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Copyright 2011 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

Buy Ladera Support Ladera!

What if your ice cream could help buy school supplies?  Or your weekly date night could help support local charities?

In a perfect world, businesses would always have enough support to survive.  Local consumers would have a great selection to choose from and the money to pay.  Local charities could ask local businesses and consumers year after year for generous donations to help with their fundraising efforts. Well those days, if they ever really existed, are behind us.  So how can we all affect change within our own community of Ladera Ranch?

In our grandparent?s generation, consumers had limited choice, goods and services only accessible from local vendors, so businesses enjoyed a captive market, with little to no competition.  And the local charities focused on local needs.  Present day, consumer choice has exploded, aided by the Internet, global trade, more markets created and mass transit.  So what can we learn from their generation of saving and community engagement and apply to our present and future?

There?s a great resource on local independent businesses and how they affect the local economy.  It?s called The 3/50 Project¹. Let?s take a look at their analysis to see how it can be applied to our community.

We have approximately 8,000 households in Ladera Ranch.  If you were to take approximately $50 per week that each household can spend locally on goods and services.  And keep in mind this amount is considered disposable or discretionary (we?re not talking about mortgage payments, utilities, taxes, basic groceries, etc.).  Using this figure our Ladera Ranch discretionary funding equals about $20million a year!  What if this money was spent locally? The 3/50 Project has done this analysis and for every $100 spent locally, $68 returns to the local community (taxes, charity contributions, etc.).  If you spend the same $100 with a national chain business, only $43 returns to the local community.  And worse, if you spend the $100 online, $0 comes back to the local community. ¹

Local Ladera Ranch businesses need your support.  But they also want to earn your business.  So the next time you spend this money, see if you can source it from a local business.  As seen with The 3/50 Project, the money you spend locally comes back into the community, to support your local charity, sports team or school.  When you want a night out, try a local restaurant.  If you visit a doctor, dentist, veterinarian, product or service of any kind, see if there are local vendors that can help first so you can help your community!

Does it work?  Local business consumption equals 68% back to the community, local national companies equals 43% and online business outside of Ladera equals 0%!^* In the past few years local community business have put over $2,000,000 into local charities, schools and local events², ask yourself how much has any online, out of area business or most national chain companies done for our local community lately or ever?

The more money spent locally, the more money kept locally!  Buy Ladera, Support Ladera!

Peter Cross is a local, independent business owner in Ladera Ranch, President of the Ladera Rancho Chamber of Commerce and proud sponsor of local businesses and community charities. He can be contacted at peter.cross@isu-tasman.com and would welcome any ideas to improve the interactions between local businesses, charities and consumers to benefit all.

¹ The 3/50 project is the product of  Cinda Baxter http://www.the350project.net/home.html  Cinda Baxter, 2010. All rights reserved.  
² Data collected from organizers and heads of local charities in the Ladera Ranch area complied by the Ladera Rancho Chamber of Commerce, March 2010