Since 1977, the ICA Group has applied expert analysis, results-based planning and a collaborative management approach to start and grow worker cooperatives, democratic ESOPs, and other social purpose ventures.
Inspired by the Mondragon experiment in Northern Spain, the founders of ICA promoted worker cooperatives as a means to prevent job loss and create stable communities. Over the last 38 years, this remains at the core of our approach. We utilize best practices to build democratic ownership for a new economy.
Since our founding, ICA has helped start more thirty worker co-ops and social enterprises, helped dozens of companies convert to worker ownership, and saved or created over 10,000 jobs. We have provided strategic guidance to scores of mission aligned non-profits and through our work managing the Alternative Staffing Alliance over 30,000 people with barriers to employment find work each year. Our sister loan fund LEAF has invested and leveraged over $91 million in worker and community owned firms resulting in the creation or retention of more than 6,000 jobs.