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Sara --
I'm surprise no one has yet answered
your latest question (maybe they have privately). The model program is the
Ohio Employee Ownership Center. The only thing I'd add to the elements of
their program (see their website) would be a revolving loan fund to facilitate
employee ownership deals.
Don Jamison (at the nascent Vermont Employee Ownership Center
-- modelled, largely, on the Ohio Center)
One more
question:
Which state(s)
has/have the best EO program? The program that most closely matches a
model program. Which 'best practice' elements does the actual program
have and which elements are missing?
I think that Jim's point is key.
There has to be a point person who really knows what to do for any state
program to be successful. Even though MI hasn't had earmarked
funding for employee ownership for several years, the state still has a
working program because they have a guy who plays that role very
successfully.
In our original state legislation study, we
interviewed one guy in one state (which will appropriately remain
unnamed for the obvious reason) who we had been referred to as
responsible for implementing the program.
"Really?? We have an
employee ownership program? Well, that is a good thing to
have. I should find out more about it. Can you give me the
legislative citation please?"
At 07:38 AM 10/29/2001, you
wrote:
Sara-
I think the criteria you note
plus those John Logue added would be excellent guidelines for a
'quality' state program. I might add that the
identification of at least one individual who has expertise in this
area in state government would be a good idea. There are
various pieces of state legislation around which have never
materialized because no one has ever been given the specific
authority and support to implement a specific employee ownership
program.
Michigan has met all of those
criteria since its program inception in 1979.
Regards, Jim Houck
>>>
sara@cfed.org 10/23/01 10:27AM >>>
Hello,
I would
greatly appreciate any feedback on the following:
We are
working on a project at the Corporation for Enterprise
Development
(CFED) benchmarking outcomes and policies at the
state level that are
promoting asset building and asset
protection for state residents. Within
this "Assets
Report Card" we are including state policies that
promote
business capital as one set of asset building
strategies. Within business
capital, one of our measures
evaluates employee ownership programs at the
state
level.
In this measure, we want to make sure that the program
meets a certain
threshold, so that we aren't praising a state
that has an EO program that
isn't good, or effective.
From
reading John Logue's recent article, I picked these out as
requirements
for a quality EO state program:
-disseminates
info
-provides assistance with succession planning
-encourages
employee participation
Do you think this is a decent
standard, or do you have any suggestions on
what we should or
should not consider in determining a threshold for a
quality EO
program? The difficulty here is that we want to define
a
standard for a quality program, yet we don't want to overwhelm
state policymakers with requirements that seem impossible for
state
officials to consider.
The end result of our
project will be a set of criteria, where we can
"check"
or give credit to a state for having these elements in their
EO
program.
Suggestions on what you consider essential for
an effective EO program at
the state level would be greatly
appreciated.
Sincerely,
Sara Lawrence
Sara
Lawrence
Corporation for Enterprise Development
123 West Main
Street, 3rd Floor
Durham NC 27701
919.688.6444
http://www.cfed.org
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