Across this country, employee ownership is receiving more attention from business owners, policymakers, and economic development leaders than ever before. More owners are asking how they can step away from their business without walking away from the legacy they spent years building. Most importantly, more states are beginning to put real public resources behind helping them find an answer.
Today, seven states have employee ownership technical assistance grant pools in place. Four are actively deploying funds (IA, CO, MI, NJ), and three more are funded and expected to begin making grants within the next several months (IL, MA, TN). All seven have State Centers for Employee Ownership.
That matters because a State Center gives employee ownership a trusted home within the state. It gives business owners a neutral place to begin, connects them with qualified advisors, works alongside public agencies and local partners, and stays with the effort long after the first grant announcement or legislative victory.
Michigan is one of the clearest examples. The success of the state-funded technical assistance program administered by the Michigan Center for Employee Ownership belongs to the MICEO team. They have done the work, built the relationships, and earned the trust that made the program successful.
But that program did not appear out of nowhere. It rests on years of work by local champions, volunteers, funders, and partners who helped establish MICEO as a credible statewide resource. That includes major early support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the long-term investment EOX has made in creating and strengthening the State Center model.
Illinois is now taking an important step of its own as well. For the first time, the State of Illinois has invested directly in employee ownership through its fiscal year 2027 budget, which includes $500,000 for the Illinois Center for Employee Ownership. A substantial portion of that funding will support technical assistance grants designed to help more Illinois businesses transition to employee ownership. It will also expand education and outreach around employee ownership as a succession and economic development strategy.
These are public investments, but they are built on years of private commitment from State Center staff, board members, volunteers, funders, service providers, advocates, and business leaders who kept showing up and making the case.
That is what makes me proud. Not because EOX can claim every win. We cannot, and we should not. The credit belongs to the people doing the work in each state, and partners that help drive this activity — especially Jack Moriarty and Julien Rosenbloom at Layette Square Institute, whose leadership is driving ideas for effective state-level policy.
EOX helped build the national network that allows local leaders to organize that work, attract investment, learn from one another, and keep moving when an opportunity opens. I am proud of the contribution this network is making: helping more business owners leave on their own terms, more workers gain a stake in the companies they help build, and more communities hold onto the businesses that help define them.
Thank you to the many State Center leaders, partners, supporters, volunteers, and funders who believed this model could work, and then helped prove it.
We have built something important together. But there is so much more to be done!
— Steve
