Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB), has been a local food pioneer since it first opened its doors as a small delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan over four decades ago. Now, ZCoB currently collectively employs 750 Michiganders, and has annual sales of $78 million. The network has a dozen distinct locally owned companies unified under the common brand identity of the “ZingTrain”. ZCoB’s story illustrates how local businesses can scale and become highly profitable without sacrificing their local roots. The company is breaking new ground again by establishing a Perpetual Purpose Trust (PPT) to benefit its employees.

A Perpetual Purpose Trust is a relatively straightforward idea – protect a company’s identity and intellectual property by putting all the shares into an entity that cannot be sold, merged, or sold out. It can also help with succession planning. Our lead story describes how and why ZCoB is deploying a PPT strategy to put all of its intellectual property into a new entity that over time will be owned by its employees. Within 20 years, the company expects that more than half of the profits generated by the intellectual property will be paid to employees.

Successful local business people across the country… take note! The Perpetual Purpose Trust enables you to keep your company on mission while you gradually cash out with a good retirement. ZCoB isn’t the only one. Patagonia has done the same thing too!

Also in this issue you will find four other great stories: a podcast about how employees of a landscaping business in El Paso, Texas are about to buy out the company thanks to financing from Apis & Heritage Capital Partners; how Organic Farm Partners is inviting accredited investors to help farmers convert to more profitable organic crops; how the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union has developed a “bank on wheels” to bring basic services to distant parts of the Bronx; and how 17 families in Madrid collaborated to create a co-housing community for themselves.

All told, the State of the Local Investment Movement is strong!

– Michael Shuman, Publisher, The Main Street Journal

• A Perpetual Purpose Trust For Intellectual Property, Zingerman’s (February 2023)

• Where The Employees Bought The Landscaping Business, Next City (February 3)

• Organic Farm Partners To Make Organic Farms Available As Fractional Investments, Cision (January 31)

• A Mobile Bank On Wheels Reaches Bronx Residents Where They Are, Next City (January 24)

• Entrepatios: Cooperative Housing Thrives In Spain, Shareable (February 1)

• Black Congregations Are Developing Housing On Church Land, Shelterforce (January 17)

• Repair Of Redlining For Economic Justice, Neighborhood Economics (January 18)

• Cutting Edge Awarded City of Chicago Community Wealth Building and Technical Assistance Grant, Cutting Edge Capital (January 24)

• Remaking the Economy: Black Food Sovereignty, Community Stories, Nonprofit Quarterly (January 26)

• Impact Investing Symposium At Washington University In St. Louis – Symposium. Friday, February 24, 2023. Mission Driven Finance’s Chief Investment Officer Louie Nguyen will be speaking to help investors and other stakeholders understand the impact that their businesses have in the community and the environment. Register here.

• Connecting Capital To Neighborhoods That Don’t Normally Get It – In-Person Conference (Jackson, Mississippi). April 24-26, 2023. Jackson, with its 80% Black population, in the poorest state in the nation, provides a clear example of the racial wealth gap. The tools that Neighborhood Economics is identifying can be deployed in Mississippi to repair the damage caused by the connection between race and poverty. This event will bring together investors, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, problem-solvers, and people of faith in a city that needs them all.

• 11th International Public Markets Conference – In-Person Conference (Toronto, Canada). June 8-10, 2023. For over 35 years, the International Public Markets Conference has brought together visionary market managers, community advocates, and civic leaders to explore the changing forces that are shaping public markets today.

• Total Impact Summit 2023: Investing for People, Planet, and Place – In-Person Conference (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). May 1-2,