The message of the new group Buy Local WNC is clear: support locally owned, independently operated businesses of all shapes and sizes whenever you can.

Buy Local WNC is a group of business owners and workers in Western North Carolina who have educated themselves about Buy Local Campaigns and Independent Business Alliances. The group can help anyone anywhere in Western North Carolina who wants to begin a Buy Local Campaign or organize an Independent Business Alliance to do so.

I like to think of a local movement in another way, too: as a Righteous Business Movement (yes, I made that term up). One side of this movement is about fair trade practices, which is likely a familiar term, especially to you coffee drinkers! The other side, which may not be so familiar, is about local ownership and sustainable practices.

What does this mean? Why does it matter if a business is owned locally and independently operated, and what does that have to do with sustainability? Put simply, locally owned and independently operated businesses are not going to go anywhere. Every year, it seems more jobs are being lost to other countries with fewer labor rights and less pay.

Businesses that are owned by people who live in—and hire employees from—the same community that the business serves may be the only hope for an end to this “race to the bottom.” Unlike most large corporations, independently operated businesses are not beholden to their shareholders to constantly lower the bottom line and cut down on labor costs. This is part of the active tension between Main Street and Wall Street.

Are local businesses inherently better than multinational chains? True, sometimes a local shop is just selling the same product made on the other side of the planet from someone who is earning only pennies a day. The trick is that if we demand fair trade and a living wage from our locally owned and independently operated businesses, how can they say no? If we, as consumers and community members, are actively shopping at local businesses for the very reason that they are local businesses, then it works as a mutual trade-off: we help sustain your business; you help sustain our community. Local and independent businesses are a good economic bet. If such a business can grow or expand, that means more local jobs: jobs that aren’t going anywhere. At the end of the day, it’s about supporting your neighbors, keeping your town unique, circulating dollars locally a few times before shipping them elsewhere, and providing high-paying jobs.

And, it’s about independent businesses helping one another. Around a decade ago, folks in Boulder, Colorado, got together to form an Independent Business Alliance that could combine the resources of independently owned and operated businesses in order to compete effectively against the larger corporations that were sweeping across the nation. From this, the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) was formed, and there are now around 40 cities with Independent Business Alliances. These alliances are successfully competing against chain stores and are having a lot of fun with it. A few years later, a similar organization, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), was formed to look into creating functional economies that are place-based and serve the community. There are now some 45 BALLE business networks across the U.S.

These groups have highlighted the benefits of supporting locally owned businesses to consumers and community members. They’ve also managed to help people understand how the local economy is an integral part of the community.

Main Street is not only more fun than Wall Street, it also looks better, feels better, and has that special something you can’t find anywhere else.

Joel Bassett is coordinator of Buy Local WNC. For more information about the group, visit http://www.buylocalwnc.org, or call Joel at 828-236-0236.

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