About The Local Post Spokane

Meet the Founder

Hi, I'm Mariella, an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Gonzaga University.

Over the past few years, I've had the chance to work with students, nonprofits, local businesses, and community organizations all across Spokane. No matter who I was talking to, I kept noticing the same thing.

Great people were trying to find each other, but it was harder than it should have been.

Students were looking for organizations to get involved with. Nonprofits were trying to spread the word on limited budgets. Small businesses wanted affordable ways to reach more people and collaborate with others. Organizations were searching for partners but didn't always know where to start.

Everyone seemed to be asking around, sending emails, making phone calls, posting in Facebook groups, or relying on word of mouth and personal connections. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it took months.

I kept thinking, there has to be an easier way!

But there wasn't. And so I decided to build it. 

I needed a way to connect a lot of people in an easy and simple way. 

That's how The Local Post came about.

I wanted to build something that supports the natural, community-driven way people already help each other, which is exactly why free opportunities are a core part of it. 

And it's also a way for me to help many small businesses at once, guiding them through practical marketing applications that fit the day-to-day realities of running a small or new business. 

Grand marketing theories and frameworks don't always account for those realities, and I hope this platform can help bridge that gap. For business owners interested in advertising and marketing, I provide additional educational resources that connect marketing theory with practical application. So you don't have to navigate marketing and advertising all on your own.

Running The Local Post as a business, not a nonprofit, matters to me for another reason too: it means I'm learning and experiencing this alongside the small business owners I work with, not observing from a distance. 

And because the platform includes so much free collaboration, I needed another way to help fund the mission, which is how the Such. A. Local. brand came about. Revenue from those collections helps support The Local Post's work of strengthening our local economy and community by making collaborations easier. 

Strong local networks make a community more resilient in the face of hardship, and building that resilience ourselves, rather than waiting on outside investors to decide whether our local economy is worth backing, is exactly the point. 

I really believe Spokane already has an incredible community. The businesses, nonprofits, creators, and organizations are here. The willingness to support one another is here.

I just wanted to build something that makes those connections a little easier.

Want to be included? 

Text "list TLP" and your organization's website or social media link(s) to (509) 850-0646.

¿Quieres aparecer en la lista?

Envía un mensaje de texto con "list TLP" y el enlace al sitio web o redes sociales de tu organización al (509) 850-0646.