Philanthropy and Investors
TFEO is a ground-breaking fund housed at the Evergreen Cooperative Development Fund.
A UNIQUE APPROACH
Support the Fund for Employee Ownership
The Fund creates quality jobs in employee-owned companies while generating value for investors, through sponsored employee-ownership buyouts. TFEO builds upon the success of the Evergreen Cooperatives, a national model that proved networked employee-owned businesses can succeed in the market while generating meaningful social impact and quality jobs.
Lessons learned in the first 10 years of the Evergreen initiative have been leveraged by TFEO as it takes a unique approach to creating employee-ownership impact. Our strategy to acquire, convert and support Evergreen’s cooperatives, preserves existing businesses in a manner that creates high-quality jobs and anchors wealth in the community.
TFEO Structure
TFEO pools impact capital to make equity and equity-like debt investments, helping finance the conversion of privately-held businesses to employee-owned Evergreen Cooperative Corporation portfolio companies, through an Acquire-Convert-Support (ACS) model.
This ACS strategy utilizes Evergreen Business Services’ (EBS) already existing business support infrastructure to raise investments; acquire existing firms; convert them to employee-owned, and then support them alongside the other Evergreen portfolio companies.
TFEO’s current portfolio criteria target northeast Ohio lower- to middle market service and manufacturing-sector firms. By leveraging smart business management and growth strategies provided by EBS, TFEO creates value for its investors, employees, and the community. The Fund for Employee Ownership regularly reports on impact metrics such as job preservation, community stabilization, living wages, and family wealth creation.
