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Draft 1.1 -- Not for Distribution or Circulation <br />• Local Purchasing — How can LOIS businesses achieve greater success <br />through "Local First" purchasing by consumers, businesses, and government <br />agencies? <br />• Local Public Policymaking — How can the myriad biases that currently exist <br />against LOIS (the vast majority of state and local businesses subsidies, for <br />example, target nonlocal business) be eliminated so that local businesses can <br />compete on a level playing field? <br />Another needed shift in economic development is from a pork - barrel consumer of public <br />dollars to a self- financing producer of public and private wealth. It's ironic that those <br />promoting entrepreneurship often do not demand that they themselves operate in an <br />entrepreneurial capacity. Advocates of LOIS, in contrast, are increasingly designing, <br />testing, and deploying models for self- financing economic development, everything from <br />local gift and debit cards to business -to- business contract facilitators. These programs <br />are called "meta- businesses," since they are designed to operate profitably like other <br />businesses, but benefit not just shareholders but all LOIS businesses. <br />The LOIS perspective and related concepts of "economic gardening," once considered on <br />the fringe, are now becoming increasingly mainstream. At the forefront has been the <br />Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), which since its founding in <br />2001 has grown into coalition of 80 networks across North America formally <br />representing 22,000 local business members (and informally representing millions of <br />local businesses that operate in these networks' regions). In fact, these numbers represent <br />only a small fraction of the movement. Other organizations involving local businesses, <br />including the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), the Post - Carbon <br />Institute, and Transition Towns, are bringing hundreds of other communities into this <br />movement. And to this list should be added the growing roster of organizations <br />promoting local food, local banking, and local energy. <br />15 <br />Attachment number 1 <br />1 -4 Page 317 <br />