Employee ownership is a proven approach to retaining and growing small businesses, saving the jobs they support, and giving working families opportunities to build wealth. Together with city officials, economic development professionals, chamber leadership, SBDC Advisors, and business services and capital providers from the Kansas City region and across Missouri, we will explore leading strategies that leverage employee ownership to root valued, long-standing community businesses in place, preserving local tax bases, and mitigating widening wealth gaps.
The Stronger Economies EO Summit is presented by Missouri Center for Employee Ownership, together with the Democracy at Work Institute, AltCap, and equity2. This dual-track, single-day summit will prioritize in-depth learning for implementation, equipping attendees with actionable tools for local economic benefit. The Cities Track, for local governments and economic developers, will equip city and community leaders with tactics to leverage employee ownership in rebuilding resilient, equitable local economies. The Business Ecosystem Track will provide a crash course on how to support worker-cooperative transactions to help retain and grow small businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
This summit is made possible by the financial support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Great Game of Business, and the Employee Ownership Expansion Network in collaboration with the National Center for Employee Ownership.
Learning Objectives:
Analyze lessons from national experts implementing local employee ownership strategies
Intimate knowledge of how leading employee ownership initiatives work
Framework for leveraging existing partnerships and resources to support legacy business retention
Access a toolkit for supporting employee ownership as a legacy business retention strategy
Foundational technical expertise on how to structure employee ownership transactions
New relationships with investors, service providers, and government employees doing similar work
