A GLOBAL innovation
Transform Lives. Transform the Future.
Thriving businesses. Quality jobs. Dynamic communities.
Evergreen Cooperatives has become a global innovation model for creating more sustainable regional economies. Through our cooperative companies, local residents earn an ownership stake as they create flourishing businesses, while playing a transformational role in building vibrant neighborhoods.
Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Evergreen Cooperative Corporation (ECC) is a non-profit organization whose primary purpose is creating and sustaining living-wage jobs and uplifting disinvested communities through the development of employee-owned businesses. Evergreen remains committed to at least 80% majority employee ownership.
Successful Employee-Owned Businesses
Evergreen’s involvement goes beyond acquiring and converting existing businesses into employee-owned operations. Our continued support of the employee owners drives success. Converted businesses join a network of connected employee-owned cooperatives with access to practical shared resources.
Revitalized Neighborhoods
Employee-owned businesses anchor prosperity in the community by saving jobs and allowing employees to build individual wealth while revitalizing neighborhoods.
High-Quality Jobs
Evergreen’s sustainable companies offer high-quality jobs to their employee owners – creating opportunities for personal, financial and career success.
Evergreen's Fund for Employee Ownership
The Fund for Employee Ownership (TFEO) is a groundbreaking approach to use mission-driven capital to acquire small and medium-sized businesses, convert them to employee ownership and provide long-term support. The approach may seem simple, but the Evergreen Model is now proven to be powerful and effective.
The Fund provides solutions for retiring or exiting business owners. With employee ownership, you can exit your business knowing it’s in great hands – the hands of your employees.
ACQUIRE
We acquire great small-to-medium-sized businesses from exiting owners, preserving their legacy while sustaining jobs in the local communities.
Convert
We convert businesses we acquire to employee owned, providing existing employees an ownership stake in the company and profit-sharing opportunities.
Support
We support our converted businesses in the Evergreen network with access to future capital, employee ownership training and cooperative governance.
The History of Evergreen Cooperatives
Launched in 2008 by a working group of Cleveland-based institutions, Evergreen Cooperatives pioneered a unique approach to revitalize struggling neighborhoods through employee ownership.
This bold initiative keeps local small and mid-sized businesses in the community, offers living-wage jobs to the employee-owners, and helps transform disinvested neighborhoods into vibrant communities.
Evergreen News
In the News
See more news and blog articles on Evergreen Cooperative and its network of employee-owned cooperatives.
Evergreen Cooperatives’ Fund for Employee Ownership Acquires Manufacturer of Custom Wood Crates, LEFCO Worthington LLC
Evergreen Cooperatives, a nonprofit focused on revitalizing urban neighborhoods by preserving jobs that build middle-class wealth, has added to its growing portfolio of employee-owned businesses with the asset purchase of LEFCO Worthington LLC, an industry-leading manufacturer of engineered custom wood crates and heavy-duty skids for international shipping.
Read ArticleGreen City Growers acquired by Local Roots Cleveland
The Evergreen Cooperative Corporation (ECC) and Green City Growers (GCG) boards recently sold GCG to Local Roots Cleveland, a company headquartered in Fort Wayne, Ind. The GCG board, comprised of employee-owners and independent board consultants, voted to approve this transaction, and Local Roots Cleveland assumed ownership on May 19, 2022. Local Roots has offered jobs to all 12 GCG employees and expects to at least double the workforce by year-end.
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