Why Support Businesses That Give Back

Buy local is good advice that has become slightly meaningless through repetition. Every business in a search result is local to somebody. The more useful question is narrower: of the businesses that could do this job, which ones have actually done something for the place they operate in?

That is the question the JEPF supporter directory answers, and it is the only thing it claims to answer.

Every business listed there applied to be there, was reviewed by us, and made a contribution to the foundation. Not a pledge or a partnership announcement. A contribution that paid for school supplies, scholarships and mentoring for young people who had very little.

We moderate it for a straightforward reason. A directory that lists anybody willing to pay is worthless to the businesses in it, because being listed alongside anyone tells a customer nothing. The review is what makes the listing mean something, so we do it.

What the directory does not do is endorse. We are not telling you a listed contractor does good work or a listed restaurant is the best in the county. We do not know that, and a nonprofit that starts implying it has stopped being trustworthy about the thing it does know. What we are telling you is that this business supported education for at-risk youth, and that is checkable.

For a customer choosing between two similar businesses, that is a real tiebreaker and a cheap one to use. It costs you nothing to pick the one that funded a scholarship.

For a business owner reading this: it works the same way in reverse. Being publicly listed as a supporter is something a customer can verify, which is worth more than a claim about community values on your own website that nobody can check.

The directory is on this site, searchable by category and city. If you run a business here and you want to be in it, applying is free and you only pay after we approve you.