You’ve probably heard. Russell Investments is moving on. There go 900 jobs, a nice chunk of taxes for the city, and a cornerstone of Tacoma city officials’ dream of turning part of downtown into an international financial services business district.

We’ll get to Go Local in a minute. But first, Russell.

We did our best to keep the massive company. A team of high rollers and government officials offered to nix the local B&O tax for financial companies — aka Russell. This would have saved the company an estimated $16.5 million over 15 years. That was just the beginning. All told, the group in charge of wooing Russell offered nearly $150 million in perks, give or take a few million.

Russell left anyway.

Meanwhile, small businesses in Tacoma continue to struggle despite the best efforts of 14 neighborhood business district associations and a gaggle of other organizations and agencies dedicated to their needs.

Not to forget the new kid on the block — Go Local, which I swear we’ll get to.

It would stand to reason that with all of these business assistance agencies and all of the resources that seemed to manifest out of thin air on behalf of one large company, small business owners in Tacoma would have little trouble finding what they need to survive. Maybe even thrive.

But the owners of Laughing Lotus import store say that like many small business owners they would welcome help, they just don’t see anything that approximates the kind of effort offered to keep Russell Investments in town. Co-owner Aamir Ahmad says he took advantage of a free Web design class offered by the city of Tacoma, but didn’t learn much.

“It was just someone selling their product,” he says.

Laughing Lotus is one of several hundred retailers inhabiting Tacoma’s sprawling business landscape. It has four partners who share a small space on Sixth Avenue. The store is filled with housewares, furniture and décor from all over the world and rivals stores such as Pier 1 and Cost Plus in selection and pricing. It blows them all away when it comes to authentic goods and quality of merchandise. Partner Amy McDonald says that she, partner Ahmad, partner Claire Petrich, and one other local wholesaler decided to get into retail after the wholesale market tanked. The store has been open on Sixth Avenue for about six months now and has struggled to remain profitable.

The business has done what it can to promote its offerings, and Ahmad says he regularly attends Sixth Avenue Business District meetings.

But again, getting involved has produced meager results.

The company manages to survive, they say, because its owners share resources, expertise, and responsibilities.

“It really allows us to do a lot more with our resources,” McDonald says. “Any sole proprietor would tell you that they have to do everything alone, all at once. Nothing really ever gets done properly that way.”

The people behind the official Tacoma Go Local campaign know the value of collaboration and sharing resources. That’s why its organizers are attempting to take the nationwide Buy Local/business assistance craze and make it something more than pleas for membership dues, a few networking opportunities and maybe some hanging flower baskets.

That’s not to say that buying local is bad or that other business organizations are impotent.

The fact is buying local is good, even if the message — which is spreading like any good catchphrase — sometimes seems to lose its punch or get co-opted by municipal interests that, in actuality, seem far removed from what real small businesses are experiencing.

It’s good to buy local for the environment, for example.

So buy local, dammit.

Buying local is also good for the local economy. Researchers in Chicago managed to calculate that for every dollar spent on locally produced goods a lot more of that money stays in town.

Seriously, more money.

So buy local, dammit.

Buying local also ensures a diverse selection of products, choices, and services. More choice is good.

So buy local, dammit.
 
Or fall asleep.

Or go to Wal-Mart like you usually do.

That’s the main problem.

Buy Local campaigns generally sound like another ad campaign. Hell, Wal-Mart has already co-opted the Buy Local lingo for its “Locally Grown” campaign and offers articles on its Web site about why buying local is good for you. Buy Local movements have been around for decades in one form or another, and none of them have done anything to significantly shift the spending habits of consumers or stop the imperial march of big box and chain stores.

That’s why Tacoma is trying something a little different.

It’s called Go Local, and it’s far less boring than Buy Local.

Go Local has been around for about a year. When the organization was being formed with the help of some ardent local business owners, its goals were simple — connect local businesses and organizations in hopes that a collective effort might lead to the successes that had eluded folks working separately. In a city where organizations frequently struggle against one another to get their hands on limited resources, Go Local wants to help local resources go further and do more by helping connect neighborhoods, businesses, organizations, and city government. By encouraging real personal connections between people, businesses and organizations, we may have a chance at supplanting entrenched buying habits that drive people to the Tacoma Mall, they say.

So far, there have been lots of connections made, says Go Local progenitor Patricia Lecy-Davis, and a lot of tire kicking by local merchants, who are offered a sweet little package of perks for joining the campaign. But people are slow to join. Merchants are broke. And they’re skeptical. And there are 15 other organizations that want their membership dollars.
Laughing Lotus’ Ahmad says he supports Go Local but wants to see more proof that it will offer the kind of everyday assistance he needs before he spends any money to join.

“It’s never clear what these organizations really bring,” he says. “We need something that will show us that what these organizations are doing is effective.”

Lecy-Davis knows this all too well. The Go Local effort lives in the shadow of its predecessors and is doing everything it can to be different, including talking to city officials to see if the same kind of banner effort made on Russell Investment’s behalf might be made on behalf of local small businesses. It is overly simplistic to say that all that money could just be reallocated on behalf of small businesses, but nixing the local B&O tax for businesses with 20 or fewer employees, for example, is totally feasible.

“At this point, the Go Local movement isn’t a bunch of people dying to be members,” says Lecy-Davis. “But there are all these entities coming together. Everyone has an agenda, but they’re working to cross over and share audiences. I think the small business owners and members will come when they see the power behind the partnerships. Small business owners don’t always have the budget, time or sometimes the understanding of why they would want to connect with another business or agency. We’re looking to bring a forum to the public and small businesses that I hope will connect a lot of dots. We want people to know why there’s value in getting on this train.”

Disclaimer: Swarner Communications, the Weekly Volcano parent company, is a member of Go Local.