Rural Grocery Succession Planning

Webinar 7: Worker Cooperatives
Recorded September 15, 2022

In this webinar, we will dig into worker cooperatives. What are the characteristics of this ownership model, and how do communities decide if it's the right fit? What are the benefits and drawbacks? We will be joined by Melissa Hoover with the Democracy at Work Institute to discuss these questions and more. In addition, we will hear how a grocery store in rural Maine transitioned to this ownership model.

PowerPoint Slides (pdf)

Featured presenters:

• Melissa Hoover, Executive Director, Democracy at Work Institute
  Melissa Hoover is the founding Executive Director of the Democracy at Work Institute, expanding worker ownership as a strategy to address economic and racial inequality. She helped start and grow the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the national grassroots membership organization for worker-owned businesses. She also worked for six years as a cooperative business developer with the Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives in Oakland, doing business and capital planning for two startups, training cooperative members, and serving as startup CFO. Melissa is an Executive Fellow of the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.
  
  
• Rob Brown, Director of Business Ownership Solutions, Cooperative Development Institute
  Rob Brown is the director of Business Ownership Solutions at the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI). CDI is the USDA-designated Cooperative Business Development Center for the Northeast. Rob is a nationally recognized expert in the field of employee ownership transitions, assisting business owners and their workers explore, assess, structure, and execute transitions to worker-owned cooperatives, and leads programs at the local, regional, and national level to educate and advise business owners on exit planning process and options.