Generating $20 billion for workers by 2030.
Ownership Works is well on the way to achieving our 2030 goal of generating $20 billion in wealth for workers outside of the C-suite and creating hundreds of thousands of new employee-owners.
To meet this target, we are fueling a movement and providing hands-on guidance to help businesses implement broad-based employee ownership programs that provide every employee with the opportunity to become an owner who shares in the value they help create.
Since our founding, we've made significant progress.
167
Companies with shared ownership
$1.3 Billion
Wealth paid out to ~41K employees outside the C-suite via shared ownership program liquidity events to date
>$10 Billion ¹
Projected future payouts to ~230K workers2 outside the C-suite via shared ownership programs still underway
Click to see citations.
- This figure reflects projected wealth from equity allocated to workers outside the C-suite. It includes only a subset of the companies with shared ownership programs, as O.W. is still collecting projected wealth data from all our partners. Given the variability in equity value and workforce headcounts over time, projected average wealth per employee should not be inferred.
- Employee counts for "Wealth shared to date" (41K) and "Projected wealth shared" (230K) should not be summed. Roughly 18K employees appear in both groups, as they have already received dividends and are also expected to receive future exit-related payouts. As a result, summing these two figures would double-count the overlapping employees.
Impact Report
We are excited to share our 2025 Impact Report, a celebration of the growing momentum behind broad-based employee ownership.
2025 Impact Report
This report reflects the remarkable progress achieved through the shared ownership movement since Ownership Works’ founding, highlighting both the wealth created and the lives impacted through this work.
Download the print-friendly version of the 2025 Impact Report.
Download our 2024 Impact Report.
Download our inaugural 2023 Impact Report.
Helping all workers build wealth at work.
Broad-based employee ownership programs help all workers build wealth at work.
Among the companies with shared ownership programs, we have celebrated 32 liquidity events (exits, dividends, and interim payments), resulting in $1.3 billion in payouts to 41,784 workers outside the C-suite. To understand how shared ownership specifically helps those historically excluded from wealth-building opportunities, Ownership Works collects demographic data on payouts where possible. We aim to collect as much data as possible, but accessibility is sometimes limited due to company privacy policies and country-level restrictions. As a result, while our demographic impact figures provide valuable insight, they are conservative estimates that understate the breadth of our impact to date.
71% of employee-owners were low- and moderate-income 3
We have income-level data for 18 out of the 32 liquidity events to date. Out of this data set, 71% of employee-owners were low- and moderate-income workers, who received $506 million of wealth shared from this subset of liquidity events.
36% of employee-owners were people of color 4
We have racial demographic data for 14 out of the 32 liquidity events to date. Out of this data set, 36% of employee-owners were workers of color, who received $253 million of the wealth shared from this subset of liquidity events.
Click to see citations.
- Ownership Works defines low- to moderate-income (LMI) workers as individuals earning ≤ 250% of the national median individual (NMI) income, or $116,562.50 in the United States. Ownership Works uses this definition instead of the federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) definition of LMI for two reasons: (1) based on research on the true cost of living for American families, we have determined that 250% of the NMI more accurately captures the breadth of families who struggle to cover household expenses and save, and (2) we receive anonymized individual income data without Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as home addresses, making it impossible to apply household level income thresholds used by the CRA.
- The term “people of color” refers to employees who identify as Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, two or more races, or Other. Because some foreign jurisdictions prohibit the collection of employee demographic data, O.W. only collects this data within the United States.
We need your support.
We’re expanding our consortium of partners. To learn more about the role your firm can play, visit our Partners page.
As a nonprofit, we are supported by charitable contributions. If you are ready to support our work with a donation, please visit our Support page.
Join the Movement
Whether you are an executive, a shareholder, a legislator, an hourly employee, a Board member or a member of the public, the shared ownership movement needs your voice.