One goal for a lot of social entrepreneurs is for business ownership to be held by as many people as possible.
But that’s tricky for many reasons. Take the matter of financing. Funding inclusive models, as they’re called, is different from financing the usual suspects, that is, companies owned by the few that aim to maximize financial returns only.
“It’s not necessarily harder, but it seems harder, because it’s different,” says Majorie Kelly, executive vice president and senior fellow at The Democracy Collaborative. In other words, funders need a greater comfort level with these models before they dole out the money.
With that in mind, Democracy Collaborative recently published a report examining a variety of ownership models and ways to finance them. Here’s a look at a few, along with some innovative financing approaches...