Alt-weeklies seek to help the economy by promoting local shopping

The readers of more than 70 alternative newspapers are being urged to spend at least $100 of their holiday money this fall at locally owned stores in their communities -- a move that could pump more than $2.9 billion into urban economies during this recession-plagued season.

The project is based on data showing that money spent in locally owned businesses tends to stay in the area and circulate through the community, increasing economic activity. Economists call this the "multiplier effect."

"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.

The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) helped develop the unprecedented project. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a trade organization of 130 alternative newspapers, helped line up 73 papers in the United States and Canada.

"This is an incredibly exciting and unprecedented effort by the press to reach out and work with the local economic development community," said Erin Kilmer-Neel, program officer at OneCalifornia Foundation, and active member in both BALLE and AMIBA. "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."

Added Kilmer-Neel: "When people choose to shop at locally-owned, independent businesses in their communities, they are re-circulating dollars in those communities, supporting more local jobs, keeping their neighborhoods interesting and unique and reducing their carbon footprints.

"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 move is "simply part of our mission as a newspaper," Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, one of the early supporters of the project, said. "A sustainable community needs a sustainable economy, and that starts with locally owned independent businesses."

The project will run through the holiday season.