BROAD-BASED EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
Broad-Based Employee Ownership
Empowering Businesses, Employees, and Communities
Employee ownership is a proven strategy that benefits everyone. By transitioning your business to employee ownership, you can sell on your terms, preserve your legacy, and build a stronger, more resilient company.
This model creates shared prosperity—driving growth, deepening employee engagement, and keeping wealth rooted in local communities for generations to come.
Sell On Your Terms
Exit with Confidence. Preserve Your Legacy.
You’ve worked hard to build your business. When it’s time to move on, you deserve a transition that reflects that dedication—providing fair market value, honoring your legacy, and securing your company’s future.
Employee ownership offers a flexible, competitive way to sell your business on your terms. It allows you to choose your timeline, maintain involvement if desired, and take advantage of unique tax benefits for both you and your employees.
By transitioning to employee ownership, you protect jobs, strengthen your company, and ensure that what you built continues to thrive—in the hands of those who helped make it successful.
Optimize Operations
Empower Your Team, Elevate Your Business
When employees have a meaningful ownership stake, they show up differently. They think like owners, take initiative, and work together to improve efficiency, quality, and results.
An ownership mindset creates a culture of accountability, pride, and innovation, leading to smarter decisions and stronger performance.
By aligning company success with employee success, ownership drives engagement from the ground up, making your business more competitive and resilient.
Keep Businesses Local
Build Community Wealth. Strengthen Illinois.
When ownership stays local, so do jobs, profits, and opportunity. Employee-owned companies reinvest in their people and communities—keeping businesses rooted where they started and fueling long-term economic stability.
Employee ownership helps prevent closures and outside buyouts by creating a sustainable path forward for small and mid-sized businesses. The result: thriving local economies, stronger families, and communities that grow together.
The Pathway to Employee Ownership
Your journey, your terms—ILCEO is here to guide you.
Transitioning to employee ownership doesn’t happen overnight, but with the right guidance,
it can be a smooth and rewarding process.
If you’re exploring options for a future exit, looking to increase employee engagement,
or building a new employee-owned business from the ground up, ILCEO is here to help you take the next step with confidence.
Our process is flexible, practical, and customized to your goals. We’ll guide you from the first questions to the final handshake, connecting you with trusted experts along the way.
Consultation
Understand Your Options. Explore the Possibilities.
Not sure where to begin? That’s where we come in.
The Illinois Center for Employee Ownership (ILCEO) offers free, unbiased guidance to help you explore the benefits of employee ownership. We’ll walk you through every option—from Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and Worker Cooperatives to Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs)—so you can make an informed decision that fits your goals, values, and vision for the future.
Feasibility
Assess Your Readiness. Find the Right Path Forward.
Every business is unique, and so is the path to employee ownership. ILCEO helps you evaluate your company’s readiness for transition—reviewing your financial position, leadership goals, and succession timeline.
Together, we’ll identify which ownership model best supports your business, your employees, and your long-term objectives.
Transition
Design the Deal. Secure Your Legacy.
Once you’re ready to move forward, ILCEO connects you with trusted legal, financial, and transaction experts who specialize in employee ownership.
We’ll help you structure a deal that meets your financial goals, ensures a smooth handoff, and preserves your company’s mission and culture. Throughout the process, you stay in control—while setting your business, employees, and legacy up for long-term success.
Consultation
Understand Your Options. Explore the Possibilities.
Not sure where to begin? That’s where we come in.
The Illinois Center for Employee Ownership (ILCEO) offers free, unbiased guidance to help you explore the benefits of employee ownership. We’ll walk you through every option—from Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and Worker Cooperatives to Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs)—so you can make an informed decision that fits your goals, values, and vision for the future.
Feasibility
Assess Your Readiness. Find the Right Path Forward.
Every business is unique, and so is the path to employee ownership. ILCEO helps you evaluate your company’s readiness for transition—reviewing your financial position, leadership goals, and succession timeline.
Together, we’ll identify which ownership model best supports your business, your employees, and your long-term objectives.
Transition
Design the Deal. Secure Your Legacy.
Once you’re ready to move forward, ILCEO connects you with trusted legal, financial, and transaction experts who specialize in employee ownership.
We’ll help you structure a deal that meets your financial goals, ensures a smooth handoff, and preserves your company’s mission and culture. Throughout the process, you stay in control—while setting your business, employees, and legacy up for long-term success.
Sign Up for
Our Mailing List
We’re on a mission to preserve jobs and community wealth through employee ownership.
Privacy Policy © 2025 ILCEO All Rights Reserved.
Illinois Center for Employee Ownership