Staff Report
Published May 13, 2010

Economic stimulus shouldn’t come just from the federal government, and business owners should be their own bailouts. That’s the message attendees will receive at the eighth annual Business Alliance for Local Living Economies Business Conference later this month in Charleston.

The event, themed Lighting the Way to a New Economy, runs May 20-23.

The conference will include 100 speakers, 10 plenary sessions, 24 breakout sessions, a pre-workshop, three living economy tours and a variety of networking and social events at multiple sites.

“Balle helps businesses, whatever their field, learn how to be sustainable in the new economy — and this conference will harness and focus those efforts,” said Michelle Long, the alliance’s executive director.

Conference rate for general registrants is $565 through today. The rate for alliance network leaders is $515 through today.

Information regarding events, speakers, dates and times can be found on the conference website.

The alliance, founded in 2001, is made up of more than 80 community networks representing 22,000 independent business members in the U.S. and Canada.

Plenary speakers at the conference include:

• Lyle Estill, Piedmont Biofuels and author of Small is Possible
• Jennifer Buffett, NoVo Foundation
• India Pierce Lee, Cleveland Foundation and the Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives
• Eric Henry, TS Designs and Cotton of the Carolinas
• Woody Tasch, Slow Money Alliance
• Annie Leonard, filmmaker of The Story of Stuff
• Ben Burkett, Mississippi Association of Cooperatives
• Marjorie Kelley, Tellus Institute and author of The Divine Right of Capital
• Lily Yeh, The Village of Arts and Humanities and Barefoot Artists
• David Orr, Oberlin College and author of The Nature of Design
• Judy Wicks, co-founder of Balle and founder of White Dog Cafe
• Leslie Christian, Upstream21 and Portfolio21
• Kimber Lanning, Local First Arizona
• Mark Albion, Net Impact and author of The Good Life
• Joe Riley, Charleston mayor

Program topics include:

• Increasing the performance of your triple-bottom-line business.
• Local living economy business models.
• Sustainable economic development.
• Building a thriving local business network.
• Resources for a local living economy.
• Harnessing community capital.
• Supply chain models for local living economy manufacturing.