About Us

Vision:

We envision a thriving Lake County Economy that functions in harmony with local ecosystems, meets the basic needs of all our people, supports just and democratic governing, and fosters joyful community life.

Mission:

To help local independent businesses and organizations connect and thrive while co-creating a Lake County economy that values People, Planet and Profit.

What is Thrive Lake County?

Prosperity Starts Here.

To be the local forum where businesses come together to transform and model an economy built on sustainable practices.

We work with local, independently owned businesses and organizations that have the autonomy to make any transformational change in their operation that they can imagine… reexamining where we buy goods and services, how we consume energy, grow and distribute our food, build homes, and even, how we define success in business.  Thrive! Lake County is supporting a community of innovators in green building, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, supporting independent businesses in town centers, and mentoring a new breed of entrepreneurs that have designed their business with a sustainable vision.

We accomplish this objective and serve our target population by:

• Providing a local forum where businesses come together to transform and model an economy built on sustainable practices.
• Creating peer-to-peer mentorship opportunities, such as roundtables, one-on-one mentoring and group coaching.
• Providing educational services, such as business start-up courses and webinars on how to "green" your business.
• Providing project management services, such as implementation management of a public,  private, or volunteer sector project that complies with Thrive 's mission statement.
• Providing business services to social entreprenuers, such as grant writing, business plan writing,  fiscal management services, business health checks and marketing consulting and services.

What is a “Local Living Economy”?
An economy where success is measured against values and quality of life improvements, rather than growth and financial gain. The focus is on building up small and medium-sized businesses rather than large national and multinational corporations. Elements important to the creation of local living economies include:

• Green Building
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Renewable Energy
• Zero Waste Manufacturing
• Independent Retail
• Community Capital

For further information, read this description local living economies here.

Our Approach

Thrive! Lake County is a group of businesses, organizations and supporting individuals that believe we can create sustainable local living economy together.  Thrive! provides resources to its members, including other like-minded organizations already existing in the County, and serves as a force for action and connection leading to the creation of healthy, sustainable, and economy-enhancing conditions where existing County businesses and organizations can thrive.

We seek to shed the cultural stereotype of an economically-challenged, blighted county with issues that are too great to overcome.

Our initial focus is on areas that other community groups are not addressing from a business perspective:

1. Community Capital: Time Banking
2. Local Economic Solutions / Micro Enterprise
3. Local Food Systems
4. Sustainable Business Development Services

We seek to view this mission of  economic social and environmental sustainability to the 7th generation. Our initial execution efforts will come from one of the above focus areas, with measurable goals set for within one year of launch.

We are an additional resource to our business community and new micro-enterprises, We will focus on People and Planet issues, and assist our local business associations’ efforts towards Profit, balancing all three elements of this "Triple Bottom Line."