A Guide to Mapping Consumer Expenditures and Mobilizing Consumer Expenditure Capacities (Asset-Based Community Development Institute Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research)

This is a guide to understand the way people in your community spend their money and what kinds of purchases they make. It is based on the experiences of one community group as it tried to understand the capacity of local individuals and families to invest dollars in their own economy and to be part of the local economic-development efforts. The guide is in 2 parts. The first part is devoted to sharing a simple method of mapping out the spending patterns of a community in terms of items purchased on a regular basis, and larger investments occurring less frequently. The second part focuses on ways of connecting local vendors to people in the community who might want to purchase their products, educating local vendors about what kinds of things people want to buy, educating local consumers about the value of making their purchases from a local store, and promoting businesses to fill gaps in retail provision.