Local Impact Project Recap: Supporting Small Businesses
Spring 2021 — Virtual Local Impact Project
EthiCAL Apparel’s members continued their tradition of community service in our Local Impact Project (LIP) this past Monday. In recent semesters, EthiCAL Apparel’s Social Good Team has planned out interactive workshops to educate our general membership about relevant issues — in a completely virtual manner. This time around, we chose small business relief in the wake of Covid-19. Read on to find out more about what we did!
History of LIPs
As detailed in our Fall 2020 recap of the Virtual LIP Project, the LIP continues to evolve to reflect the most pressing current issues as well as the virtual nature of the past year. While EthiCAL Apparel as a whole spends lots of time designing, selling, and marketing apparel to address important issues, the LIP was devised to allow EthiCAL members to directly engage with the community and make a tangible impact. Our tradition of encouraging involvement sparks change in areas like climate change, youth education, and now Covid-19.
Small Businesses and Covid-19
This semester, EthiCAL’s LIP addressed small businesses because according to Small Business Majority in 2021, 3 in 10 small businesses will not survive past the next three months. In particular, the effects on small businesses are especially devastating for POC, immigrant, and female-run businesses that are integral to our community. Small Business Majority goes on to report that “32% of Latino, 29% of Black and 25% of AAPI business owners, compared to 21% of white business owners” may be forced to temporarily close their business by the end of March. Because these businesses tend to be in industries most affected by the pandemic such as restaurants, hospitality, and beauty, they have been disproportionately affected. For POC and immigrant small business owners, there are also factors complicating their access to government assistance such as language barriers.
For example, Chinatowns across the country have been particularly impacted by the pandemic. Heightened levels of xenophobia have deterred business and discouraged Asian consumers from visiting local businesses, and decreases in tourism have also decreased sales traffic. In another example, San Francisco’s Japantown, the largest and oldest remaining in the United States, is experiencing a downturn due to the pandemic. Small business owners in the area’s Japanese malls are currently involved in a dispute with landlords over rent, threatening a critical cultural landmark in the Bay Area. In Berkeley itself, numerous small businesses have been affected such as Mezzo, Pinky and Red’s, and Jaguar Karaoke. Thus, small business closures are not purely economic issues; the pandemic threatens the character and culture of our local communities that make them home.
Activity: Review Writing
To respond to this pressing issue in our community, EthiCAL members took action by spending 15 minutes writing reviews for local small businesses!
Writing reviews can help small businesses in several ways, such as:
- Balancing isolated negative reviews
- Improving the business’ visibility on platforms such as Google and Yelp
- Building the business’ credibility and drawing in more customers
- Providing valuable feedback to the small business
- Inspiring word of mouth marketing
The Social Good team also presented some guidelines and tips for writing effective reviews. Some “do’s” for a review are:
- Length
- Including photos (with captions)
- Telling an honest, detailed story
- Effective formatting
- Positive, constructive, then positive feedback
- Considering the context and checking one’s emotions before writing a negative review too hastily, especially in a challenging time like the pandemic
Some things to avoid are:
- Short or vague reviews (i.e. one-liners)
- Including too much unnecessary information
- Overly harsh, rather than constructive, comments
- Poor grammar and formatting
- Ending on a negative note
Below is a short sample review, if you would like to write some on your own.
Sustainability during Covid-19
In addition to affecting small businesses, the pandemic has caused a large switch towards extra packaging and single-use materials regarding deliveries and takeout. When buying from small businesses, here are some tips for reducing waste:
- Refuse extra utensils, napkins, condiments, containers, etc. and prepare your own from home
- Wash and reuse takeout containers for various household uses and projects
- Recycle (and wash items before recycling)
- Sort your garbage properly; not everything should be recycled or composted
- Refuse extra online order packaging with your Amazon packages by contacting Amazon’s Customer Service
- Reuse cardboard boxes and packaging materials for sales via platforms like Mercari
Our Impact
In this Local Impact Project, EthiCAL members learned about the impact of the pandemic on our community’s small businesses, and how we can continue to support them during this challenging time while also striving for sustainability.
In sum, EthiCAL members wrote over 50 reviews to local businesses located not only in Berkeley but also in places such as Canada and Southern California!
Action Items
We encourage you to write reviews on your own and integrate them as common practice in your daily life, even when the pandemic is over! Some other ways to support small businesses include:
- Donating to the Berkeley Relief Fund
- Buying directly from the source (rather than via services like Doordash or UberEats), and paying with cash or Venmo when possible
- Picking up items for others or buying extra items as gifts
- Offering your own skills to businesses, such as social media
- Contributing to or utilizing this guide to Bay Area small businesses
- If you’re in Berkeley, check out our favorite small businesses at this map: https://tinyurl.com/ethicalSBmap
While we remain hopeful for the future and the return of visiting our favorite small businesses in-person, there’s a lot we can do right now to positively impact these local spots and ensure they continue to bring joy for generations to come.
Authors: Smera Patil, Vivian Kuang + Spring 2021 Social Good Team: Kathy Lin, Natalie Chu, Sunnie Wu, Emily Su| Team: Social Good
