Representatives, was a member of the Cooperative Business Caucus.” Svaldi adds that Polis has “long supported shared-ownership models.”

Specifically, the Polis administration is putting together an Employee Ownership Center within the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, according to executive director Betsy Markey. The center, Markey says, will work with law firms and accountants to simplify the process and reduce costs associated with converting to an employee-owned model.

“It is a way to help businesses that want to be employed owned,” Markey said of the new center.

John Kovacs, program analyst for the state’s Employee Ownership initiative, asserted, “We are looking to make Colorado the Delaware of employee ownership.” Delaware, for the uninitiated, is the state where a majority of US-based publicly traded companies and more than three in five Fortune 500 companies are incorporated.

As NPQ noted, two years ago, after a campaign led by the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center, Colorado’s legislature passed HB17-1214, which sets up a revolving loan program to help finance transitions to employee ownership. This fund, notes Svaldi, “can provide up to $10,000 towards the cost of accounting and legal services involved with forming an ESOP” [employee stock ownership plan company].

Colorado, like many communities across the country, is seeking to prepare for the threat of what has been widely labeled a “silver tsunami” of small business closures as Baby Boomers retire. As Svaldi reports, as “Baby Boomers move deeper into their golden years, many are finding that their children and family don’t want to take over. Willing buyers can be hard to find, especially in parts of the state that aren’t seeing growth.”

“This could be a game changer in rural Colorado,” said Tara Marshall, a member of the Economic Development Commission’s board of directors, which oversees the office Markey leads. Marshall, whose day job involves serving as the director of community development for the small town (population 8,000) of Trinidad, located nearly 200 miles to the south of Denver, told Svaldi about a family-owned dry cleaner that had closed after the owner failed to find a buyer. According to Marshall, seven people lost their jobs, and now the nearest dry cleaner is 87 miles away. A transition plan that would have enabled workers to buy out the owner and keep the dry cleaner open would have been a better solution for the community, Marshall explained.—Steve Dubb

Share82
Tweet23
Share
Email
105 Shares

About The Author
Steve Dubb

Steve Dubb is a senior editor at NPQ, where he directs NPQ’s economic justice program, including NPQ’s Economy Remix column. Steve has worked with cooperatives and nonprofits for over two decades, including twelve years at The Democracy Collaborative and three years as executive director of NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation). In his work, Steve has authored, co-authored and edited numerous reports; participated in and facilitated learning cohorts; designed community building strategies; and helped build the field of community wealth building. Steve is the lead author of Building Wealth: The Asset-Based Approach to Solving Social and Economic Problems (Aspen 2005) and coauthor (with Rita Hodges) of The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads, published by MSU Press in 2012. In 2016, Steve curated and authored Conversations on Community Wealth Building, a collection of interviews of community builders that Steve had conducted over the previous decade.

Related
Berkeley, California Pioneers Novel Strategy to Boost Lending to Worker Co-ops
By Steve Dubb
November 18, 2019
Will Spokane’s Small Business Sector Wither as Baby Boom Owners Retire?
By Steve Dubb
October 28, 2019
Denver Foundation Joins in Statewide Push for Mental Health Access
By Ruth McCambridge
September 18, 2019
Economy Remix: Can We Rebalance the Scales between Capital and Labor?
By Steve Dubb
September 4, 2019
Employees Become Co-Owners of “The Old Farmer’s Almanac”
By Steve Dubb
August 23, 2019
San Antonio Nonprofit to Buy Legacy Businesses as Social Enterprise Strategy
By Karen Kahn
August 21, 2019
other posts by The Author
Denmark Comes Clean on Pigs: Will the US Follow?
By Steve Dubb
December 11, 2019
Police Violence Leads to Lower Birth Weights, Harvard...
By Steve Dubb
December 10, 2019
In Los Angeles, Contemporary Art Museum Management Says Yes...
By Steve Dubb
December 9, 2019
A Series on Sensemaking Organizations
The Sensemaking Organization: Designing for Complexity
The Sensemaking Mindset: Improvisation over Strategy
Structuring for Sensemaking: The Power of Small Segments
logo
Donate
  • About
  • Contact
  • Newsletters
  • Write for NPQ
  • Advertise
  • Writers
  • Funders
  • Copyright Policy
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to View Webinars

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by GDPR plugin
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.