Put your money where your heart is.
Local business is the backbone of the economy. They are better positioned to respond to the needs of our community. Studies show that when you buy from an independent, locally owned business, significantly more of your money is used to make purchases from other local businesses, service providers, and farms, further strengthening the economic base of the community.
Strengthen The Local Economy
Facilitate A Unique Community
Healthier Residents
Better Service
Better Competition, Better Quality, More Choices
Support The Community Financially
Reduce Environmental Impact
Strengthen The Local Economy
The multiplier effect created by spending locally generates lasting impact on the prosperity of local organizations and residents. Not only do independent businesses employ more people directly per dollar of revenue, they also are the customers of local printers, accountants, wholesalers, farms, attorneys, etc., expanding job opportunities for local entrepreneurs and employees.
Shopping locally keeps more of your money in the community near you. This means better schools, roads, and emergency response teams.
Facilitate A Unique Community
One-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the character of the New River Valley. Entrepreneurs and skilled workers are more likely to invest and settle in communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive personality.
Healthier Residents
Research shows a strong correlation between the percentage of small locally-owned firms and various indicators of personal and community health and vitality.
Better Service
Local businesses often hire people with a better understanding of the products they are selling and take more time to get to know their customers.
Better Competition, Better Quality, More Choices
A marketplace populated by small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term. Small businesses select products based on the interests and needs of their customers, not based on a national sales plan, which guarantees greater access product diversity.
Support the community financially
Non-profit organizations receive far more of their support from small businesses than they do from large businesses. Local businesses are owned by people who live in this community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the community’s future.
Reduce Environmental Impact
Local purchases require less transportation and less fuel to get products to you. Locally owned businesses generally set up shop in town centers as opposed to developing on the fringe. This means less sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.
“Buy Local” Campaigns Can Yield Major Shifts
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance reports that “businesses in communities with a sustained grassroots ‘buy independent/buy local’ campaign reported a strong 7.4% sales increase, nearly doubling the 4.2% gain for those in areas without such an alliance.” Across every survey, in up years and down, independent businesses served by these pro-local/ independent campaigns have dramatically outperformed those businesses in communities lacking them.