Alternative Weeklies Launch Campaign to Promote Shopping Locally

More than 70 alternative newspapers are encouraging their readers to spend at least $100 at locally owned businesses in their communities this fall -- a move that could pump more than $2.9 billion into local economies strapped for cash, according to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a trade organization of 130 alternative newspapers, which developed the project with the help of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA).

"If every one of the 17.5 million readers of these weeklies were to spend just $100 with local, independently owned merchants, the impact would be enormous," said Jody Colley, publisher of the East Bay Express in Berkeley/Oakland and the originator of the project, in a statement.

Erin Kilmer-Neel, program officer at OneCalifornia Foundation, a member of both BALLE and AMIBA, noted, "This is an incredibly exciting and unprecedented effort by the press to reach out and work with the local economic development community. In my mind, this can be a perfect partnership -- local, independently owned publications helping other local indie businesses in their community toward positive economic change....

"We came out in the millions to make change this week by voting. Conscious shopping, like voting, is a powerful way to make change. Collectively, we will continue to spend billions and billions of dollars as we shop throughout our lives -- imagine the power that this money can have if each one of us tries to be conscious about where it goes."

The groups estimate that in San Francisco, for example, if the 593,444 unique readers (over a four-week period) of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in print and online, spent a hundred extra dollars locally, the initial potential revenue impact would be $59,344,413; the potential multiplier impact as the dollars recirculate within the community would be $99,698,613; and additional positive local economic impact from shopping at a local, independently owned retailer verses chain would be $14,836,103. In Birmingham, Alabama, if the 125,730 unique readers of the Birmingham Weekly did the same, the initial potential revenue impact would be $12,572,969; the potential multiplier impact as the dollars recirculate within the community brings the total to $21,122,588; and additional positive local economic impact from shopping at a local, independently owned retailer verses chain would be $3,143,242.

Full details about the participating newspapers, including circulation and potential local economic impact figures for all 73 communities, are available in an Excel document on the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies website.