Wichita Independent Business Association

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Buying local cannot be stressed enough. The impact of keeping Kansas dollars in Kansas greatly strengthens the local economy.

Buying local was the founding principal of the WIBA , known then as the Wichita Independent Businessmen’s Association, at it’s conception in 1931. At their first official meeting on July 14, 1931, attended by more than 300 local businessmen, they began a campaign to determine the purchasing power of a dollar when kept circulating at home. Special folders, each containing a dollar bill and space to record purchases, were handed out to 100 men who

were instructed to spend the dollars as they normally would. At the end of the “Pass the Buck’ experiment several months later, it was found that these dollars each made an average of 20 purchases per month. This became the basis of the opening theme WIBMA used to generate home store loyalty. To introduce this idea to the public, The Association placed large advertisements in the Wichita Eagle that declared “Your Dollar Does Its Best Work At Home”.

The Wichita Independent Business Association (WIBA) and the Kansas Independent Business Coalition (KIBC) are associations of privately owned businesses throughout the state of Kansas. Our membership ranges from the individual sole proprietor operating a home-based business to large corporations with thousands of employees.