Americans are voting with their dollars. Sandwiched between the frenzy-inducing duo of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday has quietly become a force. Last year on Small Business Saturday, an estimated 112 million Americans spent a combined $15.4 billion at independent neighborhood retailers and restaurants, according to the American Express. The figures are […]
It’s almost cliché to say that small businesses make up the lifeblood of the economy. But study after study underscore the truth of that old chestnut: small businesses create the bulk of new jobs, increase innovation and economic resilience, improve the health and well being of their communities and encourage a strong middle class. So […]
Affordable housing has been a focus of policymakers for years. But skyrocketing real estate is displacing more than families: it’s also forcing thousands of small independent businesses from their commercial spaces. A new report pulls back the curtains on the increasingly precarious reality of small businesses in America today, at least those in cities and […]
In 2012, Alok Appadurai and Jade Beall, co-owners of a yoga and arts studio in Tucson, Arizona, began designing and selling t-shirts and donating a portion of each sale to local nonprofits that feed the hungry. Little did they know where that simple idea would take them. As they learned more about the fashion industry, […]
In 2012, Alok Appadurai and Jade Beall, co-owners of a yoga and arts studio in Tucson, Arizona, began designing and selling t-shirts and donating a portion of each sale to local nonprofits that feed the hungry. Little did they know where that simple idea would take them. As they learned more about the fashion industry, […]
When a shopping center was built on the outskirts of the Northwestern small town where Katrina and Michael Scotto di Carlo lived, they couple watched as one shop after another on Main Street closed. They both had occupations—Michael as a professor and Katrina as an artist—but they were haunted by the closings. After doing some […]