The California Worker Ownership Funder Learning Community: Launch Convening

Community ownership builds agency and control over the places where we live, the businesses where we work, and the wealth those assets generate. It takes many forms, including the ownership of land, housing, commercial real estate, energy, capital, and businesses. Pervasive economic precarity and extreme wealth inequality make every form of community ownership urgent. This group takes a deep dive into one of them: the ownership of a business by the people whose labor creates its value.

Funders come to worker ownership through many doors—job quality, business succession, small business, immigrant entrepreneurship, regional economic mobility, opening a path for workers structurally excluded from wealth, and more. Wherever you entered, the moves that would accelerate this field are beyond what any one funder can do alone. Together, they are possible.

Many of us have funded pieces of this work. Fewer of us have had the chance to step back and ask where this field is going statewide, what it would take to get there, and what we might build toward together. That is the conversation this community makes room for, and we want funders from every part of California in it.

This community is for funders who want to learn in order to act—shared learning in service of commitments still to be made. October 22 is where it starts.

What we will do together

• Get grounded in the landscape. An overview of worker ownership in California: what the data tells us about how many businesses and workers are involved, where they are concentrated, and which sectors are converting. We will also be candid about what the data does not yet tell us. The gaps are part of what the field needs funders to see.
• Meet the community. Hear which doors brought others here, and what each of us is trying to figure out.
• Shape the year. We will preview the 2027 sessions and ask what you most need to learn. What you say will shape the agenda.

Come with a question you cannot yet answer inside your own institution.

Who should attend

Foundation and philanthropic staff at an institution that makes grants or investments in California. Any level of familiarity with worker ownership is welcome, and no existing ownership portfolio is expected—only curiosity and a willingness to move. We encourage multiple representatives in various roles.

What comes next

The launch opens a first year of shared learning running through spring 2027. We start with data and research because a shared picture of the landscape is what makes every later conversation possible. From there: an in-person working session in the Bay Area in January on technical assistance and field development, then monthly virtual sessions on the third Wednesday in February, March, and April, taking up capital and financing, narrative and awareness building, and policy and advocacy.

You can come to the launch without committing to the year. By the close of the year, we will ask where you want to act together.

Practical details

Convened by Asset Funders Network with support from California Wellness Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, and Sobrato Philanthropies

Questions? Contact Rebeca Rangel at rebeca@assetfunders.org.

Registration to open soon.  Please complete this form if you would like to be notified when registration opens.