From Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (MI): Did you know that our staff will own 50% of the Zingerman’s brand by 2032? This is happening through what we call community shares, or owning a piece of the company. As Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig told Detroit News: “When the companies get sold … the owner tends to get a lot of money, but then it destroys the culture and it destroys the community.” In other words, community shares help sustain some of the most important things employees have built over the years.
As AMIBA approaches its twenty-fifth year, we have added a new section to our newsletter celebrating the entrepreneurs who created legacy businesses. These long-standing enterprises strengthened their own communities while feeding the entire local economy movement.
