One year ago, on Labor Day 2024, we launched Ownership Capital Lab.

Our vision was bold: mobilize investment capital to scale employee ownership (EO) as a strategy for creating quality jobs, rooting wealth in communities, and addressing racial, gender, and geographic wealth gaps.

This vision builds upon decades of work and leadership in the employee ownership field, by thousands of activists, field builders, scholars,  investors, and employee-owners, as well as on our founder’s own experience helping to grow the EO field. To build Ownership Capital Lab, Alison draws from the many lessons she learned being directly involved in over 25 transactions of companies transitioning to employee ownership, launching and managing a dedicated EO investment fund, working with dozens of government partners to roll out local economic development succession programs, co-founding field-wide infrastructure and narrative campaigns. Through this work, Alison built partnerships with leaders across the country, and led critical efforts to raise awareness of EO among business owners, investors, advisors, and policymakers about what’s possible when ownership is shared.

We launched Ownership Capital Lab to bring these experiences into sharper focus: to accelerate the flow of capital, to strengthen the EO capital markets, to bridge gaps between investors and the field, and to design the financial tools and vehicles that EO needs in order to scale—so that EO investing as a field can grow, scale, and flourish. Ultimately, we do this work to build an economy that works for all of us.

What we’ve built in 12 months

We are so proud of what we have accomplished in just one year. We have laid important foundations:

• Research and tools. We published new frameworks to track EO investing, helping investors, fund managers, and policymakers better see where capital is flowing—and where it isn’t yet.
• Community and convening. Through the EO Investors’ Circle, EO Fund Spotlights, and curated learning sessions, we’ve brought together hundreds of investors, fund managers, philanthropic leaders, and EO practitioners to build knowledge and relationships.
• Field-level insights. We’ve captured critical data on the gaps and needs in EO investing infrastructure—from underwriting standards to senior debt and guarantee needs—that will shape how the field evolves.
• Future vehicles. We’ve charted a path to new investment structures designed to unlock greater pools of capital at scale, meeting the needs of both investors and EO funds.
• A roadmap for scale. We’ve stewarded the development of the 2025 Employee Ownership Capital Roadmap (to be released this December), which will outline a field-wide action plan to mobilize $1B in EO capital by 2030—and set the stage for 10x growth beyond that.

What the field needs next

While we’re proud of what’s been built, we know the real work lies ahead. The next decade is critical. If EO is going to move from being a powerful but niche solution to a mainstream economic strategy, we need to unlock significantly more investment capital—and do so in ways that are equitable, scalable and sustainable.

In creating the first EO Capital Roadmap, our research, field interviews and  focus groups have shined a light on four main areas for us as a field to align, organize, and focus:

• Increase models of blended capital to accelerate growth. Philanthropic, public, and private capital each have roles to play in seeding innovation, de-risking early investments, and crowding in larger pools of institutional capital.
• Build infrastructure that helps investors accelerate investments. Just as venture capital and private equity scaled with standardized structures and networks, EO needs underwriting playbooks, investment benchmarks, shared data, fund accelerators, and intermediaries that can make investing easier and faster.
• Advance policy to strengthen EO and create further incentives for the private markets. Federal and state policy can help level the playing field, as it has with CDFIs, New Markets Tax Credits, and Opportunity Zones. Government investment and incentives will be critical to catalyzing private markets at scale.
• Strengthen and mainstream the narrative. EO is still niche in the investment marketplace, hampered by low awareness, misconceptions and fragmented messaging. Influential voices, fund managers, investors and champions can tell a bigger “ownership economy” story that builds trust and creates demand across investor segments.

The path forward

None of this can be done alone—and this is just the beginning. The incredible people and organizations across the EO ecosystem—fund managers, TA providers, advocates, field builders, investors, advisors, policymakers and of course, employee-owners—are building the next frontier of broad-based ownership. Together, we can transform what today feels like “impact investing at the margins” (we think in the most exciting part of the margins!) into a core part of the mainstream economy.

To our partners, collaborators, and champions: THANK YOU for believing in this vision and for building alongside us.

To those curious about how capital can drive broad-based ownership, locally rooted wealth, and resilient businesses: we’d love for you to join us.

Here’s to Year 2—and to building an economy where ownership is shared, wealth is built, and people and communities thrive.