um so my name is acam Kisa I'm with the Office of Financial Empowerment um and I'm excited to just see a diverse range of leaders partners and Visionaries who are committed to reshaping the future of our economy um and I really wanted to take a moment to start with a personal connection to today's theme of cooperation and shared ownership um as someone who grew up in Ethiopia and is from Ethiopia the concept of community and collaboration are embedded in my culture so there's a saying that we have that says when spider webs unite they can tie up a lion and this speaks values um volume to the incredible power of collective action uh no matter how great Challen the challenges are we come together as a community uh we can achieve incredible things um and so the idea of shared ownership is something that I think a lot of Us carry with us both whether through our culturally or just through like our passion that we grew with us along our journey and so that's why the work that's being done here in St Paul is aligned um for all of us um and so I want to start by acknowledging the incredible presence of our city leaders policy makers funders Cooperative developers financial institutions and the cross- sector organizations that are all here with us today um we're joined by our co-hosts uh the city of St Paul Nexus Community Partners project equity and living cities and I want to recognize all the other stakeholders that we have here today your efforts and commitment have really helped bring us to this key moment that we're in here in our city um so how did we get here the Journey of shared ownership in St Paul has been intentional and collaborative and guided by a vision of economic inclusion um and it started in 2019 when the mayor's office attended the government Equity conference in the Bay Area to really learn about what worker ownership was as that was something that came up in conversations previously um with mayor and Rapa and others um but that was really the moment that we took the time to like really dive in and learn what that was really all about uh and shortly after mayor spoke at the worker ownership and Community wealth building released at the mcnight foundation which was a catalyst for the city's ongoing commitment to this work that same year the Office of Financial Empowerment which started in 2019 was tasked with a multi- departmental workg group bringing together City departments to push the shared ownership strategy forward and in 2020 o Office of Financial Empowerment named worker and Community ownership as one of our top five priorities um casting a vision for inclusive economy where residents have both the voice and also an economic stake in their communities so um what does the office of financial artment do there's a number of things that we work on um and we the office plays a key role in promoting values of equity and inclusion across St Paul at its core our work is about helping residents connect to Financial Health Resources and also thinking about that long-term economic power we lead initiatives like our College savings account program which is called College Bound St Paul which launched in 2020 and it sets every child that's born in our city on the path to higher education and Career Training um and this year actually marks the first year that our oldest college round participants are entering prek which is incredible um that program and we also work on other things like our medical debt release program which helps alleviate burdens medical debt on families in St Paul uh fair housing and ctive protection strategies which helps um ensure that residents have access to stable housing and of course our shared ownership work which is kind of what brings us all here together today uh because we believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to participate in well building creating an instant Civic economy a key part of this journey has been the local tone which you'll get to hear more about um throughout the day today which emerged as a response to the disparities that were already existing within business and real estate ownership that were then intensified by the pandemic as you all remember yes the pandemic was a thing uh which is kind of crazy to think about now but the local fund consists of two Key Programs the community ownership and worker ownership programs and they're both designed to increase local ownership of businesses and properties in St Paul um and through those models we Empower community members by giving them an economic stake in their neighborhoods retain and grow business and jobs and also create resilient and Equitable economy that build well for all of our St Paul residents and as uh courtesy of definition of the Nexus Community Partners and we think about Community wealth building what is that it's rooted in the Val of equity rituality and stewardship and it's driven by the beliefs that economic systems must shift away from extractive Models towards ones that are regenerative and inclusive um that are inclusive for everybody in our community so where do we go from here this is just part of the conversation that you know will continue right it's not like we're all going to be here today and then we're going to move forward um the progress that we made is just beginning and today's Summit is a chance to build on the momentum to take both steps forward and and also ensure that the shared ownership becomes a Cornerstone of our City's economy and also Beyond thinking about our region so um our partnership with hard Equity has helped us analyze the business landscape and also explore policy opportunities that will allow us to scale initiatives like the local Fund in the future and support sh ownership overall and strategies around that um so there's work ahead of us but that's where every single one of you comes in um we all have a role that we can play um whether you're a policy maker a proper developer a funer or a community funder um all of our roles are really essential to uh helping us move forward so I encourage you all to remain engaged and involved as we continue as we continue to invite you to reach out make sure you're we responding um and also holding us you know at the city accountable to to making sure that we're able to like me this forward so thank you all for being here I look forward to all of the conversation bring this back innovations that will come out of this will um and thank you all for all of us our hosts and platters that made the summit possible uh next up I'm going to invite Raa and Evan to uh facilitate our next session thank you all uh I'm Evan Edwards uh I am the um CEO of project Equity um we are a leading organization in the field to create uh worker owned employee owned I use those terms interchangeably uh businesses across the country um and in addition to that work we also uh advance normalization of employee ownership worker ownership in the National economy right we want this to be a generative tool in business transactions across the country on a regular basis not something that just happens locally and is driven by small organizations in local communities but actually becomes part of regular business such that uh workers have ownership in businesses as a regular course of transactions um we are Oakland California founded and headquartered I happen to be based in Los Angeles and will'll acknowledge that as happy as I am to be here if this happened a month later you might have had to over Zoom in person I'm pretty thin blooded at this point school in Chicago right I'm I'm a thin-blooded guy now um uh before I uh uh get into my comments I just want to thank uh he's not here but uh mayor Carter um and the team at the city of St Paul May who my team works with very closely um I met mayor Carter a couple summers ago at the prosperity now conference and had 2hour conversation with him we were supposed to get together for about 25 30 minutes and um uh we just talked about wealth Gap and building local economy and building them from the the bottom up a term that you hear now in the presidential race all the time bottom up and the middle out um and um I really appreciated his recognition of uh worker ownership Cooper aives uh as being a tool for being able to bridge the yawning and growing unfortunately wealth Gap that we have in this country so I want to thank him I want to thank uh Rapa and the team at Nexus Community Partners Nexus was Project equity's very first partner in this field and uh we've learned a lot in collaboration with them um I think uh besid R Patty on the team who is Project Equity Alum um I want to thank also Jennifer Bryant uh from the project Equity team and uh there's a number of folks on the project Equity side who've been super uh super helpful also just since she's in the room I would also want to send a shout out to Christina and the team at chaired Capital Cooperative who were the uh financing engine for a number of the transactions that we do at project Equity but also uh co-ops uh nationally and we've learned a lot about how it is that we can Finance these deals and make them sustainable so thank you all um as you all know there is a significant wealth Gap in this country um at last analysis uh the upper 10% and I put upper in quotes the upper 10% holds 67% or more of national wealth and anyone who studies economics knows that that that's not sustainable right at a certain level if folks don't have the means of being able to have a sustainable lifestyle they can't buy goods and services and your economy is going to collapse and so it's not just a matter of uh Equity Equity is important and we lead with that but it's a matter of sustainable having a sustainable economy having a just economy right that we have uh workforces have equity and ownership in businesses and in real estate and in any other assets right but I'm here to talk about employee ownership in particular uh we're at an inflection point in our economy where again the vast majority of small and Middle Market businesses with workers so with employees uh are owned by baby wers right and you've probably heard of this referred to as the Silver sonami and the next 10ish years most of these folks are going to retire and what happens when they retire unfortunately is about two-thirds of their businesses end up closing right it used to be say 20 out 25 years ago that um most businesses transitioned within families I think the exact statistic is around 2000 year 2000 um 50% of businesses 40 to 50% of businesses transitioned in families now that's only about 15% right I talk to small business owners all the time and they say well you know my kid wants to choose another profession or vocation they want to build apps they want to do any one of another things and and you know that's that's their prerogative but you know often times their family owns are really viable business that you know makes good money and uh could be it's an important part of their community and economy um of these retiring uh business owners only about 20% of them will actually sell their business right so you've got 15% now that transition in families 20% that that that actually sell when listed with a broker or listed on a platform like Biz by C that's 35% that means you've got 65% 23 of small businesses that end up closing and we've got that data that backs this up so what happens when that happens well you lose jobs and folks who work in those small businesses lose their incomes communities lose V vital parts of their economies and by the way those business owners who have seeing their small business as a paycheck for years they they they lose a retirement asset so again I go back to the pragmatic need for more worker ownership and employee ownership right because it serves workers it serves local economies and communities and it serves those retiring business owners um right now we are doing our gnice to see to it that more communities uh like the Twin Cities are engaging in employee ownership initiative is that the signal that my voice isn't caring enough uh so we formed Partnerships across the country um with the ideal that we will embed this work uh in local economies and we'd like to see to it that you know organizations like project e and Nexus can get the ball rolling but it's incumbent upon all of you who operate within the local business ecosystem to see that this work becomes a part of the local fabric right so that means lenders that means other Community Partners that means CPAs and the folks that work directly with business owners have to become fluent with understanding the power of this work um so with that that I'm hope today that you all leave understanding more about the power worker ownership and the opportunities that it presents that it is an important Equity strategy for marginalized communities but that it's also really important for the sustainability of the the economy on the whole and to speak more to the power of it as relates to the Twin Cities I'm going to turn it over to Rapa now thank you very much for your time good morning do I need this who said maybe uh May the ancestors gu my words my thoughts my deeds and my direction uh my name is Rapa MAA I serve as Nexus Community Partners uh founding president and CEO um and want to send out to all of you a thick thick welcome for being here this morning um and spending time with us and with each other um just a a a brief a brief uh story I have to tell this morning I um I got the information um for the event don't laugh I got the in uh information for the event early on so it had content around what we'd be covering and so forth but it had the original address that we had chosen which was the Ordway performing the uh Center for Performing Arts and so I show up there right and I'm walking around and not only are the doors locked but there's these huge red kind of double locks on the door so I'm saying ah I don't know if folks moving through this in the way that right then I said you know and it ain't April so I know that a what's going on maybe I'm being pranked right so then I start looking for cameras right and I don't see cameras so then I say I said I'll call Christina and Patty and Benjamin and of course they have their phones turned down because they're in space with you all then I really start to think something fishy is going on around here right um come to come to find out Benjamin called me back and said you know well it's actually um I'm in a different location and so I Spar over here as fast as I could um I just wanted to take a moment and um at the end of the day when when when this Summit is done and we move on the work happens on the ground it happens here and so context matters right where we're at matters and so I just wanted to just touch on that a little bit um and and speak to kind of what I think is three kind of converging energies that are happening um in our space um the the the first is I look around the room and I remember back about 10 years ago we did a convening of folks who are in The Cooperative space um really to kind of get an assessment of what's present and what's not and what might be strategies for moving forward that space wasn't this big and so one of the things that I just lift up is the fact that we've learned whether by choice or by chance that nobody does this work alone that it takes an ecosystem of folks working across areas whether it's uh uh capital resources uh worker Cooperative development and and that's whether start startups or conversions um real estate investment that it takes that kind of multi-layer multi-lane approach in order to create real sustainable change and I find us in more spaces like this together than not now as a relative to 10 years ago so it's it's refreshing to see that we are finding our way together and finding ways to link our work together I don't think it's possible to move forward in any kind of sustainable kind of way with without doing that the second stream that I think that parallels that that exist in the Twin Cities and I've seen it in the Twin Cities is is in other places but I've never seen it in places like in the Twin Cities that there's a movement of foot on the ground that as you move around neighborhoods and and communities you hear this harm and that harm is a harm of recognizing that Cooperative economics and Collective care has always been a part of the way the communities have taken care of themselves right and that there is a and that there's a very deliberate reach an intentional reach backwards and forward to reclaim that practice to reclaim that value as a guiding as a Guiding Light moving forward um and they are calling on us to reflect to reach back as we go forward and to recognize that all that we are doing is not new that it is anchored in some tradition and history that has been there before anybody in this room right and that folks are not only seeing um uh worker ownership shared ownership models Community wealth building as ways to advance work but as building blocks for Liberation for folks being able to set the course of self-determination in ways that they've longed for in a long time and so so yes is an economic development strategy yes it strengthens economies but it also delivers to people their own labor and it allows people to reclaim themselves in the process of building Community right the Third Kind of uh energy and flow that is planing itself out is that we are operating in a city in a region that has fully embraced wealth building as a strategy for Strong building strong economies and so you heard some of what rram said about the the city of St Paul in its commitment um I remember in 2017 when when rram and the mayor and I had just had a conversation over coffee and and the and the idea stuck and seeded and the commitment that he's demonstrated in the city and their staff has demonstrated to stick this over time and not losing track on shiny things and thinking about it in the context of other strategies that they're engaged in has demonstrated that they see it as a critical part of their work right um and not only have they done that and at the city level we have and you can you all know we have uh as other anchor Partners foundations that see this as a viable strategy for Shifting the landscape and not just temporary solutions to T to situations that folks have been dealing with for a long time um that these pieces are coming together in our region in ways that I've just not seen um and I've seen I've seen anchor institutions do the work I've seen organizations organiz organized I've not seen Community run up the middle I've not seen a balancing of both of those components by community in other places as it as I've seen it here and so I say to you this morning that um you have what you need to do this work it really is about how do we fuel it and guide it going forward and this Summit lives in that context this Summit is not just an event for Learning and sharing and and and and getting to know each other a little bit better it is a higher call for us to rise higher and to reach further and so I hope that you dig in I hope you lean in I hope you have fun um I hope your your head hurts a little bit you know um but in a good way um and I look forward to being with you during the day thank you