What does your business do to make your community a better place to live?
Our local shopping initiative "I Love Local (HFX)" is leveraging the community involvement and marketing efforts of 30 locally owned, independent businesses for the betterment of our Community. Through our collective social media strategies we are reaching thousands of people in our community every day. Although we are using this group as a means to grow our own businesses, we are also using it to expand the reach of the social and community initiatives which we are all part of. Members of our group are involved in numerous charitable fundraisers, we are building a community garden, we are encouraging other people to start their own businesses and we are actively involved in different community projects to make Halifax a more active, exciting and successful city.
Why have you chosen to take this approach?
By combining our voices, we are able to get more attention and harness a greater audience and this has been used to raise funds for charity (The Arthritis Society), raise awareness for community initiatives such as "Save the Oval", and to create a business idea incubator, CarbonAccelerator. Each of the businesses involved has benefited through a significantly larger email database with local customers, vastly expanded social media presence, greater presence in the community and a greater sense in the community about the value of independent, locally owned businesses.
What advice would you give other business owners who might be considering this idea?
Absolutely - prior to the formation of I Love Local (HFX), many of the business owners did not know their neighbors, did not think about partnering with neighboring businesses and viewed other independent businesses as their competition. Through this initiative, we have been able to break down those barriers and all our members now realize that we are stronger together and together we are more capable of meeting the significant challenges of online shopping and big box retailers hollowing out our downtown.
I think I Love Local Halifax has done a fantastic job! I love how they have come up with a creative way to link all of Halifax's great local businesses. It makes our lovely city even better when we are connected as a community :)