We Built the EO Market Map. Here’s What It Reveals and Why It Matters

This Space Has Been Invisible

If you’ve ever tried to map the employee ownership ecosystem, you know it’s a scavenger hunt. A spreadsheet from a co-op conference. A webinar link buried in a newsletter. A PDF that hasn’t been updated in five years. The field is brilliant, but no central field to stand in.

Despite its potential to drive resilient small business transitions and equitable wealth-building, employee ownership still lacks the digital infrastructure to reflect its maturity.

That’s a problem. Because every day, small business owners are making exit decisions in a vacuum — not out of neglect, but because they simply don’t know who’s out there.

So we built a solution: The Grid — and now, the EO Market Map. It’s the first public, clickable, structured visualization of who’s shaping the field.

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The EO Market Map: A New Lens on Leadership

The EO Market Map is Zolidar’s high-resolution snapshot of the organizations advancing employee ownership across the U.S. It highlights the firms, advisors, capital providers, field builders, policy catalysts, and educators leading the charge.

Grouped by sub-specialty, the map includes:

• ESOP and succession planning advisors helping owners explore ownership transitions
• Co-op and EOT developers supporting worker ownership conversions and trust models
• EO capital providers, including banks, CDFIs, and aligned funds, funding people-first deals
• Policy and advocacy organizations shaping legislation and public-sector momentum
• Digital platforms and training organizations scaling awareness and access to EO tools

Each organization is visible not just as a name, but as a node in a living ecosystem, with a direct link into The Grid, where people and conversations live.

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Why It Matters

We don’t need to convince anyone that employee ownership works. Study after study confirms it builds wealth, improves retention, and keeps jobs local.

The problem is that many of the key actors — from co-op developers to ESOP trustees — remain invisible to those who need them most.

According to the Exit Planning Institute, 75% of business owners are unaware of employee ownership as an exit strategy.

Those who are aware often lack a clear way to find the right advisors or capital partners to explore it.

When EO advisors and funders aren’t discoverable, founders default to private equity. Or worse, they walk away from succession entirely.

The EO Market Map helps change that. It brings visibility and credibility to the space, and invites founders, advisors, and ecosystem partners into a clearer landscape.

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What We’ve Seen So Far

In building the EO Market Map, we saw patterns that echo what many in the field have said anecdotally:

• Field leaders often don’t know who else is doing similar or adjacent work
• Capital providers in one region may not know EO advisors or co-op networks in another
• Many strong EO firms — especially local or emerging ones — have no digital footprint at all

The Market Map is a response to that fragmentation. It’s an invitation to look up and see who else is building.

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The Grid + The Market Map

The Grid is where the EO ecosystem gathers — profiles, community contributions, forums, and living documentation.
EO Market Map is its visual front door.

Each organization tile on the Map links to a real profile on The Grid, which means:

• You can see who’s behind the work
• Message or follow the contributors
• Track what they’re sharing across the platform
• Nominate other orgs or request updates directly

Together, they create the connective tissue that employee ownership needs to scale.

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Use the Map. Share the Map. Embed the Map.

This is a shared public resource. If you’re part of the EO ecosystem — whether you’re a service provider, field builder, funder, or policy advocate — the Map is for you.

Use it to:

• Orient new team members, funders, or founders
• Show the breadth of the field in grant proposals or decks
• Discover peer organizations and connect with contributors
• Help others see where they fit and who they can work with

We encourage partners to link to it, embed it, and reference it in their own onboarding, training, or storytelling.

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Want to Be Featured? Or Know Someone Who Should?

Here’s how to show up on the Map:

• Claim your profile on The Grid and fill out your focus areas
• Add or update your organization via your profile dashboard
• Nominate someone else — a co-op developer, a quiet capital partner, a policy shop — who should be on the radar

This isn’t pay-to-play. It’s presence-to-profile. Every entry strengthens the field.

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EO Deserves a Spotlight

Zolidar believes employee ownership is a pluralist strategy: ESOPs, co-ops, EOTs, hybrids — all valid. But every movement needs its trail markers.

EO Market Map is one of ours. Let’s make the field easier to enter, easier to navigate, and impossible to ignore.