Where We Live and Where We Work: A New Blueprint for Community Wealth

A year ago, we launched Unlock Ownership with a thesis we’d been testing in our own portfolio for years: ownership transitions succeed when capital serves the greater mission, not the capital holder. 

Traditional finance misapplies risk assessments to these deals, demands short-term returns that threaten long-term sustainability, and too often walks away from the communities that need capital most. We wanted to prove there was a better way.

One year in, the proof is building.

What We Built

Unlock Ownership, managed by Impact Charitable, was founded to meet the complexity of ownership opportunities with patient, flexible catalytic capital: the kind that absorbs higher risk, moves at the speed of the deal rather than the speed of a traditional meeting schedule, and enters early enough to signal confidence to other funders. 

In one case, we approved a deal 18 days after it was shared with us. In another case we were approached to be an LP and we asked to fund their operating budget because we thought that would be more catalytic. Unlock Ownership is designed to catapult the shared ownership space to greater heights in less time.

We evaluate every investment through two lenses: where people live and where they work. Is this building wealth? Is this building power? 

Year One by the Numbers

$5.4 million raised. $2.55 million invested across 8 portfolio organizations. Another $1.75 million in active diligence. 24+ opportunities reviewed. 

Those numbers matter, but what matters more is where that capital went.

Year One Portfolio:Real Wealth for Real Communities, not just Banks and Investors

Where You Live 

• Trust Neighborhoods, building community land trusts that keep housing permanently affordable. 
• Chainbreaker Collective in Santa Fe, fighting displacement through community-controlled land. 
• The Guild, creating pathways to homeownership in markets where conventional lenders see only risk. 
• Homes for the Future Fund, expanding shared equity models that let families build wealth without being priced out.

Where You Work 

• Seed Commons, financing worker cooperatives across the country. 
• The Cooperative Fund of the Northeast (CFNE), providing flexible capital to cooperative enterprises. 
• Essential Owners Fund, backing employee ownership transitions that keep wealth in workers’ hands.

What We’re Learning

These deals can move fast when the capital actually fits.

Community land trusts, shared equity homeownership, employee ownership trusts, worker co-ops, perpetual purpose trusts. These are the models that build real wealth for real people. And each one requires a different kind of capital than what traditional finance is built to provide.

Three patterns emerged quickly. 

• First, structure and timing-sensitive tools matter: these deals don’t wait for quarterly committee meetings. 
• Second, values-aligned capital strengthens investees' ability to attract additional funding; and
• Third, the wisest path is almost never the most conventional one --- this is where the IC/UO strategic lens can stand-out

An investment from Unlock Ownership becomes a signal that helps attract additional funding and partners.

Deborah Frieze, co-founder of Unlock Ownership and founder of Boston Impact Initiative, put it well: “Unlock Ownership starts and ends the investment process in the spirit of trust, speed, and true partnership with its investees, while maintaining rigor. The goal is to find the wisest way to get to yes.”

That last line stays with us. The wisest way to get to yes. So much of traditional capital is structured around finding reasons to say no while we’re finding that the wisest path is not often the most conventional one. 

We’re learning from every deal, including the ones that don’t close. We’re refining our diligence process, questioning our assumptions, and listening to what investees tell us they actually need. 

The Gap We’re Filling

The field is moving fast. 

• Roughly 300 new Employee Stock Ownership Plans are created every year, bringing the total to over 6,500 holding $1.8 trillion in assets. 
• Community land trusts and shared equity homeownership programs have grown 30% over the past decade, now serving more than 300 communities nationwide.
• And yet the capital gap remains enormous. 
• Transform Finance estimates $1 trillion could be productively deployed to finance employee ownership transitions alone, while only $500 million is currently available across specialized funds. 
• Donor-advised funds hold over $326 billion (with a B!) in assets: capital that has already received its tax benefit but has yet to reach communities. 

Hundreds of billions sitting idle while the need for catalytic, community-rooted capital grows more urgent by the month.

Unlock Ownership exists to bridge that gap. 

Every dollar moved through a DAF or foundation to Unlock Ownership becomes flexible, patient capital that adapts to timing gaps, embraces new structures, and moves in true partnership with community-rooted organizations. 

In Year One, we didn’t just move $2.5 million; we shifted the power dynamics of who gets to own the roof over their head and the tools in their shop.

What’s Next

The work is growing and we're gearing up for our next milestone: $20 million.

We're also growing the team that can get us there.

We’re proud to welcome Lolita Nunn as Unlock Ownership’s first Director of Investor Relations. 

Lolita brings over 25 years of experience spanning banking, nonprofit leadership, and impact investing. Most recently she served as Director of Program and Investor Relations at Potlikker Capital, a farm-community governed charitable fund serving BIPOC farmers at the intersection of racial and climate justice. She brings a deep understanding of integrated capital, equitable funding strategies, and what it takes to build institutions that center community voice. 

Her arrival signals something important: Unlock Ownership is ready to scale, and the right leader is here to help us do it.

If you hold a donor-advised fund or control a foundation’s endowment and you’re looking for a proven pathway to put philanthropic capital to work building ownership, wealth, and power in communities, this is your on-ramp. 

Visit unlockownership.org or reach out to Lolita (lolita@impactcharitable.org). You can find additional insights from our inaugural annual report here.

We’d love to have you join us in building an economy where ownership, and the wealth it creates, is accessible to all.