After reviewing the requirements businesses must meet in order to join the City of Orlando "Buy Local Orlando" campaign, which is "open to any business located in the City of Orlando that has a current City-issued business tax receipt," and after seeing that this campaign uses the terms "Local" and "Buy Local" in its name and marketing materials, we feel this campaign is misleading the public and should strike the terms "Local" and "Buy Local" from its name and marketing materials.
The True Goal
The campaign's true goal is to promote business in general, not local-only businesses. This is wonderful and productive. Its a "program that supports and strengthens Orlando’s businesses and local jobs and keeps more dollars spent in our community." The name and marketing materials should reflect this stated purpose.
Explore Other Cities
Five cities' policies for businesses joining their own Buy Local campaigns are below, taken directly from their websites. We invite readers to explore these requirements and then compare them to Orlando's requirements, which are listed at the bottom of this post.
Portland (website)
To participate in Portland Buy Local and be included in the online directory, a business or organization must be locally owned and independent. We define these terms as follows:
"Locally owned" means the business is privately held and the owner or the majority of the owners are Maine residents and live within 50 miles of Portland at least half of the year. This includes employee- and cooperatively owned businesses, as well as nonprofits, but not government units. The business must be registered in Maine with no corporate headquarters outside of the state.
"Independent" means the owner or owners have full decision-making authority over the business, and the business has no more than 10 outlets, with the majority located in Maine.
People often ask us if we are against chain stores. The Portland Buy Local campaign was not formed in response to any specific store opening or retail development. Rather, it seeks to educate consumers about the benefits of locally owned, independent businesses, and to inspire shoppers to support them. Part of that effort sometimes involves pointing out the negative impacts corporate chain or "big box" retailers have on our local economy and community, but this campaign is committed to keeping its overall message and focus positive.
Boise (website)
You must answer "yes" to all questions to join Think Boise First:
-Does this business have a location in Boise or Garden City?
-Is this business privately held?
-Is this business registered in Idaho with no corporate or national headquarters outside of Idaho?
-Do the business owners, totaling 50% or more of the business ownership, live in Ada or adjoining counties? The counties adjoining Ada County are:-Boise (Idaho City)-Can your business make independent decisions regarding the name and look of your business?
-Canyon (Caldwell)
-Elmore (Mountain Home)
-Gem (Emmett)
-Owyhee (Murphy)
-Can your business make independent decisions regarding all business purchasing, practices, and distribution?
-Do you pay all of your own marketing fees, rent, and other business expenses without assistance from a corporate headquarters?
Savannah (website)
Philosophy - Buy Local Savannah
To support our local community by encouraging participation in the Buy Local Committee, AND facilitating advertising and networking of local businesses. Our goal is to enable local businesses to compete with economies of scale used by franchise companies in areas such as advertising and purchasing.
Philadelphia (website)
Baltimore (website)
MEMBERSHIP Eligibility: Business must be locally owned (this means that majority ownership must live within 50 miles of the business location) and independently operated (sorry, no franchises).
Orlando (website)
Membership is open to any business located in the City of Orlando that has a current City-issued business tax receipt. ...the goal of Buy Local Orlando is simply to connect the businesses in Orlando with the buying power of our local community. Buy Local Orlando... is intended to be a multi-year program that supports and strengthens Orlando’s businesses and local jobs and keeps more dollars spent in our community.
4 Comments:
The issue I have with your rant is that you are miserably focused on the few large corporations that have joined and that the overall effect is near to the "local" effort you think it should aspire.
The word from the City is that they are not able to distinguish from local versus any business that holds a tax receipt. That should be questioned. But on the face the sites you link to seem to be independent organizations, none part of the city governments themselves. If what the City says is true then that is a big difference. These organizations can write their own rules while the .gov might have larger issues.
Second, while this might not apply to Arby's, other large corporate business with brick and mortar, while not "local", do bring a lot of tax receipts to city and state coffers. They are taking a beating against the internets. I have to admit that I have not bought a book from Borders or such in forever. Amazon Prime makes it too easy to whip out the phone, check the price and one-click it for home tomorrow. It is bad enough that the majority of states are looking at internet tax bills that will be a major blow to online business. If you include that angle it does become a local angle. Next time you are in Borders and count the jobs that it effects locally.
You left out the pricing between the City and ourlando. Which is closer to small business friendly? Add in that they are now including all the mainstreet members without additional fees. There is already 5x the business listed on the City's misleading affair. While the promotions are donated and not in the best place there seems to be more momentum on the City's part and rather than destroying it and working against.
I give you that this is the usual .gov affair, doing less and taking more credit. The double talk that makes "all" happy. But local support has been nearly non-existence in the 15 years I have lived in Orlando. Add buy in from most of the arts and other organizations already fighting for local support. While ourlando is more pure, the misleading one seems to be a better bet. If the right people take advantage and push the right direction it will be local in all but a few of the "other" members.
I don't mean to be cranky about it but it seems that the locals in orlando are their worst enemy often poo-pooing something for lack of integrity, or too much commercialism and point to wonderful cities like Austin and Savannah crying "But we want to be like them". Those cultures started the same way but have lasted 100 years more. Time to mature. Instead of self-destructing in self-pity.
Thank you funkeemunkee for your twitter discourse and your continued interest in this topic. The twitter talk led me to sit down and do a little research and write this post.
I don't want Orlando to be like another city. I want it to be its own thang. But, when someone brings in concepts that have existed in other cities for years but have never been seen in Orlando, we need to check it out 100% and make sure the concept is being brought in in its real form so we are not getting one person's (or one office in gov's) version what they think that concept is.
A farmers market, a meetup, a fringe festival, a theatre, parking.
A sign in a window that says "Buy Local" communicates something that the campaign inherently does not offer. I think its disingenuous and gov needs to re-name their effort to reflect their goals and to free up the terms "local" and "buy local" for an entity who actually has that goal in mind and can carry it out. Whether that is Ourlando, Main Street Orlando or you and me, I think gov needs to step aside and let the locals own this one.
I wonder why these five cities I researched have their Buy Local efforts organized by locals and not the govs. I'd say thats a red flag right there.
This campaign as it sits is fine by me. Just change the name to reflect its true goals and to not mislead people.
another post from me.. my god. sorry. but this will be a short one.
YOu are right Mark, Orlando is known for looking to other cities but not in detail.. How many more times can we hear about wanting to be portland.., The introduction of the city's BUY LOCAL program was instantly questioned by OURLANDO folks. ( julie @ dandelion and friends)... I see the larger side of this.. (funkee munks view).ANY support of ANY business is great for all. , the word LOCAL is an okay word for all these efforts to use.. ( god knows I've thrown it around enough. haha), I think a word that would be more fitting to the efforts of the support and buy "only" or "mostly" from TRUE local businesses. would be the word "COMMUNITY" businesses...
kinda like when poeple use the phrase " HOME COOKNG" well.. don't you know" a person from India does not think fried chicken, collard greens,and okra..,,. it's all a matter of PLACE and HOME..
thank you for the place to "Air" thoughts. proud of you mark
I'm just happy for the banter. To see that people are concerned in their community, PERIOD, is nice. ;-) Keep it up!
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