Fighting For Their Independents: The American Independent Business Alliance

Jeff Milchen and Jennifer Rockne want to change community culture on a national level, one town at a time. Milchen and Rockne aspire to help local businesses band together and to educate communities on the value of supporting local, independent businesses. That's why, in August of 2001, they founded the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA).

In a recent interview, Rockne told BTW that AMIBA is a national outreach, networking hub, and resource center for independent business alliances (IBAs) and independent businesses, and her organization's goal is to "preserve the core of independent businesses through assisting organizers to start and perpetuate [IBAs]," she said. "We are hoping we can be a voice for independent businesses."

Rockne has quite a bit of familiarity with IBAs, as does Milchen. Milchen founded the Boulder [Colorado] Independent Business Alliance (BIBA), and, in 1999, Rockne joined as its outreach director. (To read a previous article on BIBA, click here.)

Part of Rockne's job was to bring BIBA's message to the community and media. One issue that she had to contend with was the media's portrayal of BIBA as being anti-chain, as opposed to pro-independent. "I went into the community to … get that picture corrected," she explained. Ultimately, BIBA and Rockne succeeded in getting their message across.

BIBA soon began receiving much interest from other communities and independent businesses, many of which wanted to know how to spearhead similar alliances in their own towns. The influx of attention ultimately led to the creation of AMIBA, said Rockne. "We realized, if we wanted BIBA to survive and to be able to field the inquiries we were getting, we needed to separate the two," she explained. "The national [inquiries were] taking [a lot of] time. There was a need for [AMIBA]; the interest [from other communities] only kept increasing."

Seeing that need, Milchen and Rockne formed AMIBA in August 2001. "We were hoping to keep on doing what we had been doing with BIBA, but with a national outreach," said Rockne. "We want to help communities retain their uniqueness. Ultimately, we're out to shift community culture nationally to supporting local businesses and to provide [alliance organizers] with the templates and guidance and help them network with those who've already created IBAs." She noted that both IBAs and independent businesses qualify to be members of AMIBA.

AMIBA's strategy is three-pronged:

1. Raise awareness of the many benefits independent, community-based businesses provide to their communities;
2. Provide tools, such as an IBA model, and resources for action that communities can use; and
3. Network communities and share their ideas so that good ideas can grow.

Not surprisingly, a crucial part of AMIBA's strategy is helping local businesses create IBAs in their own communities. "Not only can we help [someone begin organizing an IBA] much quicker, but they don't have to create the wheel," Rockne said. AMIBA members looking to start an IBA have access to such things as IBA business plans, organizing documents, examples of tax-exempt forms, a database they can adopt for their own use, and examples of advertisements and promotional items other IBAs have used to spread the word.

Toward that end, Rockne said that the economic study, "Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study -- Local Merchants vs. Chain Retailers," which was commissioned by the Austin, Texas, community organization, Liveable City, has been "one of the more recent positive tools that we've been able to use [in illustrating the importance of local businesses to their community]. Up until then, there was very little data. I hope more communities do that and see for themselves what's going on."

Rockne noted that more often than not, it's the bookseller in a given community that sparks the idea of an IBA and contacts AMIBA. "It's the booksellers [who] grasp this very quickly," she said. "A lot of this [knowledge] is out of survival, because so much has happened in the book industry. It's obvious how booksellers have felt the threat. And it's booksellers [who] usually bring us in to speak, such as in Corvallis." (To see a previous article on the Corvallis Independent Business Alliance, click here.)

Simply put, it's all about power in numbers. "Leveling the playing field," Rockne stated. "An independent business [on its own] can't afford the ad dollars [that a chain can], or they're not able to weather economic downturns," such as a chain that can write off an unsuccessful store as advertising. However, when independents in a community band together, they can help each other, such as organizing joint advertising efforts, for example.

Moreover, as an alliance, "you can make sure there is a constant media message," Rockne said. She explained that the local media is more likely to contact an IBA because it's an easy way to gauge the local business community's take on a business issue. This, in turn, puts independents in the media spotlight. "This is where the culture starts shifting."

For more information on AMIBA, click here. -- David Grogan