Our Work

The Main Street Democracy Project

Trusted Voices. Stronger Communities. Healthy Democracy.

The Main Street Democracy Project strengthens democracy by elevating trusted small business voices and turning local businesses into civic hubs in their communities.

Too often, economic debates are shaped by corporate lobbyists and partisan narratives rather than the lived experiences of local employers and workers. The Main Street Democracy Project ensures that small business owners—the most trusted voices in their communities—are at the center of those conversations.

The project includes three core initiatives:

  • Main Street Media Desk
    A rapid-response communications, legal, and storytelling operation that elevates small business voices in moments of economic and political consequence.

  • Main Street Caucus
    Organizing small business owners to engage directly with elected officials through town halls, listening sessions, and direct conversations with lawmakers at the state and federal level.

  • Care Is Capital
    A state and federal advocacy vertical that shows healthcare, childcare and paid leave as the economic infrastructure that powers local economies.

Media Desk

Making Main Street the Messenger

The Media Desk helps small business owners shape the economic narrative instead of being drowned out by bad-faith actors, corporate front groups, and disinformation. We elevate real Main Street voices in the press, in legal and policy fights, and in rapid-response moments so that the public hears directly from the people most affected by what’s happening in the economy.

From op-eds and earned media to message development and narrative support, the Media Desk ensures small businesses are not just reacting to the conversation, but helping lead it.

In 2025 alone, we drove 50 million engagements across earned and digital media. Watch MSA Member Julie Robbins of EarthQuaker Devices explain on CNN how tariffs are hitting her business.

Main Street Caucus

An Advocacy Community for Main Street

The Main Street Caucus organizes small business owners into a durable advocacy community that can educate elected leaders and shape policy on the issues that matter most to Main Street.

Through roundtables, town halls, listening sessions, fly-ins, days of action, and digital programming with elected officials and experts, the Caucus gives small business owners a real seat at the table. It is how we turn isolated frustration into collective voice, sustained relationships, and organized pressure for policies that help local businesses thrive.

Check out coverage of a roundtable we hosted with the Wisconsin Farmers Union featuring Wisconsin State Assemblywoman Tara Johnson.

Care Is Capital

Advancing care policies by showing their local economic impact.

Care Is Capital is Main Street Alliance’s flagship care campaign, where state and federal advocacy comes together in coordinated public action. Through days of action, fly-ins, petitions, testimony, and sustained storytelling, small business owners bring visibility and urgency to care policy debates.

The campaign highlights how childcare, paid leave, and healthcare shape the survival of small businesses and the strength of local economies. By pairing economic data with lived experience, Care Is Capital builds public understanding and support for policies that help working families thrive.

Read this op-edby MSA Member Jessica Peterson White of Content Bookstore talking about why paid leave is important to main street in the Minnesota Star Tribune.

The Coalition for
New Trade

A broad-based coalition for new trade and economic policies.

The Coalition for New Trade, led by former U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, is building a broad alliance to advance trade and economic policies that work for workers, small businesses, and communities.

For decades, trade policy has been shaped far from the people most affected by it. The Coalition for New Trade works to bridge that gap—connecting policymakers, researchers, and business leaders with the lived experiences of entrepreneurs, workers, and local communities.

Together, the coalition is advancing a vision for trade policy that raises standards, strengthens local economies, and ensures that global economic rules serve people and communities—not just the largest corporations.