When making purchases how do you define local? 

When we choose to `buy local’ there three levels of local:

1. Is the retail business a Local Independent (locally owned and independent)?
2. Is the product manufactured or grown locally?
3. Are the materials used to manufacture the product sourced locally? 

The ideal choice is to make purchases that answer yes to all three questions.   However, the 10% Shift campaign is focusing on the first level of local—is the business (or farm) you purchase the product or service from a Local Independent?

How do I know what businesses are Local Independents?

To qualify to be a Local Independent the business must:

1. Be located in your community
2. Be privately held and not publicly traded.
3. Have 50% or more of the business owners living in your state
4. Have no more than twenty locations and cannot be a franchise

The easiest way to find out who is local in your community is to get a copy of the Local Business Directory in your community.  Not every community has a local business group or directory, but you can go to Local Business Group icon and see the links to the local business groups in New England.  If your community doesn’t have a local business organization, contact us at info@10%Shift.org and we can help you get one started. 

If I buy something from a company based in New England but outside my state, is this considered local?

We say buy things as close to your home as possible.   

1. The first option in purchasing is patronizing a business in the community in which you live.
2. The second option is to shop at communities near your city or town
3. The third option is to see what is available in your state
4. The next `local option’ is to make purchases from businesses in New England

For the purposes of calculating your 10% Shift, making a purchase from a New England owned independent businesses counts as being local.

When you ask me to shift 10%, what does the percentage refer to?

We are asking everyone in New England to shift 10% of their total annual budget from non-local businesses to Local Independents.  This means that if you had an annual budget of $50,000 per year, we’re asking you to shift a minimum of $5000 that you previously spent at non-local businesses to instead spend it at Local Independents. 

We’re not asking you to increase your local purchasing by 10% nor are we asking you to increase your percentage of local purchasing to 10% of your budget.  Our objective is to have everyone to aim for spending 100% of your annual budget locally—making the 10% Shift is simply the first step in our personal localization process.

How do I deal with the categories that I can’t shift to local?

In the “How to Shift by Category?” (listed below) we have detailed creative ways you can make the 10% Shift category by category.  If at the moment you can’t find a way to make the shift, then do the best you can and support any emerging Local Independents or community efforts to make it easier to buy local. 

What are the five easiest ways to make the 10% Shift?

Each household or organization has its own unique budget and mix of purchasing habits.  However, in general, the following categories offer the easiest way to make the 10% Shift:

1. Refinancing Your Home Mortgage
   Interest rates have never been lower and local banks and credit unions are very competitive and more secure than the national banks.  In most cases, making this choice will make your personal local shift higher than 10%.   
2. Local Food
   Developing a routine for buying your food from a local independent grocery store, a farm, a farmers market, or a local delivery service may take a little work, but most people can find a way to make this happen.  Making this shift has the added advantage of strengthening our local food system.
3. Independent Gasoline
4. Eliminate Credit Card Interest

Credit card interest flies out of our local economy.  The first choice is to pay with cash and credit cards whenever possible, because you save the Local Independents the high credit card fees.  When that isn’t possible pay off your credit card balance every month either out of your annual budget or refinance your credit card balances with a local bank or credit union. 

I want to shift my purchasing to Local Independents, but I can’t afford to make this shift.  What should I do?
One of the great myths that the national chains have succeeded in perpetrating is that it costs more to do business with Local Independents than it does with national chains.  In some cases this is true, but most cases Local Independents are priced very competitively with national chains. 

Our second response is to talk about the price/quality equation when choosing where to spend your dollars.  It is easy to get seduced by looking for the lowest price.  By making a selection simply on the lowest price you often will be sacrificing quality which results in a product breaking down, less nutritional food, or a product or service simply not working.  There is some truth to the maxim that “You get what you pay for.”   

We also encourage people to understand the serious cost to our community of doing business with non-local businesses, versus the value of doing business with Local Independents which include:

• A stronger local economy
• Helping keep your neighbors businesses alive
• Reduced greenhouse gas emissions
• Local Independents make significant donations to local nonprofits

Finally, most of us will continue to make purchases from nonlocal businesses for a variety of reasons including affordability which we fully understand.  This is why we’re promoting the incremental change of the 10% Shift, because we’re aware that this is long term process. 

How can I get involved and engage my community in the 10% Shift?
If you have a local business group in your community (check out the Local Business Group icon) then please contact them and tell them you want to get involved.  If you don’t have a local business group at the moment please contact us at info@10PercentShift.org and we’ll help you get started in transforming our economy.

Where do your statistics come from and are they valid?
There have been a large number of studies done in communities around the nation that make a convincing case for the importance of local purchasing.  Many of these studies are listed on the Local Studies icon. 

Who is behind the 10% Shift?
The 10% Shift is a project of the New England Local Business Forum (NELBF).  The NELBF is an alliance of local business groups representing every state in New England.  For more information go the About Us icon.

How do I find answers to specific questions that I have about what qualifies as local?
Click on this link to find answers to “What is Local” category by category….