Wealth Our Way Learning Series | Legal & Governance

As part of the Wealth Our Way initiative, Community Desk Chicago is hosting the first event in a three-part learning series, exploring the legal and governance frameworks that support sustainable commercial shared-ownership models.

Join us for a dynamic conversation with The Desk and a panel of legal experts as we discuss key steps in forming a commercial shared-ownership entity and establishing effective decision-making structures for its operations and ownership.

This discussion will highlight various legal structures available for commercial shared-ownership models and outline important considerations when selecting the structure that best fits your goals. Panelists will include legal and operational experts with hands-on experience developing these entities.

• Camille Kerr, Founder of Upside Down Consulting
• Sarah Kaplan, Managing Partner at PathLight Law
• Marc J Lane, JD, Founder of Mark J Lane Wealth Group

Camille Kerr is the founder of Upside Down Consulting and Co-Executive Director of Village of Leaders Thriving in Solidarity (VOLTS). She incubates cooperatives that provide employment, affordable housing, and financial services to formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly Black women. She helped found ChiFresh Kitchen, a Chicago-based food service cooperative that employs more than a dozen formerly incarcerated individuals and owns a 6,000 sq ft commercial kitchen in Greater Grand Crossing. The VOLTS ecosystem now includes three worker cooperatives, a nine-unit (and growing) housing cooperative, and six buildings across the ecosystem.

In addition to her work with VOLTS, Camille serves on the boards of organizations dedicated to community wealth building, including Urban Growers Collective, EG Woode, Community WEB, the City of Chicago’s Food Equity Council, and the National Cooperative Business Association’s Cooperative Economics Council. She is also an executive fellow at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.

Sarah Kaplan is a Managing Partner with PathLight Law. Because of Sarah’s interest in worker-owned and stakeholder-owned economies, Sarah has built an area of expertise in democratic business ownership. Sarah has served a wide variety of cooperatives, worker-ownership transactions, and community wealth-building vehicles. Sarah also regularly serves benefit corporations and other businesses seeking to make a difference, as well as nonprofits. In order to help these enterprises start, grow, and thrive, Sarah’s work includes legal entity structuring, and the strategy, compliance, and documentation needed to raise investment capital.

Sarah is a Sustainable Economies Law Center Fellow, and a long-time active member of the Sociocratic governance of the Cooperative Professionals Guild. Sarah has a J.D. Magna Cum Laude from Chicago-Kent College of Law, and a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Princeton University.

Marc J. Lane is the founder of the Marc J Lane Wealth Group and is a nationally recognized business and tax attorney, a Master Registered Financial Planner, a Registered Financial Counselor and a Certified Investment Specialist. Twice a recipient of the Illinois State Bar Association's Lincoln Award, he has taught law at Northwestern University School of Law and business in the MBA program at the University of Illinois.

Marc is the pioneer behind the Advocacy Investing® approach to socially responsible and mission-related investing. By appointment of Gov. Pat Quinn, he chaired the State of Illinois' Task Force on Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Enterprise and served as a Commissioner of the Serve Illinois Commission. He currently serves as Vice Chairperson of the Cook County Commission on Social Innovation.

Marc drafted Illinois' Low-profit Limited Liability Company (L3C) law, and has been instrumental in promoting L3C legislation in other states, authorizing the hybrid business form which can leverage foundations' program-related investments to access trillions of dollars of market-driven capital for ventures with modest financial prospects, but the possibility of major social impact.

Marc is the author of 37 books about socially responsible investing, entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, mission-driven ventures, and much more.

• Potential legal structures for Community Investment Vehicles and worker cooperatives
• Different decision-making frameworks for shared ownership
• Impact legal and governance will have on your project’s capital stack and day-to-day operations

About Community Desk Chicago

Community Desk Chicago (“The Desk”) is a 501c3 that works with nonprofits, entrepreneurs and community developers in Chicago’s under-resourced neighborhoods to assemble the necessary capital, expertise and other resources to develop brick-and-mortar projects that foster wealth building and a high quality of life.

Wealth Our Way is an initiative of the Desk with funding received by the City of Chicago.

Info: Light breakfast provided.

Info: Presentation and panel discussion of shared-ownership models, followed by Q&A with panelists

Info: Opportunity to meet and converse with Desk staff, panelists, and other shared-ownership stakeholders

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