Community Fund

This week when you are in a shopping centre turn your head towards the stores, continue walking and what will you see – SALE, the sign is in nearly every store.
Local retail trade is currently slow. On-line shopping though continues to increase. Brick and mortar retailers are told they need to adapt to the new digital environment; the world is now their market. For a locally owned and operated business that’s easier said than done, the world is not only their market, it’s their competition.
Continued and increasing circulation of money within a community is essential for its economic growth. Despite the Buy Australian pleas and local loyalty reward cards the lure of an online bargain is hard to pass on no matter where it comes from. Is price the only motivator to buy from a particular site, physical or digital? Powerful one, yes, not the only motivator though. If local business could tap into another powerful motivator could they increase their sales? Would funding the creation of a wave pool on the Yeppoon foreshore lead to increased local sales? Or helping local orphaned children get a permanent home in which to live affect where customers spent their money. Millions of dollars are spent every week with Rockhampton businesses. If 1% of every local transaction was contributed to a community fund think what could be achieved. $4M would raise $40000 a week. Facebook could be used to help the community to decide where the community wants these funds directed to and thus indicate what they would support. To support it locals simply make their usual purchases at participating businesses. Tapping into what the community is passionate about has the potential to increase sales and thus the fund. Imagine if this was a Central Queensland wide project the infrastructure it could provide. There are similar buy local campaigns, but not ongoing and seek whole of community input. It’s Cause Related Marketing on a large scale, a strategy many multinational businesses use to make them appear more customer and investor friendly. It could be a strategy CQ could adopt to stimulate local retail trade and improve our communities, or we just can complain about how quiet it is and blame the government; local, state and/or federal.