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Transform Finance is a research, education, and implementation partner that supports all stakeholders to challenge legacy investment approaches, seed transformative investment models, and build movement power.
There are several funds projects that seek to pool money from various capital sources and have grassroots stakeholders – like residents or key community organizations – steward those resources towards approved businesses. The goal of such projects is to fill capital gaps for enterprises that the community decides are important, and to build the capacity of residents and key community organizations to decide their economic destiny.
The Boston Ujima Project is a core example of such a capital fund, which practices direct democracy by its member-investors at a one investment, one vote ratio.
Many communities seek to gain control over land and stave off predatory housing market investors through PI. This can be done through pools of capital dedicated to purchasing land and taking it off the market, like the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative.
Like enterprise financing funds, these projects establish community governance in how the capital is deployed, including residents, tenants, grassroots organizations, and other nontraditional stakeholders.
Several different types of PI projects turn real estate development into opportunities for long term wealth preservation and community autonomy. Trust-based models, like the Kensington Corridor Trust, preserve land for the long term by taking buildings or entire blocks off the speculative market, placing the rights to its use in the hands of community leaders, and serving as a capital vehicle that can reinvest rental revenue into adding new properties to the trust.
Single-project development models, like Market Creek Plaza, establish community working groups to determine the use and goal of the development (and often provide ownership stakes through community investment shares).
Traditional community development vehicles like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and Community Development Corporations (CDCs) can utilize governance models that constitute GCEI.
For example, Thunder Valley CDC represents a Native-led development organization serving the Oglala Lakota Tribe’s Pine Ridge Reservation, capitalizing housing and commercial developments as well as a wide range of community projects. The governance structure is based on its community-led board and its founding by activists in the community.
Alternative Ownership Enterprises (AOEs) are firms that significantly shift economic value and decision-making power toward the non-investor stakeholders they impact, such as workers, producers, consumers, community members, or even a non-financial purpose.
Now, we are supporting investors to deploy capital into the ecosystem of intermediaries and deals. Join us in documenting best practices for AOEs and in unlocking more capital for this field.
Learn moreEntrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA) is a fast-growing field in which entrepreneurs buy established businesses, often with backing from investors. The model is appealing: it can deliver strong returns for investors while keeping vital local businesses alive as retiring owners step away. But ETA wasn’t built with impact in mind. Too often, it remains accessible only to insiders, can push entrepreneurs to prioritize financial returns over long-term value, and introduce risks to workers, customers, and communities.
Social ETA (sETA) reimagines ETA through a transformative lens, aligning this approach with impact goals across four dimensions: 1) expanding access for more diverse entrepreneurs, 2) growing employee ownership, 3) embedding better operational practices, and 4) anchoring businesses in their communities.
This report offers both a primer on ETA and an invitation to build the sETA field together.
