Growing Worker-Owned Coops Through Outside Financing | January 14, 2016




Transform Finance Investor Network Webinar Recordings show

Summary: Among the factors that has held back the growth and proliferation of worker ownership stands out the lack of available financing structures. Dan Fireside, Equal Exchange's Capital Coordinator and a veteran of the industry, guided us through models of outside financing for coops that include outside non-voting shares, worker voting shares, and a combination of debt and retained earnings. With that context, Blake Jones, the celebrated founder of Namaste Solar, presented the company's current private placement of preferred stock to grow this tremendously successful worker-owned coop without losing its commitment to worker ownership and governance .  [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]