Shop Local on Small Business Saturday, and Beyond

With the holidays approaching, we’d like to remind everyone to support your local independent businesses this holiday season. Small Business Saturday is a great initiative, but we’d love to see that enthusiasm for small business extend well beyond the last Saturday in November.

I dare you to imagine what your community would look like if all your small businesses ceased to exist. Now imagine trying to pitch that community to a site selector. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy but rarely get the attention or public financial support that their corporate counterparts receive. We may have little ability to change this, but we all have the power to choose how we spend our dollars this holiday season so let’s show our local businesses some love. Yes, it may mean having to leave your house. You’ll probably even have to visit more than one store; but you may just find that one-of-a-kind gift that’ll surprise and delight your loved one.

Whether you’re in a small town or a large city – small businesses are everywhere! As economic developers we likely can’t qualify many small businesses for large financial incentive packages, but there are many tools out there you could and should be tapping into to help them. SBA, SBDC and the National Main Street Program are a few of the organizations focused on building the capacity of small businesses and preserving and enhancing the districts they occupy. 

One of our MidAmerican region states, Wyoming, is home to a national-award-winning main street program. This year the Laramie Main Street Alliance (LMSA) was honored with the prestigious 2022 Great American Main Street Award (GAMSA), which recognizes communities for their excellence in comprehensive preservation-based commercial district revitalization. Since LMSA was founded in 2005, the organization’s efforts have resulted in more than $21 million in public and private investment, 398 private rehabilitation projects, and the creation of 148 net new businesses and 689 net new jobs.

Though small business support is needed regardless of a community’s size or location we understand the methods for providing support vary greatly based on a community’s size or location. Just as small businesses are important, so too are small communities, and we are committed to examining economic development topics from these different perspectives moving forward.