With the holiday season upon us, Bret Keisling discusses the importance of donating to EO organizations to help support, sustain, and grow employee ownership, build better local and national economies, and address critical issues such as wage and wealth inequality,
In this episode, we highlight a few great organizations such as Project Equity, EOX, and the Fund for Employee Ownership of the Evergreen Cooperatives as particularly worthy of your charitable contributions. The full list of links to donate are in our show notes below.
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Mini-cast 247 Show Notes
Links to employee ownership donation sites:
Evergreen Cooperatives, The Fund for Employee Ownership donations
Ohio Employee Ownership Center donations (Note: you must designate OEOC as the donation designee.)
Mini-cast 247 Transcript
[00:00:00] Bret Keisling: Welcome to the EsOp Mini-cast. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Bret Keisling and, as it says on my business cards, I'm a passionate advocate for employee ownership.
[00:00:19] Bret Keisling: The holiday season is upon us. We're dropping this on the first full day of Hanukkah in the United States. Christmas is just two and a half weeks away and Kwanza starts the following day, on December 26th. It's the time of year where many will count their blessings, spend time with cherished friends and loved ones. And it is, of course, a time for giving.
[00:00:40] At the end of November 2023, we had Giving Tuesday, a one-day event created in 2012 as an opportunity for organizations to solicit donations in the midst of Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending frenzies. I fully support anyone who donates on Giving Tuesday, and the recipient organizations. But I guess I fall into that old school category where I like to close out the year and the holiday season with donations to organizations that are important to me and my loved ones. That, of course, means supporting some great organizations in the employee ownership space.
[00:01:16] Just a couple of years ago in 2021, I did a number of episodes of the podcast and mini-cast devoted to whether EO was becoming a movement in the United States. We seemed to be gaining traction in so many respects, from the number of companies converting to employee ownership, to federal and state legislation that encourages EO. Now as we end 2023, we see so many more signs that EO is, in fact, becoming a movement, not just in the US but we see great progress in Canada, Australia, Europe, and the UK.
[00:01:49] In addition, there are more organizations doing tremendous work in employee ownership than ever before. These organizations are making great progress in supporting, sustaining, and growing employee ownership. And I can't stress how worthy they are of your financial support and how important it is that you support them financially if you're able.
[00:02:10] Your donations will go far to support employee ownership. And there are too many worthy organizations for us to mention in a mini-cast, but please know that every dollar donated to support EO supports our organizations, our communities, our national economy, and helps to address important issues like the wage gap and the wealth gap and many related issues, important to all of us.
[00:02:31] And to that end, I'm going to list a few of my favorites, and we'll include links to the organizations and links on how to donate in the show notes for this episode.
[00:02:40] The Employee Ownership Expansion Network, more commonly known as EOX, is making tremendous progress creating state centers throughout the United States. They just announced the creation of a new state center in Wisconsin, which brings the number of EOX sponsored state centers to 15, in addition to independent state centers in Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Massachusetts. For the purposes of your donation, you can donate to EOX directly, the national organization, or you can donate to the state center in your state. Either way, your support will help build momentum for strong and robust state centers throughout the United States.
[00:03:18] Project Equity is another great organization that has done so much to support and create employee ownership. If you go to our website at www.EsOpPodcast.com and search "Project Equity," you'll find numerous episodes where their leadership has appeared as guests or where I've talked about them in different contexts. Whether it's ESOPs, worker cooperatives, or employee ownership trusts, Project Equity is doing tremendous work to support all forms of employee ownership.
[00:03:46] Next, I want to highlight the Evergreen Cooperatives that are based in Cleveland, Ohio. They've created a network of cooperatives, including the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, Berry Insulation, Phoenix Coffee Company, Intellitronix, and LEFCO Worthington.
[00:04:02] Evergreen is also responsible for the Fund for Employee Ownership, which is designed to create quality jobs through employee ownership, while anchoring jobs and wealth in their local community. And we'll include a link to the Fund for Employee Ownership on our website as well.
[00:04:18] So, I hope you'll check out the show notes on our website at www.EsOpPodcast.com for links to these great organizations. And as I said whether it's these organizations or any other EO organization, I hope that your year-end donations will generously support employee ownership.
[00:04:36] Thank you so much for listening. This is Bret Keisling. Be well.
[00:04:40] Bitsy McCann: We'd love to hear from you! You can find us on Facebook at EO Podcast Network and on Twitter [X] @EsOpPodcast. This podcast has been produced by Bret Keisling for the EO Podcast Network. Original music composed by Max Keisling. Branding and marketing by BitsyPlus Design. And I'm Bitsy McCann.
Standard Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are my own and don't represent those of my own firms or the organizations to which I belong. Nothing in the podcast should be construed as guidance or advice of any kind in any field and the fact that I mentioned an organizational website or an advocate or a company on a podcast does not reflect an endorsement, but if you've heard your name or your group's name mentioned on this podcast, I'd love to have you come on and talk about it yourself.
A note on the transcript: This transcript was produced by Descript, an automated transcription service. While it has been reviewed by The EsOp Podcast, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the transcription. Please refer to the original audio when citing sources.
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