About the Initiative

The prevailing U.S. corporate model prioritizes shareholder returns above all else, fueling short-termism, widening inequality, and eroding democratic trust. The wealthiest 1% owns over half of all U.S.-traded stock; the bottom half owns none. Boeing exemplifies the trend—between 2010 and 2020, its quarterly dividend rose more than six-fold while workers went a decade without a meaningful raise. Proven alternatives like enterprise foundations remain blocked by outdated legal structures, even as retiring Baby Boomer entrepreneurs create a historic opening for reform. Our project aims to address this critical issue.

At the center of this project is the concept of “stewardship enterprise,” particularly the enterprise foundation. An enterprise foundation is a philanthropic foundation, often established by a retiring entrepreneur, that holds a majority of the voting stock of a for-profit corporation and therefore selects and oversees its board. Rather than maximizing short-term shareholder returns, the foundation serves as a maximally long-term-oriented stockholder, allowing the company to focus on long-term profitability, investment, innovation, worker development, and community support.

Foundation ownership offers a distinctive, voluntarist response to inequality and underinvestment. Research on existing foundation-owned companies suggests that they maintain higher levels of R&D and reinvestment, conduct more worker training, and pay higher wages, while also generating philanthropic resources that support civil society. The model is simultaneously pro-entrepreneur and pro-worker: it allows entrepreneurs to protect a business legacy and establish a philanthropic legacy while creating enterprises oriented toward long-term flourishing.

 The Initiative seeks to develop a new corporate governance agenda that strengthens market institutions through private initiative and free choice. By rethinking business design and leveraging higher values within business enterprise, stewardship enterprises offer a neglected but promising approach to prosperity, justice, and human flourishing.