While shopping for the holidays this year, consider the ripples you make with your choices and your money throughout the community.

As we look for the good deals to stretch our budgets, we also need to consider the broader impact of keeping dollars in the community, circulating through other hands and lives, enriching the character of our town and the experience of living here. The more local trips a dollar makes, the more power it has to change our town.

The local multiplier effect refers to the cumulative value money accrues each time it circulates through a local economy. So the dollar used to purchase a birthday present at S and A Beads may be paid, in part, in wages to a student who works in the shop part time, who then buys flowers for a sick friend at Park Florist, which then pays rent to a local property owner, who then gets lunch at Red Line Grill, which then places an order at Community Printing for new fliers, which then…. You get the idea.

Power comes in keeping our dollars local so that the impact they have on a local economy is amplified.

If you buy your holiday gifts on-line, from an Internet giant like Amazon, your money splits town without a backward glance. It doesn’t stick around to take on new forms and live again in another exchange of labor, resources, and brain power. If you spend your money at national chain stores, about 13 percent comes back to the community, primarily through wages paid locally. However, if you buy from an independent, locally-owned store, 45 percent of the money stays local, paid in the form of wages, rent, business with other local businesses, and so on, according to Michael Shuman, Takoma Park author of The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Business Can Beat Global Competition and Going Local.

But that’s just the beginning. Spending locally enriches the community. Local businesses give to sports teams and schools, support runners in charity races, donate to animal rights groups, contribute to our music festivals and much more. Who sponsors your child’s baseball team or soccer team? Just check the back of the team shirts: Amano, House of Musical Traditions, Middle Eastern Cuisine, Now and Then, Summer Delights, American Craft and the list goes on (check www.baberuthnetowrk.com and www.takomasoccer.org for the complete listing).

Local businesses step up to make donations to the Montgomery Blair High School Silent Auction, one of the biggest fundraisers for the biggest high school around, as well as the activities at the elementary and middle schools. Advertising by local businesses helps keep independent community newspapers alive. The Old Takoma Clean-up days that happen in both the spring and the fall are underwritten by local businesses which provide the money for the plants, mulch, tools, and water bottles, as well as many of the volunteers who beautify downtown Carroll Avenue from the Takoma Junction to the Takoma Theatre. Did you think the city government did that? It’s our local businesses and volunteers at work.

And still we haven’t finished measuring the impact of supporting local businesses on our personal lives and our community. The Big Bad Woof hosts pet adoption days nearly every weekend, and has facilitated the adoption of over 100 animals in the last year. Mark’s Kitchen designates at least one day a month where the profits are donated to a local charity, whether it’s the Washington Animal Rescue League or other non-profit groups. Our canopy of trees along Carroll and Laurel Avenues is watered and cared for primarily by businesses who “adopt” them during the hot summer months, when rain water isn’t enough to sustain young trees. Sangha provides performance space for many groups, including student-created theatre performances. Many of our local artists find space to exhibit their works in our shops, like the creative recycling pieces done by Fritzie Seidler and her students in the windows at Salon Jam and the photos or paintings lining the walls at Savory and Everyday Gourmet. The Culture Shop hosts art exhibits as well as readings by local authors.

Communities thrive with the active participation of the people, organizations and businesses in them. Just as we are politically engaged locally, we can also be economically engaged. Supporting locally-owned, independent, small businesses becomes a powerful tool in building a vibrant place to live and by deliberately keeping our spending local, we can magnify the impact of our involvement many times over.

— Roz Grigsby
Executive Director
OTBA—Old Takoma Business Association