We are a local network of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) which represents more than 15,000 entrepreneurs in the U.S. and British Columbia.

Our primary goal is to build a strong local network of community-based businesses, non-profit organizations and supportive individuals fostering a truly sustainable local economy in the Portland metropolitan area.

Some of our key guiding principles and concepts:

Sustainable Local Economy: the vitality of local economies is derived from living people, communities, ecosystems. Place matters. The welfare of a community relies on the health of the local economy. Buying and partnering locally keeps your money within your community, reduces demand on environmental resources, and preserves community character. Economies are the foundation for sustainable communities, environments and social fabric. 

Our major economic initiative is the Local First: Choose Locally Owned Businesses Campaign whose goals are to:

• Re-circulate more dollars in our community
• Support and strengthen locally owned, independent  businesses and maintain jobs
• Preserve and enhance our unique neighborhoods
• Get consumers to commit to spending more dollars with our participating locally owned  businesses

Impact on Our Environment: Encouraging locally owned businesses to lessen their impact on our environment by switching to renewable power whenever possible, enhancing recycling, using public or alternative modes of transportation to the workplace and sourcing products locally whenever possible.

Alliances and partnerships with all stakeholders in a community yields new opportunities and expands capabilities. We are committed to creating synergistic programs and events that build on work already done successfully by other organizations or existing programs and we highly value our community partners.

Enhancing local food networks: Local food systems are the local and regional interconnected systems of food production, distribution, and consumption. They foster direct links between farmers and the public, allowing people to know more about where their food comes from and how it is produced, while keeping income within the local economy and reducing the environmental damage caused by the long distance transportation of food. Our current initiative in this area is Eat Local Week, July 5-July 11 in the Portland metropolitan area.

Meaningful employment and a sustainable work environment. We are committed to helping businesses grow, expand their ability to pay a living wage and be aware of the social equity involved as an employer in the local community.

Our MIssion: To help locally owned, independent businesses in Portland create an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable community.

This will be accomplished by:

• Educating the public about their role as consumers and stakeholders and inspiring them to actively support locally owned businesses through a Local First campaign.
• Creating networking and educational opportunities where locally owned businesses can share and learn best practices from the most successful companies and grow through our monthly Visionary Luncheons, conferences and events.
• Helping  locally owned businesses implement sustainable business practices and marketing those values to the public.
• Leveraging our collective impact by joining with hundreds of other member businesses, amplifying our impact on creating a sustainable local economy, achieving more than we could acting alone through targeted promotions throughout the year such as Eat Local Week in July and Buy Local Week in December.
• Maintaining a free online Marketplace/Business Directory where the public can locate services and products from our members and where members can share their values and business practices with the public.