#mission-governance

An ownership lock only prevents sale and profit extraction — it cannot make remaining stewards competent or mission-faithful. A locked company can still stagnate, drift in purpose, entrench insiders, or make unverified impact claims. The lock is necessary but not sufficient.

Get certified against a published social/environmental standard (e.g. B Corp) as a public, audited signal of commitment. Cheap, requires no ownership change, useful as a complement — but it locks nothing: it's voluntary, revocable, and the first thing dropped when it conflicts wi

When a sale can't be stopped, negotiate an independent 'social mission' board into the acquisition agreement—with defined authority over values, advocacy, and brand integrity held separately from the parent's commercial control. Only as strong as courts will enforce it, but bette

Ben & Jerry's is a counter-example to steward-ownership: a case where mission protection relied on a contract and an independent board rather than an ownership lock. Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry's for $326 million in A…

On 14 September 2022, the Chouinard family transferred 100% of Patagonia into two new entities, splitting control from economic rights:

Etsy was certified by B Lab as a B Corporation from 2012. After its 2015 IPO, retaining certification required converting its Delaware C-corporation legal form to a public benefit corporation (PBC) by a 2017 deadline. U…

Ecosia is a Berlin-based search engine founded in December 2009 that uses advertising profits to fund tree-planting and climate initiatives. In autumn 2018, founders Christian Kroll and Tim Schumacher—concerned about mi…

Ben & Jerry's was sold to Unilever in 2000. Co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield could not block the sale (shareholders voted to accept), so they negotiated an independent board into the share-purchase agreement w…