I'm Patty vfa I'm the director of the worker ownership initiative with Nexus Community Partners my role um I work with startups I work with transitions into employee ownership I also U manage along with Benjamin Christina andiana the local fund uh for worker ownership um our panel today is on financing it brings together local and National funders wonderful familiar faces uh to talk about how to capital for employee-owned businesses and for real estate investment cooperatives we'll also discuss the role of philanthropy in growing the shared ownership ecosystem I'm going to ask each panelist to introduce themselves in a minute but I want to point you to your workbooks you have two um well you have more than two but um there's one that's the employee ownership workbook if you look at page 35 um you'll see some ecosystem work there um so if you want to follow along and start to map out the financing ecosystem and there's a community ownership workbook you can take a look at page 18 so our panelists today are Electra stesy from mccd Evan Edwards from Project Equity Aaron Helen from platform Minnesota Mark Vick from shared capital and Mark Sun from the magnite foundation so if you all want to introduce yourselves or start with Mark um tell us about yourself your organization and what type of financing you focus on hello hello good morning everybody um my name is Mark Fick I am the senior loan officer with shared Capital Cooperative um shared Capital Cooperative is a cooperatively owned Loan Fund based here in the Twin Cities we work we work nationally we provide financing primarily debt financing with some Equity Investments to cooperatives of all types all across the United States but we work exclusively with cooperatives so uh it makes us a little bit unique in the world of of financing for myself I've been with shared capital for about nine years now uh prior to that spent 10 years uh doing Community Development Finance in Chicago and have been working with cooperatives of various sorts for about 30 years uh both in the regionally and nationally nice uh I was well is it afternoon yet um anyway how are you all it's wonderful to see all these wonderful faces in the same room I'm electric jeski I'm the director of shared ownership with the Metropolitan Consortium of community developers or mccd we are a uh Consortium of 35 nonprofit affordable housing developers and economic development organizations and a cdfi that serve shared ownership Enterprises Statewide wide and essentially we also provide debt financing uh we can also serve as an intermediary Organization for Grant support for shared ownership projects um but we provide technical assistance for businesses across the spectrum of ownership models from micro Enterprise to Shared ownership our shared ownership work focuses on cooperatives of all types as well as real estate projects so commercial Community Land Trust and real estate investment cooperatives um I've been in this role for about 2 years and came to this work from a background in nonprofits philanthropy government and economic development it's good to be with you hi every hello I don't know hello oh there we go hi everyone I'm Aaron Helen I am with platform commercial real estate um but I'll say this you know this work fits into like all the many hats that I wear so like this is the vend diagram of like platform commercial real estate where I am we are borp commercial real estate brokerage and consulting firm we mostly work with small businesses and nonprofits and then I also work with the east side funders group which is a funer collaborative on the east side of St Paul whose focus is on community um Community ownership Community Economic Development initiatives and revitalizing the east side and so in that space I'm a grant maker um and and in the platform space I'm kind of a dealmaker like building the capital stack and then I also work work with Nexus and have for about five years on their shared ownership initiative and in that way I'm kind of doing program work and also doing feasibility work so I come to this with of course many hats that you all already know about and um I am excited to be here today thanks uh hi again everyone Evan Edwards project Equity um we came to uh become a capital provider um by virtue of uh the fact that there is not enough Capital uh or traditionally was not enough Capital to fund uh transitions to co-ops and eots and esops eots are employee ownership trusts um we have uh two capital projects were're involved uh in in partnership with shared Capital Cooperative we are um part of the accelerate employee ownership uh initiative which uh is limited to making transactions in California Arizona and Nevada um and it's because of that limitation that we stood up a a second um uh Capital vehicle called Catalyst fund uh which allows us to provide uh again mostly debt but some Equity financing for transactions across the country it's a pretty flexible uh vehicle and again we came to become a provider uh mostly out of the need for more Capital to come to this growing space Hi everybody uh Mark Sun senior program officer with the mcnight foundation and um so the mcnight foundation is the private private family Foundation uh the part of the uh organization where I sit something called the vibrant Equitable communities program that's a new program that focuses on economic Justice in the state of Minnesota and the part of the portfolio that I hold is something called um building Community wealth or predominant Capital Access and through that work we um partner with a lot of uh uh uh granty Partners uh mccd Rondo CLT uh Nexus um I see Acer in the room so uh I see a lot of Partners in this space and really happy to be here wonderful um so I'll start with you Mar Mark you're holding the mic what do you see as a what are the benefits of invar ownership is that part yeah so um I I I think from prior slides and I I won't do justice to both the intelligent comments both Ben and Evan have showcased which is the ways in which it can anchor and arrest gentrification a lot of spaces give Comm control to the community which is uh really an important feat and I think in a lot of ways what we see in the market conditions today is ways that wealth gets extracted from a lot of different outside entities and so the diversity and the richness of how communities have anchored their own um sort of flavor and what they've desired in those spaces have slowly eroded and recognizing that wealth exists outside of just financial means it is the plurality and the vibrancy of the people and the needs and goods that they demand is part of that fabric and so recognizing that it's more than just like having um duckets in your bank it's about being able to enjoy the spaces and be alive in the space that you are so that is a a component that I think too often we leave behind that it's all an economic engine but it's also um a vibrancy engine um and as a part of that uh mcnight recognizes both the opportunities and challenges in how we anchor that work that's why we work so heavily with a lot of intermediaries they're smarter they're on the ground that identify trends that we will not be able to see um and I think it's part of that is how do we engage in a dialogue of making sure that we continue to follow um you know we are uh blessed with such forward-thinking Partners uh like Nexus uh like uh mccd like Acer and Rond CLT that you know it requires us to think about what is a better way to do this and what is philanthropy but the love of humanity and to do that we have to do with that with our partners you know we have we have some specialized funders here how and this is primarily for Evan and how does inves insured ownership what what are some of the challenges there how do you maybe I'll start and then pass the mic um for one when you're investing in uh an entity that will be worker owned uh there isn't one business owner that you are you know attaching uh in order to finance the deal and one of the challenges that uh we have in this space in terms of attracting capital is that you know traditional lenders like to have one person that they can attach for a personal guarantee and in the case of employee owned entities we're speaking uh of a group that you know largely are under capitalized right they're not going to be able to finance a deal and they don't have the necessarily have the assets to attach um so that's that's one of the the the challenges that you know makes our work uh pretty unique I think it's also that we have a particular lens that um we want to lift up people right and so you know we have to have probably a little bit different uh underwriting criteria in mind than maybe a traditional lender does that you know makes us unique for the space because if you want to lift people up sometimes you have to look at absorbing risk or you have to look at uh you know and I should put risk in quotes because you know we it turns out that that worker own businesses aren't risky right these are like entities that people take a lot of pride in operating well um but um you know per traditional underwriting criteria we have to look at them a little bit differently and take some creativity um and I'll sort of leave it at that and let Mark expand yeah when at shared Capital when we are looking at a loan request or a request for an investment into a Cooperative there are sort of two different lenses that we might use generally speaking one is to do the traditional business underwriting we have to understand cash flow and the market and the capacity of the me of the leadership and and the ability for folks to run this business in a productive uh way but there is uh when we're looking at shared ownership there's a whole other side of underwriting and understanding the assessment of an investment by looking at the people as was already referenced to and understanding the Democracy of what's being created and digging into the relationships between the people and the organization and the capacity of the members not just to do the day-to-day work but to make decisions together in a productive way and deal with conflict in a productive way and manage the people side of the organization differently than other forms of business ownership and so we dig deeply into both sides of those pools and along the way we have to also make sure that we are not as was referenced with kind of personal guarantees and things like that elements that are a part of standard business underwriting and the rest of the economy that are often exploitive and and actually um actually sort of exclude people from opportunities and so we want to make sure that we're when we're structuring an investment into a Cooperative we're doing that in a relational way that is actually supporting those members to build their business and and be successful along the way thank you um it's just one mic um okay so um this is this is an Aaron Electra question and others can feel free to jump in but how is real estate investment different from worker co-ops and and what are some of the challenges and you can feel free to answer what are some of the challenges or what is it that you're looking for when you're looking at um at investing in real estate so when I think about the difference between the you know the process for the transition for a worker Co-op um and then the process of a community owned group coming together to buy real estate one of the biggest factors I see is time like these deals come up things go on the real estate market and it moves so fast and so we have to be ready uh the worker Cooperative as you've heard like it can take a couple years to like do it really well and sellers come to this work and come to Nexus and come to mccd and other Co-op developers and they want to sell to their employees and then on the real estate side a community will see a building come on the market and if it's a good deal we have to make an offer and move really quickly and so in that time in that 60 days of due diligence if we're lucky enough to be chosen to be the the group that buys the real estate we have a lot to do to understand the feasibility of the of the real estate and also the feasibility of the co-op and so there's a lot of work that needs to happen on page nine you'll see this this cute little Vin diagram that we created about real estate project feasibility but also the co-op business feasibility and then a whole lot of determination because in these real estate it's really obvious in the worker cooperatives like like you're workers you're coming together to own a business but in a real estate Cooperative you're business owners you're not volunteers you're coming together to also start a business and so there's a ton of Sweat Equity um that goes into that and owner owner time and so it all and then it all has to come together under this pressure of like 60 to 120 days or you can't get the deal done yeah I'd add that um it's really important to understand what your lender needs in order to understand kind of all aspects of of the deal and also to plan to have to find and secure some of those contingencies that make the deal A Little Bit Stronger um and different types of real estate assets might require different things um and not all lenders loan the same type of commercial transaction or real estate transaction so it's also about you know spending time exploring who the uh appropriate fit lender is for your project okay how um how do you see the role of government policy um in facilitating or hindering financing for shared ownership and can you give an example of a partnership that has helped catalyze shared ownership um Electra you can start and others can can also answer thanks um well you're very fortunate to be leaving this fabulous gathering with this excellent resource that will tell you a lot more about this work um but as an organization mccc's work touches Small Business Development Capital Access and lending policy and advocacy and Leadership and field building and it is not particularly common for a cdfi to have inhouse lobbyists um but we've utilized that capacity in our organization to advocate on behalf of the Community Development sector RIT large um and as you all know it's not surprising that a key component of systems change are the legislative remedies that can help unlock um some doors that have still historically been closed or maybe there wasn't even a door that existed so in the work that we do we're operating at the federal level the state level and the local level to make sure that we're in conversation and in regular dialogue with the people that kind of are sitting in the policymaking seats but also their teams right the folks that are that are briefing elected officials and the folks that are um in the roles to become the champions of shared ownership so as um a longtime lending partner and friend to the Minnesota Department of Employment and economic development we invest invested quite a lot of time and energy in educating those um those professionals to help them really understand why some of their programs were prohibitive for certain types of um legal B businesses and in that work we engag with ecosystem stakeholders many of the friends in this room so thank you for your participation in this to really understand what deed could do to help um strengthen in the enabling environment for shared ownership Enterprises of a wide range of types and that resulted in the community wealth building program that is in its pilot phase right now um that has created a $3 million Loan Fund for worker and other Cooperative types um real estate investment cooperatives and Commercial Community Land trusts and what was critical in those conversations was helping deed understand some of the things that have already been mentioned in this panel that the cost of capital matters to borrowers but it also matters to lenders right so like the stipulations that come with how intermediaries and cdfis are able to bring Community um resources and and financing is important so the interest rates for this product are capped at 4% the other thing that is um unusual for deed but common for shared ownership financing is that there is is no requirement for personal guarantees and that took some negotiation right some bringing folks along um but it was kind of a critical part of the work that we're doing and in many ways a large part of a multi-prong kind of strategy um for our advocacy work to help support the field right is that if we want to see shared ownership Enterprises really become normalized so that the barriers that have traditionally kept communities from coming together in in order to bring to life what they want to see in their communities or protect what they have in communities from threats of speculation gentrification Etc we need to make these channels open and accessible and make shared ownership Enterprises El explicitly eligible uses for these programs but by also having conversations with government agencies about these kind of prohibitive criteria we hope to encourage our friends at deed to to eliminate that Pro those criterias in their other underr in the underwriting requirements for their other programs and one of the other things that policy advocacy was able to do was to embed shared ownership as an explicitly eligible use for the federal state small business assistant small business credit Initiative Program so there are a number of different ways that you can be having conversations um with Community leaders government officials their staffs departmental staffs to really open the door for them to be thinking about these things and to really take seriously some of these fantastic recommendations that are there but one of the things that I will say is that cdfis and the folks in this room are such a key part of the enabling environment and the ecosystem for Small Business Development and what is important is that we all see policy and advocacy as a core function of how we're going to advance not only just racial equity and economic justice but systems change as a whole um I see um government policy impacting uh employee ownership in a number of ways but I'm going to highlight three specifically um one is at the awareness level right government has the megaphone the bully pulpit that they can raise awareness of the value proposition of something like shared ownership in a way that just about no other vehicle can right um in California um project equity in in partnership with the work Coalition was able to pass the first state bill I forget the number of the state bill offand but it passed a state bill um that created the first office of employee ownership in the state of California and what this essentially does is this works at the awareness level such that now there is that entity within government that's giving the Good Housekeeping seal of approval to employee ownership and can help us to raise awareness the next level that government can be helpful is at the incentive level in other words incentivizing business owners to want to transition to employee owned companies whether through their succession plan or because they see it as a productivity strategy and that can be achieved in part through the tax code and that was lifted up in earlier comments with respect to how it is that uh section 1042 at the federal level can provides uh a tax incentive for business owners right that provides the incentive from the government level to actually create an employee owned company so we've done awareness we've done incentive to do it and now at the operational level and another item that was lifted up is preferential treatment or the ability for employee owned businesses to be able to retain their status if they're a minority or women o woman-owned business or otherwise have a preferential treatment right that comes from being being employee owned and an example of that is excuse me in Los Angeles County uh project equity in partnership with the county uh has uh uh passed a um local ordinance that would allow for employee owned companies to receive certain preferential treatment in bidding the point being that government has reach and can be impactful in a number of different ways but but at the level of awareness you know so there's more knowledge of employee owned business and their value proposition at the level of pipeline creating more opportunity incentivizing and then at the level of helping them succeed operationally is where government can have three very important roles in in creating employee owned businesses um so you're you're holding the mic if you want to pass that over to mark what is needed to bring more funders to the table and and you know we have different types of funders here so think about your type what what do you need to break up what do you mean my Type U right do we need to bring more Capital yeah you know this space of employee or um Collective ownership or shared ownership just cuts in so many different ways and um philanthropy uh being uh newer into the space is that it doesn't operate like like a lot of in other Industries because we have a different um positionality in this space and it can be a little bit opaque in how different funders identify how they believe they'll um contribute in the changing of the world so with that caveat I say part of it is um it's incumbent upon folks like me who identify uh different organiz ations that are in the philanthropic space that are curious about what a shared ownership means and introduce it in ways that are uh uh acceptable and and by that because when we think of co-ops I think the initial thrust of most things that emerge in people's minds is are the food co-ops or REI buying co-ops for the most part and then and then you can expand into electrical utilities but then there's just this entire Continuum of ownership that requires different degrees of participation engagement um what was it 40 person minimum for esops would be a good entry and so there's just a whole world of opportunities which is also a very good thing because it allows at entry for the philanthropy to identify a space that's appropriate for them but I think part of it is continuing to message how in all the ways the activation of shared ownership can Elevate communities and we could do that by layering it on in a lot of different spaces and even this microcosm of St Paul and Minneapolis we see the emergence of all these spaces happening and what does that mean collectively to create impact so demonstrations such as this is is very impactful I see dude from living cities over there and I think Champions like that that can sort of uh continue to uh expand the reach of the concept and in its multitudes is a better way to convince philanthropy because I I think you can talk about ownership and and all these things but until you see it manifesting with this cumulative effect it's really hard to grock um so I I think that is the best way and then through that point you can say here are grants that are helpful here here are pris that are helpful here are other credit enhancements and I think also to Evan's point and Electra's Point government helps enable that uh environment where the SBA looks at guarantees they're continuing to have this conversation but until we say here's a very easy pathway for for y'all to enter into this space it becomes too much of an exercise because the demand is high everywhere and so the easier that the solution sh becomes apparent then I think philanthropy is easier to step into that space I'll just mention a you know for the last couple years a place we've seen philanthropy step up on the real estate side and government too with the local fund is um on the due diligence pre-development piece and I think this is really important because if you think of this like like I know I mean Leslie will talk about this hopefully with neic like they did this all on their own um 10 years ago 15 years ago before philanthropy was stepping into this but you're getting a group of some of these co-ops you're getting a group of neighbors business owners together to buy a piece of real estate so to do that right and to make a good investment you need good pre-development you need good do diligence you need to make sure that soil is not contaminated there's a lot of cash that go and you need technical assistance because you need somebody to do a do the math right and so all this work goes in and sometimes you can find out like that's not you should absolutely not buy that real estate like that is a terrible investment and it's really hard to say hey 15 neighbors you've all put in you know $3 or $4,000 and we just spent all that money down on due diligence and now we're done and so that is really unique with the money Lisk has some money and I tried to tell you I tried to do a brain dump in here of all the sources I know um and I'm sure you have sources that you can share with me too but the Nexus money the the Nexus money through the local fund can pay for this due diligence and technical assistance um there's money through Lisk which has been super helpful for me on a bunch of deals Eastside funders group has a pre-development fund and I'm sure there's other out there but I think funders need to know like sometimes the answer is going to be like like oh we spent all this predevelopment money and they are not moving forward with the project and that's the best answer right like that is the best deal and I just want to say on the back end of this philanthropy should also be and maybe other funders should be thinking about Asset Management like we're investing all you know this is kind of new like investing in real estate for philanthropy um and for the government and like how in 10 years from now we just do not want an environment where people are losing these buildings and we're like oops they screwed up like how are we continuing to make sure people have good asset management plans and a good plan for the future um just a few things on that maybe and I will um I will avoid my more radical personal opinions I'll try to avoid those in the Spain but I there's a few things when we think about like how do we get more money into the space how do we get more money there I think there's a couple of things to consider that are very important um one is that the money that is out there the you know wellestablished larger regulated banking institutions The Venture Capital funds the kinds of money that is out there that is looking to make money off of their money isn't necessarily the kind of money we want in this economy that we're creating and so there is an element of we have to make our own money and we have to use our own money to build a different kind of economy um I do not have any hopes that the large established banks are going to suddenly discover this as a great model for themselves and spend a lot of time in the space um and I think there are debates in our field about how we should pursue that or not and I think there are legitimate arguments on both sides um the place where I look and and part of the reason that I come to that is because when I look at the origins of shared Capital Cooperative 45 years ago in Minnesota and Wisconsin there were cooperatives that couldn't get Banks to lend them money and they said you know what we got to do it ourselves and they started investing in each other and we grew and grew and now we are a well-established cdfi lending fund that works nationally in providing Co-op money to other co-ops and that wouldn't have happened if it if we had started out with a Bank investment necessarily or a traditional Foundation investment of some sort that says go do this but be like the other lenders out there and so I do I I agree that we need to grow we need to find more money but I'm a little I bristle a little bit at we need to get the big Banks money we need to get the Venture VC money we need to get that kind of money into this world because there's a lot of cleaning up that would have to happen to use that money appropriately and the world that we work in as a cdfi is another maybe an example of that um cdfis can be incredible institutions and cdfis have changed how Community Development works in the United States over the last several decades and we we are a cdfi and we work in that world but until just a few years ago most of the cdfi world completely dismissed cooperatives um I would go to the small business Gathering of the cdfis 10 12 years ago when it was first starting out and would get just ignored and pushed out of the room when I brought up worker Cooperative ownership as an important part of Community Development and what happened is there's a handful of cdfis around the country that started with a different kind of nature groups like us and and like leaf and like a Cooperative fund of the Northeast and and groups like this that from their core saw lending differently and acted differently and we are seeing changes in the cdfi world there are more cdfis that are coming to this space and interested in and learning and that is wonderful but one of the reasons that cdfis are hesitant to spend more time in this space is because it is large banks that run their boards and their loan committees and if we can't we have to shift the dynamic of what is a good loan what is a good investment what is a good group of people to be putting our money into and until we do that I don't think we can simply take whatever money comes our way Mark that was that was wonderful thank you that that brings me to our last question which um I didn't prepare for anybody so it's a curveball um but what what trends do you see what is the work ahead of us to bring more Capital to uh make this part of the mainstream um and so anybody can can take that on um as you think about it well I would just offer that um you know more impact investors are interested in this space than ever before um to some of Mark's points I'm not sure that they're coming to it with uh their hearts necessarily in the right places but if we can get them in the tent you know we we can maybe turn a few of them around but uh that is something that we see uh more of there's a lot more impact Capital coming to the space you know I made the point earlier that you know part of the reason that uh that uh project Equity wanted to get into the capital space first in partnership with shared capital and then um on our our own in order to be able to make investments in some of the other regions where we were doing transitions was because of the lack of capital and now it's almost swung around where there was a point you know last year where I felt like there was too much money chasing just a handful of deals right so you know it's it's finding that sort of Harmony between the pipeline and deal flow but but I think the fact that that that certain capital is finding this space I think one of the the the the key issues for us is you know we have largely provided concessionary Capital uh when it's come to PRI and and and impact and I think when you have Capital investors that are a little bit more return Centric again per Mark's comments about who's coming to the table um that makes it a little bit more challenging so there's a lot of issues to be worked out but I think we have raised the profile enough of employee ownership seeing its viability and shown that it's investment great I think that employee owned companies probably fail at a far lower rate than other uh businesses so you know we have the we have the case for that support now and I think more investors are seeing it I think it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the type of financing that we're seeing is amable to the types of businesses we want to build I'll also add that thank you um having non-recourse dollars matters because you know it's already been brought up a bit about the way that we're thinking about risk and how cooperatives are commonly thought of as inherently more risky deals but in order to kind of help these models proliferate it's really important that we combine a lot of what you've heard today right so we're both thinking about who's at the decision-making table right underwriting these loans Des describing what types of um projects pass go and which ones do not um but it also in is an invitation for us to reimagine who's risk Ry why do we think they're risky what are we going to do about that because you know the the disparities and you know the injustices that we are still grappling with didn't come from nowhere so it's important that you know folks that are providing Capital that can be relent to these projects are really looking themselves in the mirrors and saying you know are we making investments in possibility are we making investment in taking a radically different direction from where we've been are we making Investments to repair the harm that has existed and continues to be perpetrated so there's a lot of things that need to have some real talk kind of conversations when we're thinking about the types of capital that is coming the the direction of shared ownership and what our ability to deploy that capital in a responsible manner means means that um that's a good way to open it up I think um to the audience if folks have questions we have a couple more minutes we have oh perfect timing we have 15 minutes um but want to hear from you all what you want to hear from these folks um what's coming up for you thanks Christina I planted someone in the audience well I find that we we we cannot invest enough in one awareness right like all of you in the room have learned probably a lot more about shared ownership then you came in learning and there's a lot of uh I'd call it um we we would call them we call them at project Equity the employee ownership myths right um my my my uh Workforce isn't interested in owning the business they wouldn't know how to run it and they don't have enough money to be able to buy it and so it never even becomes a matter of of of consideration right so you know that awareness for the what we refer to was the precons considerer the precons considerer uh business owner and we speak about business owners a lot of project Equity because we don't do startups you know we intentionally focus on businesses that are operating and cash flowing positively because we feel like that's a way that we can help workers build wealth pretty quickly right so we spend a lot of time trying to convince or trying to raise awareness among folks that either are business owners or business connectors the folks that have regular touch with with business owners like their CPA or their Banker that employee ownership worker ownership is viable so it's building that awareness but it's also the piece that comes after awareness is what we refer to as activation how is it that I actually can bring this forward to my client to my business partner to whoever it is in my circle how is it that I can like make this real for them right and so forums like this are important um the ability literally to raise awareness like to to you know we live in this country in a Marketplace of ideas and I dare say that no one knew what AI was 5 years ago and now everyone has some inkling of it positive or negative right it's really hard to get mind share in this country is my point and that's our one of our big challenges is how do we get the Mind share so that you know EO and AI are just as incumbent in people's heads right so it's it's an awareness thing Christina and and finding creative ways to be able to build that awareness but then the follow one piece to that is the activation like someone can know about you know these models but they might not know how to engage it and so we're doing a lot of work on that we can talk to you about it but that's the challenge and I also want to shout out to Minnesota CEO the center for employee ownership as a good activation and that awareness piece cuz you know this is a this is an easy space for all of us like we wouldn't be in the room if we didn't have like some modum of like interest like this this this works so how do you go into those Brave spaces where you're they're just going to look at you like you have no idea how hard it is to do all those things and then you create Pathways for opportunities and say it's doable it's done and those where the government actors can come into play the economic uh development organizations that help bring it in especially in Greater Minnesota where brain drain is a concern where their economic uh livelihoods might go away if that gray owner decides to to to vacate that space and so there are different value propositions that also emerge um that are different from uh the context of the opportunities I'll also share um both a governmental example and a Grassroots example um here in Minnesota the state had been spending five years looking at various types of initiatives to help interrupt both the care crisis and the workforce shortage crisis for direct care workers who are largely women immigrant people of color um and one of the reasons that there is a Workforce shortage crisis because direct care jobs tend to have chronically low wages High turnover right it's stressful there is low career kind of Mobility training opportunities no benefits Etc so like sounds like a really tough place to be right to take care of our elders and neighbors with disabilities but in um probably about 12 13 years ago The Cooperative development foundation partnered with the AA group which is one of the oldest organizations promoting employee ownership um to create the national Home Care initiative which was a really intentional strategy to bring 25 worker-owned co-ops to the Direct Care sector by 2025 so they had been not only working with like local uh Cooperative developers and um direct support kind of order organizations but they also um were publishing information about what they were doing right so like not only like resource guides for like here's how you can start thinking about taking your expertise in the field and imagining yourself as a worker owner um but they were doing these kind of convenings and sharing this information around the country and it found its way to Minnesota so as Minnesota was trying to think of what are we going to do to solve our problem here they came across that research and some Brave creative Soul said let's try this so when they were using their American Rescue plan dollars to set up Grant programs to help support the field and address this work Workforce shortage crisis that created four programs so one of them was like a retention bonus one of them was a training stipend and then one of them um did another thing that I can't recall but one of the the last one did the employee owner ERS ship Cooperative program so we went from having one worker-owned Cooperative in the Direct Care space to today we have six and that grant program created a channel for these folks that were already doing this work already knew the field in the industry to come together and have a boost right so they had some working capital funding and surely that's not all the capital needs that they will have but it got them started and what was cool about that program was that it was just posted on the Department of Human Services website right we did some info sessions there was some information available we were talking to Economic Development Partners we were talking to wherever the direct care workers might be so that's one way that like government can partner to help say like not only let us help create the pipeline but let's help resource it another cool thing that min can learn a bit from and all of us can put our heads together to think about how we might do this is I was having a conversation with some friends at the Cooperative fun of the Northeast and they had created an Innovative pilot program that they're tweaking ever so slightly the more that they learn about how this is working but they're partnering with local community embedded organizations that might have a wide variety of functions but the reason why that local embeddedness is super important is because when you're trying to start these Collective own ERS ship projects trust is important right who you know is important and whether or not you want to do things with them is important so if somebody that you know in community you work with on a lot of things says to you have you ever thought of this you might give it more thought right so we talked about business succession and transitions where you know you're talking to your accountants and other folks that are working with those business owners but like what about people that are experts in their field and their workers so what CFN did was they were partnering to train cohorts of developers that worked with these partner organizations that might be in a wide range of fields right to say what if you could do co-op development with the people that you serve in the network that ex exists already and when I heard that I was just like that is so cool say more keep me posted we love that you know but I think lifting up those types of examples of innovation in the ecosystem is really important I'll just add a little bit more to Christina's question that's where we started and um from the real estate side um so my background is in business district work like I work with small businesses um I have a I'm a planner I'm a planner I have a background in Economic Development and I would say from I graduated I graduated in 2010 and I would say since then I've heard hundreds of people that want to start own local they want to own buildings with their neighbors they want to take back like and not and be able to control like what's happening in their neighborhood and so I don't think there's a shortage of people that want to do this um I hear from people all the time and I'm sure all of you care about like what is happening on the corner by your house and what goes there and so the gap is that technical assistance piece right like how do we do this we want to do this how do we do it how do we do it and not waste or risk you know our neighbors money and then um and so we have great providers we have so many ta providers in the Twin Cities and um and that's that's working really well but then there's this other piece about Capital right so when you finance a real estate deal like it's just math it can work it usually does work um but you have to have a down payment and so I will say the City of Minneapolis has done this really well with the ownership and opportunity funds like that is lifechanging because that comes in um as equity for the deal for people trying to buy real estate it's for folks that have traditionally not been able to buy real estate and it really focuses on owner occupied real estate and so that's one thing that I want in St Paul but um and St Paul's doing a great job on the on the TA side with Nexus and on the pre-development side so um those two things if we can bring that all together I think that could really matter and you know what Evan was saying earlier about small businesses and this is the time where folks are selling this is what we're seeing in commercial real estate too we're seeing small businesses sell their building they've had all their Equity time in this building and this is like the next 5 years 10 years will be what our community is look look like well thank you this was a fantastic panel much better than what I dreamed of last night um um thank you everybody um we are at time and I see lunch has arrived so we can give everybody a round of applause thank you for sharing your knowledge and let's keep talking