May 2008

Hello BALLE!

Our trusty Director of Membership Services, Lark Paulson, will be participating on your behalf in the national conference of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) in Boston in early June. BALLE counts almost 60 alliances like ours as members, with close to 20,000 businesses. Is there a particular issue you want Lark to find out more about? Take a look at the conference agenda at www.livingeconomies.org and let her know. You may contact her at lark@danebuylocal.com or (608) 467-7555.

We are looking for financial assistance to help cover lodging/meals and airfare/ground transportation travel costs for Lark. A donation of $25-$100 would be greatly appreciated! Checks can be made out to Dane Buy Local and sent to the attention of Kelly Starr King at:

Kelly Starr-King
Drake & Company
402 Gammon Place, Suite 210
Madison, WI 53719

Thank you so much for considering...every little bit helps!

Membership Directory Kick-Off - June 26!

Mark your calendar for our Membership Directory Celebration!

Join media reporters, luminaries and Dane Buy Local members at 12 pm, Thursday, June 26th at the corner of Henry and State Street between MMoCA and Fontana Sports to sign the Declaration of Independents. There will be food, fun and great promotion for buying locally.

*Rain Location: A Room of One's Own, 307 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI 53703.

Promote and Distribute the Membership Directory

Each member is entitled to receive 50 FREE copies. Place them on your counter and share the benefits of supporting local independently owned businesses like yours with your customers. Need more copies? You can pick up more directories at our Dane Buy Local office, located within the office of Drake & Co. at 402 Gammon Place, Suite 220, Madison, WI 53719 or at designCraft at 707 S. Park St., Madison, WI 53715.

Display Your Products and Services for FREE

Fontana Sports Specialties will donate space in their display window on State and Henry Streets in downtown Madison for Dane Buy Local members in June. Contact Sandy Torkildson, A Room of One's Own, 257-7888; room@chorus.net. First come, first served until the window is full.

Doing Our Part to Stem the Tide of email

We've heard you loud and clear regarding email - LESS IS BETTER. We've made some changes and hope this new system will work well for you.

When you have something to post to our membership base, we will email only the necessary information and then direct the reader to your website or the Dane Buy Local calendar for more specifics. Please use the following format:

The subject line should contain the most important information:
WHO: ______
WHAT: ______
WHEN: _______
WHERE: _______

The body of the email should direct the reader to the Dane Buy Local Calendar for more specifics, as in the following example:

Subject: "EVENT: Jello-Eating Contest 7pm Tue. May 13th @ Bob's Buckaroo Palace"

Body of message: "More information available at www.danebuylocal.com/calendar or by visiting www.bobbuckaroopalace.com".

Please send your email notices to lark@danebuylocal.com and let her know if you would like your event posted to the Dane Buy Local calendar as well.

If you have a media clip that you would like to have added to the website, please send this to Lark as well.

How You Can Get the Most from Your Membership

Let thousands of visitors see your business in your Spotlight on www.danebuylocal.com. Send your photo and narrative to Lark Paulson at info@danebuylocal.com. Need help? Go to http://www.danebuylocal.com/member_services and select Member Spotlight Instructions.

Show Me the Green!

Most Dane Buy Local members incorporate an increasing variety of "green" business practices, but not just because they are "environmentalists". These days, the key concepts include profit, energy conservation, savings, health and safety, fairness, openness and community engagement.

Want to learn the nuts and bolts of those concepts so your business and customers can benefit? Contact Rick Brooks at 265-4077 for details on workshop times and locations.

A Classic Buy Local Success Story

Instead of growing bigger than the community could support, starting cookie cutter franchises and moving out of town, there's a deli in a Big 10 town (we won't tell you which) that keeps showing up in places like Inc. Magazine and other media as "the coolest small business in America."

It's the Zingerman's community of businesses, leaders in the Buy Local movement. Each business has its own unique specialty, but is invested in each other's success as well. Listen to this great story from our (local) Wisconsin Public Radio station.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90354947

Among their goals:

• All employees know the bottom line
• There will be 12-18 interrelated businesses by 2020
• Delicious food

"The mark of sustainable farmers," say the Zingerman folks, "is to leave the land in better condition than it was when they started. That's what we do."

P.S. Fun is in the Zingerman's guiding principles. We will be learning all about it at the national conference of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

Thanks... and Keep it Up Everyone!

Many thanks go to:

Yvette Jones and colleagues at designCraft advertising, for their design work, and coordination with Amy Johnson of Townes and Madison Originals Magazine, for the Membership Directory.

Mike Yaker of WoodJoiners, for his generous hard work setting up and staffing a beautiful timber frame display for Dane Buy Local at the Isthmus Green Day and Going Green shows. See: www.woodjoiners.com

Rebecca Kendziorski of African Youth Outreach for coordinating the volunteers at Isthmus Green Day and recruiting such active ambassadors as Eve Galanter, Yvette Jones, Tom Thrun of Inkworks, Gail Paraskevas of Three Orange Doors, Sara Alvarado of Alvarado Real Estate Group, Allison Dodge from Happy Bambino, Meghan Blake Horst of Absolutely Art and many others.

What You Can Do

Click here to read about six things you can do to Promote and Benefit from Buying Locally!

New Members since January 2008!

JANUARY
Albrecht Labor & Employment Law
Birschbach Team Realty
Burnie's Rock Shop
External Technololgy Solutions
Indigo Coffee and Tea
The Kitchen Gallery
Madison Magazine
Movin' Shoes
Paoli Local Foods
The Petal Patch
Unearthed
Wildwood Productions

FEBRUARY
Dane County Credit Union
Pick More Daisies
Villard & Associates

MARCH
Artisan Design and Fabrication
Avant Gardening & Landscaping
CobraHead
Eco-Realty
Indoor Environmental Testing, Inc.
Kidlinks World
Kountry Cutter
Live In Light
MadisonClick Inc
Nilda's Chocolates
Northside Farmers Market
Rutabaga Paddlesports
Sunshine Jones
Webstix Inc
Woodchuck Tree & Yard Service

APRIL
Arbonne
Basketree Gifts Inc
Bluestem Acupuncture
Cha Cha Tea
Concentre Communications Inc
Designer's Showcase
Douglas Art & Frame
Morgan Shoes
New Balance Madison
Stride Rite
Wegner Asset Management
Willowpads and Willowsprouts
Windsor Building Systems LLC
Yahara Bay Distillers, Inc.

MAY
Asian Wisconzine
Coyle Carpet One Floor and Home
Dragon Technology Solutions
The Guttersmiths of Wisconsin LLC
Higher Fire Clay Studio
Karcom
Lord Spinal Care
Pick More Daisies
Ritter Insurance Agency
Rozwadowski Law Office
Scram! Courier
The Sow's Ear