Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance Nov Dec 2018

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‘TIS THE SEASON TO SHOP LOCALLY With Election Day barely in our rear-view mirror, holiday shopping season is within view. The official kick-off to the shopping season has traditionally been the Friday after Thanksgiving. Prior to Election Day, you heard from politicians, friends, and even us that every vote counts and your voice is important. Much like how your vote counts, so do your dollars. Did you know that each dollar you spend locally returns an average of 3x more to the local community than buying elsewhere? This recirculation translates to more jobs, business expansion, greater quality of life and more. This is the driving factor in our Buy Local initiative, Buy Here, Give Here, Grow Here. The first component of the initiative, Buy Here, highlights 12 local businesses from the Cedar Rapids metro area to show the quality goods and services available here locally. At www.cedarrapids.org/business-resources/buy-here, you’ll find full features on each of the 12 businesses, paired with the importance of buying local. Look for Buy Here, Give Here, Grow Here messages in Economic Alliance communications and beyond, thanks to our Media Sponsors, The Gazette, KGAN/CBS2 Iowa and Z102.9. Follow along on social media and share your stories of buying, giving and growing locally with #BuyGiveGrowHere. On Saturday, November 24, shoppers across the nation will patronize small and locally owned businesses for Small Business Saturday. We encourage you to spend the day shopping and dining locally and end the festivities at the City of Cedar Rapids’ tree lighting in Greene Square in Downtown Cedar Rapids. Hear from City officials and Economic Alliance representatives and feel the holiday cheer, with the lighting taking place at 5:30 p.m. Give Here recognizes many of the local non-profits that have a hand in solving one of the most pressing issues in the region: workforce availability. Non-profits like the Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation, Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa, Goodwill of the Heartland and others are developing and upskilling today and tomorrow’s workforce, and/or serve as a community resource to support the workforce. See a full list of Give Here organizations at www.cedarrapids.org/businessresources/give-here. BUSINESS SUPPORT Growth in our economy is driven by hard work, creative initiative, and investment right here in our community. Grow Here shares stories of success from local businesses. Some of these are relatively new businesses, like The Map Room, and others are household names like ImOn Communications and Hughes Nursery and Landscaping. See those at www.cedarrapids.org/business-resources/grow-here. 8 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
LAUNCHING A REGIONAL LEGISLATIVE AGENDA WITH THE IOWA CITY AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE In public policy advocacy, there is power in numbers. We advocate collectively on behalf of our members to present a unified message on behalf of the business community to state and federal legislators. One unified voice representing nearly 1,200 businesses has more weight than a singular voice. As an organization focused on economic growth, there are some concepts we will always advocate for, like addressing workforce challenges, supporting businesses and enhancing our community. It’s from those concepts that we develop annual federal and state public policy agendas, specific action items and policies we hope to see come to fruition. When creating our public policy agendas, we coordinate with like-minded, business-friendly organizations across the state that also do public policy advocacy, like the Iowa Association of Business and Industry and the Iowa Chamber Alliance, to ensure our messages align. Another such organization is the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, an organization we partner with in countless other ways beyond public policy advocacy. To mark the collaboration, the Economic Alliance the and Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce will hold the ICR Legislative Launch on Thursday, December 13 from 5-7:00 p.m. at Cedar Ridge Winery. We’ll officially unveil the public policy agendas, with a short program beginning at 5:30 p.m. Attendees will have the opportunity to speak directly with policy makers that represent cities and countries in our ICR Iowa region before new sessions begin in January. This event is for members of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance and the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce. To register, head to the Iowa City Area Chamber’s website, www.IowaCityArea.com and click “Events.” PUBLIC POLICY The Economic Alliance and the Chamber of Commerce serve similar missions for our respective business communities, so it makes sense that our yearly public policy agendas are similar too. This year, for the first time in a very long time, the Economic Alliance and the Chamber of Commerce have worked together to create identical state and federal public policy agendas to advocate as one to our regional policy makers. Thanks to our Lead Sponsor ECONOMIC ALLIANCE REPORT 9
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Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance Nov Dec 2018

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