Hometown Directory

The Conscious Community and Business Network published the Hometown Directory, a listing of locally owned businesses,with the tag line:Where Locals Shop Locals.

"It's anti-competitive to tell people to shop locally," says founder Richard Flyer."We're highlighting the independent businesses that are here."

The first print run is 15,000 copies, distributed at the members' businesses.

The group even staged a splashy public event at which people were encouraged to keep a copy in their cars.

A fall edition of the directory is planned as well.

It will be larger, says Flyer, and may include a section where individuals can list their skills for hire.

The goal is to list 2,000 businesses and 100 community organizations plus faith-based groups, says Flyer.And the group would like its directory to list all the public entities in the Truckee Meadows.

"If 10 percent of the local population were mobilized, that's 30,000 people,"he figures."We want to make a major impact on improving the local economy."

The Conscious Community and Business Network contends that dollars spent at independent merchants create a multiplier effect in the local economy up to five times greater than an expenditure at a chain outlet.One reason is that profits tend to be spent locally, rather than exported to corporate headquarters and from there to shareholders.

While national chains produce new jobs, the Conscious Community and Business Network contends that for every two jobs created, three are lost in the local community.

And the group contends that when chains build locations that appear to be clones of one another, they do not use local architects, ad agencies or suppliers.

Plus, the group contends, local businesses tend to contribute a larger percentage of profits to community groups and tend to carry a larger percentage of locally made products.

Finally, it notes that when chains prevail, all towns end up looking alike.

The business network levies no dues, but members pay for a listing or a display ad in the pocket directory, also posted on the Web site ccbnreno.org.

Founded with a core group of 20 in the fall of 2003, the group is now over 200 strong.

Conscious Community and Business Network meets at 7 a.m.

on the third Friday of the month at the First United Methodist Church on First Street in downtown Reno.

"Business owners had expressed their difficulties with the influx of chains," says Flyer."It's a fact of life that this situation exists.

In order to compete in a global economy, small business owners need to band together.We figure a redirection of spending of just 20 percent can make a big difference."

The first year the group formed teams at monthly breakfast meetings to iron out structure, values and vision.Next was building a Web site.

This year it published the directory.

Future plans are wide-ranging and start with local law.

"We're concerned about special treatments such as tax breaks and subsidies that government agencies grant to chains, if not made public," says Flyer."Because as small business people, we don't get that."

Next, he wants the network to become a vehicle for economic development of local agriculture and energy.Already under way is a project to establish a year-round farmers market.

The group is looking for a location.

Flyer has a vision: "We can use the market system to change the world.

I'm committed to building a healthy, strong community.

This is something that people of different groups and beliefs can participate in." Eventually, he hopes business can help to solve social problems."The idea was to bring business and community groups together to fill unmet needs,"he says."For instance, several thousand children are living in weekly motels, just a hair's breadth away from homelessness."

Thirty similar business networks exist in the U.

S.Most are affiliated with the American Independent Business Alliance, online at www.amiba.net.