South Mountain Company on Martha's Vineyard is widely recognized for its commitment to environmentally responsible design and construction. Its work includes beautiful high-performance buildings, clean energy production, deep energy retrofits, and affordable housing projects. But that's only part of a great story. As of recent reports, the company has approximately 36 full-time employees, one part-time employee, and five interns. Of these, about 22 are worker-owners, with others on the path to ownership.

In 2005, the company's CEO, John Abrams, published what many consider the definitive book on employee ownership: The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place. Now retired from his leadership role at South Mountain, Abrams has set his visionary sights on a new mission: encouraging other founders to use their ownership as a force for good. He's looking at the nearly three million U.S. companies whose owners are over the age of 55 that qualify as small businesses. By 2040, he predicts, a “silver tsunami” of baby boomer retirements could result in trillions of dollars in small business assets changing hands.

While some of these businesses will be passed on to family members or key employees, others will quietly shut their doors. Still others may be sold to strategic buyers or private equity firms. Abrams fears these companies may be absorbed, bundled, relocated, squeezed, carved up, and “sold for parts.” He’s concerned that their vital contributions to local communities could be lost as soulless management takes over—or as towns are left with empty storefronts.

So, he wrote this book. It’s a practical guide to transitioning businesses into worker cooperatives (co-ops), employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), employee ownership trusts (EOTs), or perpetual purpose trusts (PPTs). But more importantly, it's a compelling manifesto for reimagining business—transforming it from what it is into what it could be. Abrams' stories and resources leave the reader asking: Why settle for business as usual when you could help turn your business into a force for good?

""Small businesses can be living systems that work for all the right reasons: to make people’s lives more meaningful and satisfying, to spread wealth more equitably, to enhance democracy, to treat the planet and each other better, and to protect mission and purpose. Making work that matters. This book is about reshaping tomorrow’s workplace for both individual fulfillment and the common good. Business can be at the heart of the great civilizational shift that we need today.""

BOOK: From Founder to Future. A Business Road Map to Impact, Longevity, and Employee Ownership