OFFICE DOORS {valley changemakers}
KIMBER LANNING
Founder of the Local First Arizona Foundation Karen Werner | Editor
Kimber Lanning has covered a lot of territory in the last 15 years — going from a local record store and art gallery owner to a statewide leader in responsible economic development strategies. When she started Local First Arizona in 2003, she focused on organizing locally owned businesses to level the playing field with large corporations in Arizona’s unbalanced economy. As part of the effort, Local First Arizona encouraged citizens to eat and shop locally. “Then we realized we can’t tell everyone to go local or eat local when there’s not enough local,” Lanning said. As the years passed, and her experience grew, Lanning realized there was more to building a stronger Arizona than just buying locally. So, in 2009, Lanning founded the Local First Arizona Foundation to shift the focus to tackling some of the bigger challenges of the state’s economy. 12 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | OCTOBER 2018
“The foundation came to be because of an awakening,” Lanning said. “We started with very good intentions, but we were focused on middleclass and up, people who could afford to go local. But a lot of people don’t have access to local business or local foods, so we weren’t speaking to all of Arizona.” To target the inequity, Local First Arizona Foundation runs three key programs. The first, Fuerza Local, is a business accelerator program for underserved communities. “We take lowincome folks who are being victimized by predatory lending and they study with us for six months to learn better business practices,” Lanning said. During this time they also participate
