Seattle Good Business Network

Good Food Economy: Initiatives to connect and strengthen the local food pipeline to build a resilient, sustainable, and just local food economy. Programming includes Good Food Forum, an online community of regional food businesses and organizations; Good Food Kitchens, food assistance, economic development, and local food resilience program serving Kind County that provides funds directly to restaurants and caterers to prepare meals for the food insecure, helping to keep their doors open and workers employed safely, while purchasing from local farms and producers, creating long-term local supply chain relationship; Seattle Restaurant Week, a biannual event that connects thousands of residents with hundreds of locally owned restaurants to enjoy seasonal, locally sourced menus. The events educate residents about local farms and producers and the importance of a strong local food economy, and contributing millions of dollars do our local economy; and Good Food Exchange/Lettuce Help Center, a collaboration with Cascadia Produce and Cedar Grove that provides a platform for farms, food businesses, food assistance organizations, and institutions to buy, sell, donate, and receive recovered food through the food rescue hub and online marketplace. They strengthen our community by creating real connections between and among residents and our small locally owned businesses and between local farms and local restaurants. In 2023, this program served 1,281 businesses and individuals; Good Food Kitchens directed over $763,000 to food businesses who prepared over 75,000 nourishing, culturally relevant meals to communities facing food insecurity; and Good Food Exchange/Lettuce Help Center facilitated the re-distribution of 550,000+ lbs of rescued food and diverted to over 70 different hunger relief organizations.

Seattle Restored reinvigorates our city by activating vacant storefronts and windows in Seattles neighborhoods with pop-up shops and art installations from local entrepreneurs, artists, and makers. These projects benefit neighborhoods, small businesses, artists, and property owners and encourage the public to visit downtown Seattle, and support local businesses and artists, particularly Black, Indigenous, and other entrepreneurs and artists of color. In 2023, this program supported 68 participants with a pop-up or art installation. 94% of the participants self-identified as a BIPOC and/or a woman-owned business, and 8 of them moved on from the program to secure their own long-term lease of 2+ years. The program also facilitated $796,643.38 in sales, and its total estimated annual economic impact is $4,042,000, with 1.88X return on $1.4 million investment.

Seattle Good Business Network runs a number of other programs and initiatives including Seattle Made and Northwest Sewn.