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Capital is the biggest growth opportunity for employee ownership

Capital is both a barrier to — and the biggest opportunity for the growth of — employee ownership. The Ownership Capital Lab focuses on strategies for financing employee ownership at greater scale with capital that allows for a slice of the value and return to accrue to the employees. The Lab identifies, pilots, and supports the uptake of (or directly launches) these strategies, partnering as appropriate with fund managers and asset allocators. The Lab is founded by Alison Lingane, as a next chapter following a dozen years as the co-founder of Project Equity, a well-respected national nonprofit with a major focus on growing awareness of EO.

Financing barriers

Today, most banks don’t finance most employee ownership. Personal guarantee requirements get in the way — which of the 50, 200 or 500 employee-owners should sign the guarantee on behalf of the group? Or, should the selling owner guarantee the loan alongside a seller note for half or more of the transaction value?

A fragmented marketplace of EO funds has sprung up to bridge these gaps.

CDFIs and nonprofit funds raise philanthropic capital for operations and catalytic investment capital, resulting in limited fuel in their tanks to create impact at scale.

A growing number of mid-range or market-rate return funds have more recently come onto the scene. These funds are much bigger, but still small in the context of private equity. Their challenge is delivering private equity returns in ways that allow for a slice of the value to accrue to the employees.

Innovation opportunity

The Ownership Capital Lab identifies, pilots, and supports the uptake of strategies for financing EO with impact integrity at greater scale. 

We pair this R&D with investor education (directly and through partners), and fund engagement and support. Bridging between capital market and employee ownership expertise is central to our efforts. 

Our team

Alison Lingane

Founder

A serial social entrepreneur, Alison has dedicated her career to leveraging business as a force for good. She is a nationally recognized employee ownership expert, having co-founded Project Equity, a leader in the movement to harness employee ownership to maintain thriving local business communities, honor selling owners’ legacies, and address income and wealth inequality. Alison also founded the Employee Ownership Catalyst Fund, developed to address a critical bank financing gap for employee ownership transitions.

Alison began her career designing and leading micro-enterprise programs for urban youth. Then, inspired to widen her impact, she pursued an MBA at Haas and co-founded the Global Social Venture Competition, which for 25 years was the largest international business plan competition for double or triple bottom line companies.

From there, Alison held executive roles at mission-driven businesses designed for human impact at scale, including Benetech, where she developed and launched their first product, and GreatSchools, which was then the 6th largest parenting website. She also led service design at InsideTrack, a scaled services company that has increased college completion rates through 1:1 coaching for millions of students. Her passion for education also led her to co-found a PreK-8th grade dual immersion school, Escuela Bilingüe Internacional.

Alison’s successes have been recognized by fellowship invitations from Echoing Green, The Aspen Institute, Rutgers University, the Just Economy Institute, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and Ashoka, where her work was featured in the book America’s Path Forward. In 2022, with her co-founder Hilary Abell, Alison received the Heinz Award for the Economy, established to honor the memory of U.S. Senator John Heinz and to celebrate the vision and spirit that produce achievements of lasting good. Alison holds a B.S., magna cum laude, from Harvard, and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Luke Seidl

Director, Innovation Lab

Luke Seidl is an impact investment strategist with 13 years of experience designing and deploying catalytic and mission-aligned capital. Most recently, Luke served as Senior Investment Manager for Small and Growing Businesses at Kiva, where he led Kiva’s social enterprise lending practice and global portfolio of direct investments in SMEs. Prior to joining Kiva, Luke was Senior Associate at Veris Wealth Partners, an impact wealth management firm where he focused on investment due diligence, fund manager selection, impact measurement, and asset allocation across public private markets.

He is an adjunct professor at New York University where he teaches courses on impact investing and financial inclusion. He earned a MS in international development from New York University and a BS in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Erin Savoia

Program Manager

Erin brings a background of community engagement, program design and social impact to her role at Ownership Capital Lab, where she supports field-building and investor engagement efforts to help grow the employee ownership investing ecosystem.

Prior to the Lab, she spent several years at the University of Portland, where she designed and led immersive learning programs connecting students with communities and organizations addressing social and economic challenges. In this role, she facilitated cross-cultural dialogue, guided critical reflection and cultivated partnerships focused on advancing social impact.

Driven by a commitment to economic justice, Erin is excited to contribute to the Lab’s mission to bring employee ownership investing into the mainstream. She holds a master’s degree in Sociology from Portland State University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Portland. She is based in Portland, Oregon, where she enjoys spending time outdoors, exploring new restaurants and connecting with family and friends.

Darcy Valenti

Development & Philanthropic Partnerships Lead

Darcy C. Valenti is a senior philanthropy executive with nearly two decades of experience building transformative fundraising programs for national nonprofits. A graduate of Roanoke College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, she has built her career on cultivating donor relationships and partnering with organizational leaders and boards to drive lasting philanthropic growth.

Darcy’s career has taken her to the frontlines of humanitarian service and high-impact social change. At the American Red Cross of Greater New York, she founded the organization’s Young Professionals Society, expanding the donor pipeline and engaging a new generation of philanthropists. At Team Rubicon, she led and scaled the Salute to Service Awards in New York City, generating nearly $10 million during her tenure. Most recently, at the David Lynch Foundation, she directed a major gifts and planned giving program and co-created Meditate New York, expanding access to Transcendental Meditation for vulnerable communities nationwide.

Darcy’s expertise spans major gifts, corporate and foundation philanthropy, campaign strategy, and team leadership. Beyond her professional work, she serves as a Board Trustee at the Hermitage Museum in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ, is a certified Rutgers Master Gardener, and is a committee member of OK to Delay Ridgewood.

Leah Bury

Communications Manager

Leah brings a background in strategic communications, brand storytelling and content strategy to her role at Ownership Capital Lab. She has been contributing to the Lab’s communications and marketing work since October 2025, supporting efforts to grow awareness and engagement around employee ownership investing.

Prior to the Lab, Leah led content and brand marketing at mission-driven organizations, most recently at 15Five, and founded Lucid Studio, a consulting practice supporting mission-driven organizations through strategic communications and program design. She also co-founded the Slow Fashion Festival in Austin, a platform centering sustainability, artistic expression and local culture. Her work is further informed by continued education in ecopsychology and regenerative economics.

She is based in Austin, Texas, where she enjoys curating community art experiences, exploring the outdoors and collaborating with artists and changemakers in her community and beyond.

Join our team!

Advisors

Sam Bonsey

Co-founder, The ImPact

Sam has spent his career building, leading, and supporting high-impact organizations and networks. Sam is Co-Founder of The ImPact, a global network of families committed to making more impact investments more effectively. Sam served as Director of Operations of The ImPact from 2014-2019 and Executive Director from 2020-2025. Through The ImPact Lab, Sam supported the development of several pioneering initiatives in impact finance: Trimtab Impact, the Transformation Capital Initiative (TCI), the Innovative Finance Initiative (IFI), and Ownership Capital Lab. Sam serves as board chairman and trust stewardship committee member of Trimtab, chairman of the TCI, and on the advisory boards of IFI and OCL.

In 2026, Sam became board chairman and steward of Co_ Systemic, a pathbreaking orchestrator of systemic investing initiatives. Sam is also a board member of the National Center for Family Philanthropy and the chair of the investment committee of Keller Enterprises, a single-family office committed to mission-driven investing. In 2010, Sam co-founded the 2Seeds Network, an incubator of community-driven development projects in Tanzania; in 2019, 2Seeds merged with Spark Microgrants, on whose board Sam served until 2024.  In 2015, Forbes recognized Sam as a “30 Under 30” Social Entrepreneur. Sam graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in History and Literature, focused on African postcolonial studies and Swahili. Sam and his family happily reside in Paris, France. 

Smitha Das

Senior Director, Investments, World Education Services

Smitha Das is deeply committed to centering equity and justice within her work and demonstrating a total portfolio approach for impact, with an eye towards reimagining the broader capital markets. As Senior Director of Investments at World Education Services (WES) – a global social enterprise – Smitha leads WES’ investment practice, stewarding all of WES’ resources to be mission-aligned.

Her passion to create meaningful impact sparked at a young age when she founded a water nonprofit in middle school. She has since worked in government, private equity, venture philanthropy, and impact investing.

Smitha has a MBA from Harvard Business School and AB with Honors from Harvard College, where she co-founded the HBS Impact Investing Club and Harvard College Social Enterprise Club. She is a Just Economy Institute Fellow and serves as a Board and Investment Committee member to several organizations, including Mission Driven Finance, Echoing Green, Unlock Ownership Fund, and New Power Labs.

Margot Kane

Chief Investment Officer, Spring Point Partners

Margot Kane serves as Chief Investment Officer for Spring Point Partners (“SPP”), a Philadelphia-based social impact organization that invests in transformative leaders, networks, and solutions that power community change and advance justice. She joined SPP as the inaugural CIO in 2019 to build out the organization’s investment strategy and team as part of SPP’s integrated approach to achieving impact through complementary strategies and tools, including grantmaking, organizational development, and investing. Drawing on her experience designing investment strategies to address complex social and environmental challenges, she enabled Spring Point to activate its investment approach with a particular focus on investing in equitable pathways to building economic resilience and lasting wealth for a diverse range of founders and communities in the U.S.

Margot has been designing and leading innovative investment strategies in impact-aligned sectors in the U.S. and globally for over 15 years. Previously, she served as Vice President of Strategy at Calvert Impact Capital, and as Chief Financial Officer at Closed Loop Partners. Margot currently serves on the advisory board and investment committees for Builders Initiative Foundation and Singapore-based Circulate Capital. She recently joined the board of Mission Investor’s Exchange in 2025.

Margot is a graduate of the Walter A. Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley and of Macalester College, MN and enjoys tennis, hiking, and soccer with her husband and two children.

Devin Murphy

Founder & Principal, Integrated Purpose; Senior Fellow, The Aspen Institute

Devin founded Integrated Purpose with a singular vision: creating a society where all can benefit from the prosperity we collectively create. His consultancy partners with philanthropists, impact investors, and social enterprises to transform how resources flow to communities historically excluded from economic opportunity. Recently named to the inaugural cohort of Obama Foundation USA Leaders and appointed as a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program, Devin bridges high-level strategy with on-the-ground impact.

Drawing on nearly two decades in the social impact sector, Devin brings a unique perspective formed at the intersection of rigorous analysis and community-centered solutions. During his 16-year tenure at the Bridgespan Group, where he rose to Partner, Devin pioneered the firm’s approach to sourcing and diligence, helping direct billions of dollars of new philanthropy toward economic mobility, racial justice, and place-based initiatives.

Recent high-impact projects led by Devin include the design and launch of the Harlem Children’s Zone Wealth Builds Initiative, strategic implementation support for the $200 million HBCU Transformation Project (in collaboration with United Negro College Fund, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and the Partnership for Education Advancement), and a comprehensive cradle-to-career community planning initiative led by the Spartanburg Academic Movement, leveraging over $100 million in collective investments.

Devin is also a recognized thought leader. His co-authored publications, “Boats for a Rising Tide: How Philanthropy Can Help Narrow the Racial Wealth Gap,” “Elevating the Role of Faith-Inspired Impact,” and “‘Billion Dollar Bets’ to Create Economic Opportunity,” have been cited in The New York Times, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stanford Social Innovation Review, ImpactAlpha, and The Atlantic.

Before his consulting career, Devin completed doctoral coursework and qualifying exams with distinction (“all but dissertation”) in the American Studies doctoral program at New York University. Devin’s field concentrations are in 20th-century social movements and political theory. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Devin earned a BA with highest honors in Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture from Emory University.

Priya Parrish

Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Impact Engine

Priya Parrish is Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Impact Engine, an institutional venture capital and private equity investor driving positive impact in economic opportunity, environmental sustainability and health equity. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Impact Investor in Residence at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Priya is the author of “The Little Book of Impact Investing” published by Wiley.

Prior to joining Impact Engine, Priya served as Chief Investment Officer at Schwartz Capital Group, a single-family office investing across global markets. Previously, she was Strategy Head at Aurora Investment Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund, and managed development of investment products that incorporated environmental, social and governance factors (ESG) at Northern Trust Asset Management and KLD Research & Analytics. Priya holds a B.S. in Business Management from Babson College and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Aunnie Patton Power

Founding Director, Innovative Finance Initiative

About Aunnie

Aunnie Patton Power is an Academic, Advisor, Author and Angel Investor with a focus on directing innovative financing to organizations that create positive social and environmental impact. She is an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ Marshall Institute, an Impact Fellow at The ImPact and the Academic Director for the BEAM Network. Aunnie works with funders globally to design innovative financing instruments and deploy capital sitting the investment committees of Sanlam Investments and Nyala Venture and the social and ethics board committee at JUMO. She also founded Impact Finance Pro, a careers platform and is a founding member of the Dazzle Angels, a female angel investing group. Her first book, Adventure Finance, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2021 and she is working on her second book.

A reformed M&A investment banker, Aunnie began her impact investing career in 2010 with Unitus Capital in Bangalore and has since worked with start-ups, intermediaries, funds, family offices, foundations, corporates and governments across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Aunnie’s work has been published throughout the world, including by the Oxford University Press, the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), the World Economic Forum, Impact Investing Policy Collaboration and as Massive Open Online Courses on Coursera and GetSmarter.