An Employee Community Ownership Trust in Oakland, California
Firebrand’s mission is provide quality employment to formerly incarcerated & houseless people to help break the cycle of recidivism. We dive into how we're helping Firebrand transition long-term control over to community members.
“Common Trust helped us create a structure that locks in our values for the long-term. For us, it was important to make sure that our unique view on hiring and profit sharing was protected no matter who was running the company in the future or who invested. This transition allowed us to do all that.”
If you’ve walked around Oakland, California in the past few years there’s a good chance you’ve seen or smelled the fresh-baked pastries of Firebrand Artisan Breads. Their sweet potato challah and buttermilk biscuits are favorites of the Common Trust team.
Matt Kreutz founded Firebrand in 2008 as a small operation run out of a West Oakland warehouse. He now employs close to 100 people running a full café and kitchen, but says “the spirit and hustle of our origins live on.” Firebrand’s mission is provide quality employment to formerly incarcerated & houseless people to help break the cycle of recidivism. Over the past couple years, we’ve worked with Matt to develop an Employee & Community Ownership Trust (ECOT) model designed to protect this mission over the long-term.
In this series, we’ll dive into how Firebrand has transitioned long-term control over to community members, created a profit-sharing and employee inclusion program, and tied investors’ upside to employee benefit:
- Case study on Common Trust's work with Firebrand (PDF download)
- Q&A with Matt Kreutz
Coming Soon
- Worker Ownership 2.0 -- ECOT vs. ESOP
- Transitioning the ‘Silver Tsunami’ of retiring Baby Boomer businesses to ECOTs
- Public policies for community ownership of Main Street businesses