Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2021
The Netherlands
STICHTING WE ARE STEWARDS
The goal of Stichting We Are Stewards is to grow and foster the use of steward-ownership in the Netherlands. We empower companies, entrepreneurs and investors to maximize their impact with steward-ownership and contribute to a fair and sustainable economy.
PART OF A MOVEMENT
We Are Stewards is part of the broader Purpose Network that spreads the word about steward-ownership, pursues activities in steward-ownership aligned financing or directly helps companies to transition.
Central to our role is building an ecosystem for steward-ownership. In an ecosystem, investors, business and legal advisors are aware of the concept of steward-ownership and can support companies to transition to steward-ownership and successfully operate and scale as a steward-owned company. To be able to do so and stimulate the adoption of steward-ownership, we’ve been working with our small team to make steward-ownership more visible, easy to understand and attractive. Since 2020 we’ve developed content such as whitepapers, podcasts, online courses, articles and a book around steward-ownership. With our small team of advisors we’ve helped dozens of companies ranging from startups to family businesses transition to steward-ownership. In the past 3 years, we’ve seen the ecosystem grow and mature.
It’s great to see that We Are Stewards is scaling up steward-ownership in the Netherlands. - Willemijn Verloop, (co)founder of Rubio Impact Ventures and Social Enterprise NL
CHALLENGES TODAY
Although some Dutch pioneers like TBI, Odin Foodcoop, Berenschot, The Shore, Efteling and Time to Momo (find an overview of Dutch companies here) have found a way (independently or with our help) to implement steward-ownership, the path is not without obstacles. In the Netherlands steward-ownership is not a standard legal form that you can register with the Chamber of Commerce when you start a company. Also: alternative forms of ownership are not yet taught in most universities and business incubators and accelerators, although this is changing rapidly.
ACTIVITIES
- Build and lead a movement to make steward-ownership mainstream. To be able to do so and stimulate the adoption of steward-ownership, we will work on making steward-ownership more visible, easy to understand and attractive. We create more understanding about what steward-ownership is, how it works and why it’s so powerful.
- Build an ecosystem and share knowledge as well as tools. We partner up with other non-profits, for-profits and existing steward-owned companies. Important partners include incubators, accelerators, venture builders and other business support organizations that want to integrate steward-ownership into their program. We provide helpful tools such as blueprints and we train fiscal, judicial and notarial professionals to be able to advice companies in their steward-ownership journey. We also support (impact) investors to explore steward-ownership and integrate steward-owned investing in their models, taking away a main hurdle for companies to transition. We Are Stewards is active in the research field as well: we have a coordinating as well as a knowledge-sharing role in PhD and other academic and practical research projects. Finally, we are involved in advocacy work on a national level in order to address current policy barriers.
- Support pioneers to explore and transition to steward-ownership. We Are Stewards supports the pioneers pre- and post-transition, in creating the structures and solutions to challenges they encounter to serve the long-term orientation and positive impact of their companies.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR WORK
2023 | Book release ‘TOEKOMSTBEDRIJVEN’, Atlas Business Contact. https://www.atlascontact.nl/boek/toekomstbedrijven/
2023 | The scientific bureaus of the three largest progressive parties (the labour- the green and the progressive democrats party) issue a manifest that calls steward-ownership ‘promising’ and calls it an ‘organisation model that is very suitable for impact businesses’. https://d66.nl/vanmierlostichting/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/10/VanWinstNaarWaarde.pdf
2023 | Whitepaper ‘Steward-ownership: Ondernemingsvorm voor bedrijven van de toekomst’ https://wearestewards.nl/downloads/Introductie%20steward-ownership%20en%20modellen.pdf
2021 | Eigendom Anders: first alternative ownership conference in The Netherlands, together with partners Economy Transformers, DIIF and Iona Foundation
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