Alternative Energy: Ushering the New Era of Corporate Governance?

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Over at the MoJo blog, David Corn highlights the symbolic statement President Obama made Tuesday afternoon when he signed the stimulus package into law at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

The museum draws its power from solar panels, installed by Namaste Solar Electric, a small, progressively minded company based in Boulder, Colo. But the most intriguing thing about Namaste isn’t that the president signed the stimulus package, which includes billions for renewable energy, under a roof lined with the company’s product.

What intrigues me most about Namaste is the business structure that governs the company: Namaste is employee-owned, with every employee given the chance to purchase a stake in ownership, and each owner receiving the same salary and power in decision-making.

Cynics might call it socialism masked as capitalism. But the company is about making money, and one benefit of giving everyone an equal stake—and salary—in the company is that the employee pool would by nature include only those most passionate about the company’s mission. The business model is exciting, and the fact that Namaste’s president, Blake Jones, was present at the signing shows the Obama Administration approves of the company’s mission. If the model catches on, it could transform the way renewable-energy start-ups govern themselves. But I do have two questions: Is there a point where too many employee-owners will bog down the decision-making process? And can those smaller companies sustain the growth the stimulus package, with its billions for the renewable-energy sector, will create?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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