Making a positive impact in your community doesn’t have to be complicated. With the ongoing supply and staff shortages, your decisions can have a big impact on your community. By making small changes to the way you save and spend your money you can help boost the local economy. This winter support your community with these simple tips.

1. Shop Local

Did you know that spending money at local businesses isn’t just good for the economy, but also for the environment? With so many holiday events in the winter, it’s no wonder that there is an extra 1 million tons of waste per week. Shopping locally requires less fuel for transportation and less packaging, thereby conserving energy and resources.

The money you spend at local businesses is put back into your area’s economy instead of being extracted from it. This converts into more local jobs, more opportunities for local organizations and service providers, and more tax dollars that stay in the community.

Supporting small businesses in your area also promotes product diversity. A multitude of small businesses, —each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers — guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

2. Support Community Events

In addition to spending money at local businesses, consider supporting your community’s events as well. In addition to bringing community members closer together, events can be a great way to stimulate the local economy – bringing cash from out-of-town visitors, raising the profile of an area and local businesses.

You can help make any event a success by simply going to it! By boosting attendance numbers at local events, you attract more sponsorship dollars in future years. Be sure to invite your friends and family to any fun ongoings in your community this winter.

And don’t forget local activities need a lot of helpers for setting up, running the event, and cleaning up afterward. See if there are any opportunities to volunteer for these local functions. If you don’t have much free time to offer, consider donating funds to support instead. Communities are always looking for collaborators and sponsors to make local events a hit.

3. Visit Your Library

It may not be obvious, but local libraries are a huge benefit to communities both culturally and monetarily. Many people prefer to live near a library. A library, for many, is an indicator of enhanced quality of life, and supporting your local library may help boost your local housing market!

And of course, libraries have many resources such as business development, work training, job opportunities, and more. Public libraries provide service to small businesses about 2.8 million times each month, according to the OCLC report How Libraries Stack Up. When you support a library, you are also, in fact, supporting your local economy.

4. Be An Influencer

You don’t have to have thousands of followers to support local organizations on social media. Sharing your audience with local organizations is one of the easiest ways to boost your local economy. If you have any social media profiles, simply give a shout-out to the local brands, stores, businesses, and activities. Don’t forget to tag organizations in posts and stories too!

If you don’t like using social media for promotion, consider leaving a good review on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other review platforms. Since 93% of customers read online reviews before buying a product, leaving good reviews for deserving local organizations helps small businesses immensely.

5. Join A Local Credit Union

Where you choose to save your money can have a big impact on your local economy as well. As financial co-operatives, credit unions have community development built into their bottom line. The credit union philosophy and the Cooperative Principles that the CUs adhere to emphasize their underlying commitment to give back to the communities they serve.

When you save with a credit union you can trust they are reinvesting in you and your community for the better. Find a credit in union near you today!