Equity Participation

See: Sweat Equity.

You're not a 9-to-5'er. You actually care how the company performs. You're not just an employee. You want to feel like a part owner. So...how do you do that?

You participate as a part-owner in the company. You can gain profits as in a profit participation distribution. That's not really equity participation; what happens when the company is sold or taken public?

If you don't own equity, you don't participate in the gains from the sale of the company. So...wanting its employees to act and behave like owners, the company has equity participants. Most companies grant stock options (a kind of equity participation), or they make inexpensive loans to their employees to buy equity in the company, usually from retiring senior partner-owners.

And if you're an especially good equity participant, you get an equity participation trophy. You can put it in your trophy case at home, next to the one your kid got last summer at soccer camp.