Announcing the California Local Good Business Directory

Our mission at California Local is to report on the civic fabric of local communities.

In addition to writing stories about how things work in California, we also maintain two directories—one of local government agencies and elected representatives, and another featuring nonprofit community groups. We built these directories to make it easy for our members and readers to learn more about these two building blocks of the civic infrastructure, and to connect with these entities working to make our communities better.

Over the years, we've cogitated on how to incorporate local businesses into our mission, because they too are an important aspect of the civil life of communities. This goes beyond the fact that they employ people, pay taxes and provide goods and services.

The best way to incorporate local businesses into our database became clear in the past couple months as we entered the end-of-year holiday season, which is when local community foundations and others often engage in their Give Back programs, encouraging people to donate and/or volunteer as a way to "give back" to the communities in which they live and work.

In addition to being a co-founder of California Local, I'm also the co-founder, with my wife Peggy Dolgenos, of one of the oldest extent independent Internet Service Providers in the United States, Cruzio Internet, located in Santa Cruz. Since our founding in 1989, we've been active in the community in so many different ways that it's hard to rember them all. But one thing we've always focused on is working with our customers to donate to the Second Harvest Food Bank.  Every year, our combined efforts result in a donation of tons of food.

While it makes me feel good to share this information about our company, Cruzio is nothing special in that we believe "giving back is good business."  Santa Cruz County is filled with businesses that give back, whether by providing free service to individuals or groups, or having a program of paid time off for staff who volunteer, or sponsoring youth sport teams, or donating money to worthy causes. 

Indeed, every community in the state is filled with such businesses. 

So we created the California Local Good Business Directory where businesses can get listed and tell the story about how they give back to their communities.

We charge a nominal yearly fee to be listed—currently $450 for businesses of 1-10 employees and $600 for those employing more than 10 people.

This fee helps support our community journalism and is itself a small way in which listed businesses can give back.

Check out some of the businesses below to learn their stories.

And, if you own a businesss and give back, get listed!