Building Capacity for Worker Ownership: ICA Launches Worker Buyout Training Program

In December, The ICA Group concluded its first cohort of a new Worker Buyout Training Program—a comprehensive, practice-oriented curriculum designed to equip cooperative developers and technical assistance providers with the skills, tools, and confidence to guide businesses through the conversions to worker ownership.

The inaugural pilot cohort included eight participants from four states across the U.S., each working directly to expand employee ownership opportunities in their regions. The program was designed by adapting ICA’s internal training process for its own consultants into a format suitable for external partners, ensuring that cooperative developers across the country can benefit from the same rigorous, field-tested framework that guides ICA’s employee-ownership work.

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A Comprehensive Approach to the Conversion Process

The program was built around nine interactive sessions that walk participants through each step of a business conversion—from initial exit planning to finalizing a transaction. Through case-based learning, financial exercises, and peer exchange, participants are developing practical skills that translate directly into their client work.

Curriculum topics include:

• Exit planning and succession options
• Financial analysis and feasibility (including analyzing a business valuation)
• Governance design and management succession
• Transaction structuring and lender expectations

Each participant will also receive one-on-one coaching with an ICA trainer, ensuring individualized support for real-world conversion projects. Following the training, participants will continue connecting through monthly cohort check-ins to strengthen peer learning and collaboration.

Strengthening the Field of Cooperative Development

The Worker Buyout Training Program is more than a learning opportunity—it’s part of ICA’s broader strategy to build national capacity for worker-ownership transitions. As small business owners across the country prepare for succession, equipping practitioners with the deep technical knowledge and tools to structure fair, sustainable conversions is critical to preserving local jobs, community wealth, and business legacies.

“This program transforms ICA’s decades of experience—and the lived expertise of each participant—into shared knowledge that strengthens the entire field,” said Allison Curtis, Director of Business Conversions and Consulting at The ICA Group. “By investing in the skills of cooperative developers, we’re strengthening the entire ecosystem for worker ownership, and ensuring that these transitions are resulting in healthy companies that provide access to wealth and power building for workers.”

Participants are already applying new tools and insights in their communities—helping make worker ownership a viable, scalable pathway for the future of work.

To learn more or express interest in future sessions, please email Allison at acurtis@icagroup.org. 

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