Think Local

It's all about community

There is a candy shop in a small Michigan town where the husband and wife owners know the names of nearly everybody who enters their store. And a kite store holds an annual festival that fills the skies with color and streamers along the fresh, breezy lake shore every spring. The owners of a local software firm quietly take a pay cut to avoid laying off a single worker in a tough economy. A childrens resale shop takes a chance on a recently unemployed woman who enters her store looking for an outlet for her hand-knit children's clothes.

i3 Strategies knows that the value of local businesses can never be fully quantified. It can't be reduced to the dollar or a spreadsheet. Local business is essential to the soul of a city. It flavors local cuisine, fuels innovation, adds a cohesive sense of community and continuity to our lives. It keeps jobs and money in the local economy.

It's a critical component to any community in any state. And we're passionate about lending a hand to help anybody strengthen the place they call home.

In Michigan, we see a particularly urgent imperative to support our communities in the midst of the State's catastrophic economic shift. As factories and foundries shut down or move overseas, leaving hundreds of thousands of honest, hardworking men, women, and families without jobs, we see a way of life disappearing before our eyes. A way and quality of life that lasted nearly a century, spanning generations - vanishing.

Now more than ever, it is important for businesses and community leaders to step up and invest in their communities. Lift up one another. Get engaged in the communities. Draw people together. We feel it is our responsibility to do all we can to strengthen our local economies and champion new, emerging industries that bring jobs.

We at i3 Strategies are pure Michigan. For us, Pure Michigan is a way of life. How we define ourselves. We love this state, and the people who live here.

Apples at the farmer's market and cherry wine. Vintage car shows. The Red Wings. The coffee and old book scent of college towns. Sledding. Fishermen and the watery breeze off a summer lake. 'Up North'. The distant call of a lighthouse. A lone owl. Fresh baked pasties. A good game of euchre with friends and a cold bottle of Bell's Oberon.

We love Michigan. We feel a connection to the land and the water and people here. Every day i3 Strategies, through its work and activism, strives to improve the state's economy and communities. To help this state find its feet again. To keep the communities strong and proud.