Support Supportland!

It is common knowledge that the economy is pretty much in the toilet. Oregon, and particularly Portland, has one of the worst economies in the country. But there is a new way to help support local businesses and earn rewards for you as well. It is all due to one card—Supportland.

Supportland is kind of like those rewards cards you get at stores like Fred Meyer, except it is used for multiple local businesses. And shockingly enough, it seems like a good system.

Support the economy by supporting local businesses, and if that was not enough of a reward for you, do not fear: The businesses do promotions via the card so that loyal customers can also benefit. Seems like a win-win all around.

Let’s face it. Who does not like rewards? And getting the card itself is also free. That is a beautiful price to anyone, but especially college students who are broke anyway and spend way too much money on overpriced classes and textbooks. 

Supportland is a point system. Each business on the Supportland network will have at least one incentive for customers who acquire points and one incentive for using those points. Cardholders get these points by making specific purchases at participating businesses.

Each of these businesses will also have specific products that one can buy with the points that they rack up. There is a plethora of ways to figure out just what products cardholders can buy with points. The Supportland Web site is a great resource and you can find Supportland through Facebook, Twitter or even an iPhone application.

This is a new, innovative and great way to get Portland’s economy going again. Although Supportland will not solve Portland’s economic crisis alone, it will certainly help to revamp it.

With Supportland, the money you spend stays local. And money that is spent in the area then circulates to other local businesses. That money then helps support local businesses, which helps supports local jobs and goes towards local taxes, and so forth.

Unfortunately, now that you are all excited about this exciting new way to support Portland’s economy, you will have to wait approximately a month for the card to be released, as they are still in the beta launch phase.

However, according to the website, once Portland is covered, the plan is to attack the greater Portland-Metro area with Supportland—including Southwest Washington.

So hopefully by the end of 2010, one can be supporting local businesses in neighboring communities rather than just the immediate city of Portland.

The key for this to work is Portlanders—we have to make it work. The support of the card will support the local economy. The beauty of this system is that the cardholder knows where their money is going, what it is supporting and if they are a frequent shopper, they very likely know the people and the jobs that they are supporting.

This whole idea is much better than those rewards cards that support big businesses like Fred Meyer, because Supportland is backing local business. Thus, it is helping the local economy. Our economy. And everyone knows that our economy needs help.