Resources for Stewardship
Plain-language guides, stewardship frameworks, and real founder stories.
Designed to help you move with clarity, not pressure.
Stewardship Guides
Role-specific guidance for navigating ownership transitions with intention.
For Sellers
Explore what you want to protect, what you're open to, and how to prepare for the sale of your business without rushing or compromising your values.
Read the Seller Stewardship GuideFor Buyers
Learn what it means to acquire responsibly and build something that lasts beyond the deal.
Read the Buyer Stewardship GuideM&A 101
New to M&A? Start here.
A clear, jargon-free foundation for how deals actually work — stages, roles, terms, and common pitfalls. Written for real humans, not bankers.
Stories from the Stewardship Ecosystem
Real stories. Real tradeoffs. Real lessons.
Featured episodes from Ethical Exits that capture the nuance behind “a good deal.”
- David Kahl — A B Corp founder navigating a values-aligned exit
- Cameron Madill — Building a cooperative instead of defaulting to a traditional sale
- Peter Georgariou — A B Corp buyer using acquisition as a long-term growth strategy
- Jim Black — The legal lens on stewardship, structure, and protection
- Chris Fredericks — Buying with employees in mind, not as an afterthought
Field Notes on Stewardship
Field-tested perspectives on stewardship, alignment, and ownership structure — written for founders, buyers, and the people who advise them.
We Built Better Businesses. Now We Need Better Ways to Transfer Them.
The social enterprise movement has spent decades building businesses that create value for workers, communities, and the planet. Now we need better buyers, ownership models, capital, and marketplaces to help those businesses transfer without losing what made them different.
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How to Find a Buyer Who Will Protect What You Built
Selling your business does not have to mean losing the employees, culture, mission, or community impact you worked to build. Here is how to define what matters, evaluate different buyer types, explore employee ownership, and find a buyer capable of becoming the company’s next steward.
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B Lab U.S. & Canada Officially Supports Steward Market's Mission
B Lab, the nonprofit behind B Corp Certification, has officially voiced support for Steward Market. This post explains what B Lab is, what the support means for Sellers, Buyers, intermediaries, and capital partners, and how it connects to Steward Market's commitment to transparency, seller dignity, and stewardship as a discipline, not a sentiment.
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Choosing Purpose over Power: Steward Market's First Step Toward Steward Ownership
Steward ownership begins with clarity of purpose. Today, we are sharing the first public step in Steward Market's journey toward steward ownership: our intention, our draft Stewardship Charter, and the appointment of a trusted guardian to help protect the purpose of what we are building.
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What Is the Impact Exit, and How Does It Work?
When a business changes hands, the outcome is not just financial. The Impact Exit is an optional pledge that lets Steward Market members contribute a small share of a transaction to a donor-advised fund supporting the next generation of mission-driven founders and steward-minded buyers. Here is how it works.
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Steward Market Is Now Endorsed by the Purpose Pledge. Here's What Their Framework Actually Requires.
Steward Market has been endorsed by the Purpose Pledge. Here's what the framework actually requires, why it was built, and why ownership transition is the moment when mission is most at risk.
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