Of the past 5 years, in many ways 2024 was the most challenging for our small businesses. For many small businesses cash flow was highly erratic and unpredictable and runways exhausted. With limited bandwidth, small businesses continued to innovate and operate with limited resources and with little assistance while costs of labor, real estate, inventory and raw materials soared.
Our purpose at Bricks Need Mortar is to facilitate and support collaboration and innovation amongst brick and mortar small businesses. We work to raise the visibility of each participating business and this community as a whole, through advocacy with policy makers, in partnership with other organizations and community organizations and directly to consumers with marketing. We work to forge a community of practice by facilitating connection through our Shop Talks and through engagement in numerous forums to ensure that the brick and mortar small businesses that make Portland inspiring are seen, heard and represented.
Below are key efforts and accomplishments where Bricks Need Mortar served this community.
- Collaboration with Travel Portland For our May 2024 Shop Talk, we worked with Travel Portland to conduct their first ever retail focused Pulse Check, where we heard from Travel Portland CMO Greg Newland on their efforts to drive tourism and foot traffic. Importantly, Travel Portland listened to and acted on the needs of the small businesses, resulting in updated marketing materials and social strategy.
- Retail Shop Tours From the Travel Portland Pulse Check, we worked with Travel Portland and Pacific NW Experience to organize and deliver familiarization tours. In August we worked with Travel Portland Visitor Center to bring their staff, Downtown sidewalk ambassadors and concierges on a tour of NW 23rd Ave Bricks Need Mortar member retailers. In October we worked with PNW Experience to bring tour operators and other visitor facing professionals on a tour of Bricks Need Mortar member retailers on Mississippi Ave. We are planning on more tours in 2025.
- Lobbying for Small Business Support for Extreme Weather Events After the devastating early 2024 winter storms that shut down businesses, we set to work to find relief for small businesses. We worked with Oregon Rep Nosse and Portland Office of Government Relations on LC 1946 for UI for extreme weather events! This is a massive accomplishment initiated by Bricks Need Mortar. And we just received word that this has now been submitted in time for pre-session filing and is now now HB 2125. We will be working with Rep Nosse and Portland’s Government Office of Government Relations to get this much needed relief for small businesses and their employees who are impacted by extreme weather events. We will continue to work on this bill through 2025.
- Independent + Small Shops Proclamation We submitted the Independent + Small Shops Proclamation and worked with Mayor Wheeler’s office to sponsor this effort. This was strategically designed to create visibility for our small businesses and reminding individuals that small businesses provide community, inspiration, comfort and connection post election and well in advance of the holiday shopping season. The Proclamation was announced with a press conference with Mayor Wheeler and several community small business owners, who shared their passion and commitment to Portland. This was well attended and received significant news coverage from OPB, PBJ and local news outlets.
- Hosted and Facilitated Community Session with Commissioner Carmen Rubio With persistent engagement with Commissioner Rubio’s office, we organized a Shop Talk listening session, with the Commissioner tasked with overseeing Prosper Portland, Venture Portland and support of small businesses. Commissioner Rubio, a front runner for Mayor, sat through a meeting that went overtime to hear every single attendee share their concerns, needs and hopes for the year ahead.
- Facilitated small business support from PEMO We worked to provide support for disenfranchised small businesses in the SW end of downtown, who were experiencing significant and reoccurring crime and dangerous activities. We facilitated and convened meetings with PEMO to ensure these businesses were seen, heard and for their safety and livability needs to be immediately addressed.
- Conducting 5 Years of We Are Here We have conducted 5 years of surveys to provide small businesses with peer data and use that data to advocate for you in pursuit of public policy and healthy environment essential to the success of your business. Our next survey will be out soon. Make sure your voice is heard.
- Actively Engaged in Stakeholder Groups Bricks Need Mortar has engaged in nearly every stakeholder group tasked with addressing Portland’s economic recover. It was important to us to ensure that brick and mortar and retail enterprises are included and prioritized in Recovery and Economic Development efforts from Reimagine Portland to Governor Kotek’s Task Force Visioning Group.
- Provided Professional Marketing Education Session Bricks Need Mortar responds to the needs of small businesses by identifying experienced professional service providers and hiring them to conduct learning sessions like the Small Business Marketing Best Practices session with Ryan Haskins. We continue to build our roster of experienced and knowledgeable professional service providers and provide you with high value learning opportunities.
- Fostering a Community of Collaboration There is only so far that we can go alone but together we can go far. It is this philosophy that drives us to lift this entire community as a whole. This year we partnered with Powell’s Books to drive their thousands of customers to visit other small businesses during the holiday season. We came together as a community to support Portland Center Stage, donating 10% of membership to this essential arts organization, sponsoring the Liberace & Liza production and providing Bricks Need Mortar members and all of their employees with free tickets to every 24-25 PCS Season production.
These are just our top 10 Accomplishments for 2024
We look forward to returning in the New Year to work together to make Portland a place where your business and this community can thrive.
Wishing you a peaceful, happy
and healthy end of the year!
Sarah & The Bricks Need Mortar Team
