Our Work

Main Street Media Desk

The nation’s most trusted messengers telling the real story of the American economy.

    • Train 1,000 Main Street Messengers in media and policy basics

    • Produce op-eds, LTEs, interviews, podcasts, and digital stories

    • Run rapid-response efforts that correct misinformation

    • Highlight small business testimony in legal and regulatory actions

    • Diversify the public voice on economic issues beyond the Chamber narrative

The Media Desk trains small business owners to share their lived experience and bring accuracy and credibility into economic debates. Our messengers respond quickly to misinformation, ground policy conversations in real life, and broaden who speaks for Main Street.

1,000 Main Streets

Turning local businesses into civic spaces that bring people back into public life.

1,000 Main Streets transforms storefronts into civic hubs where people can learn, connect, and register to vote. Organizer-champions host community meet-ups and listening sessions that make civic participation easy and personal.

Meet our local small business organizers here.

    • Nonpartisan voter registration and education in trusted local spaces

    • Main Street Mic’d listening sessions align the policy interests of small business owners, labor and working families.

    • Candid Convo is our webinar series with elected leaders, officials and experts.

    • Policy Playbook grounds local leaders in how legislation impacts local economic health.

Care Is Capital

Advancing care policies by showing their impact on local economies.

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 families and entrepreneurs thrive.

  • Federal: elected education and small business testimony in Congress that highlights the local economic impact of ACA subsidy cuts and the gutting of our care infrastructure

  • Minnesota: paid leave implementation support and education targeting Black, Brown and immigrant business owners; in partnership with DEED and ISAIAH

  • Virginia: paid leave elected education and engagement

  • Iowa: healthcare advocacy in the state where gutted care infrastructure has stymied economic vitality

  • New York: coalition strategy and listening sessions focused on universal childcare