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Governance and Shared Ownership

The Defiant’s Exclusive Report: Solving the Riddle of the DAO with Colorado’s Cooperative Laws by Jacqueline Radebaugh and Yev Muchnik

Our Partner and Shareholder, Jacqueline Radebaugh and Senior of Counsel, Yev Muchnik recently wrote this Exclusive Report: Solving the Riddle of the DAO with Colorado’s Cooperative Laws for The Defiant in which they reflect their legal analysis and anecdotal experience with DAOs adopting the LCA cooperative legal framework in the United States; as with other …

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Patagonia “Exits to Climate”: A Win for Capitalism, But a Mixed Bag for Stakeholder Governance

I, like most, was delighted to read the news that Patagonia’s shareholders decided to give away ownership of the company to benefit the climate and not private equity, a strategic buyer, or public capital markets. We’ve written extensively on mechanisms for mission protection in corporate entities.   It appears that the Chouinard family, which owned …

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Patrons, Patronizing, Patronage Dividend

These are all terms used in the cooperative business community and sometimes their meanings are unclear or jumbled.  This blog will discuss the definitions of these terms with examples of how they are used by different types of cooperatives. A patron patronizes a cooperative and receives a patronage dividend at the end of the year.  …

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How patronage is really paid out to cooperative members: qualified and nonqualified written notice of allocations (2/2)

Patronage dividends represent a unique opportunity for cooperatives to avoid taxation on some of the cooperative’s earnings.[1] Early this month I highlighted the concept of patronage dividends. Generally, when members receive taxable distributions of earnings from a cooperative, such as patronage dividends, they are included in the patrons’ gross income along with other income the …

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Thoughts from a new economies’ attorney: distinguishing cooperative governing structure

In my previous posts, I discuss how traditional businesses and cooperatives diverge from a capital (and return on capital) point-of-view. Another common misconception is that cooperatives function like nonprofits, typically from the perspective of governance structure. They don’t. Cooperatives are businesses, and, as such, business principles and governance, and business governing structure apply to them. …

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Thoughts from a new economies’ attorney: patterns that create different kinds of (business) ownership – traditional capital investment

If you are reading this post, chances are you are an innovator, you are looking for guidance on alternative business forms, you run or are part of a mission-driven organization, you are considering adopting democratic governance models in your business or nonprofit, or some combination of those. I have to alert you that this is …

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