By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
RAVENA — The Discover RCS program is looking to take its game — and the community — to the next level.
The program is run by the RCS Community Business Association in conjunction with Capital Region Independent Media, which publishes the Ravena News-Herald.
RCS CBA offered the business community an update on where Discover RCS stands now and the future its organizers envision during the monthly meeting at Rail to River Brewing.
“We launched Discover RCS in March of this year,” RCS CBA Vice Chair Rebecca Flach told the audience. “It is a marketing program for the community. We are attempting to drive business to our local businesses and encourage people to invest in Ravena, Coeymans and Selkirk — maybe to start a business here, maybe invest in a home here, and increase our tax base. That is how this all started.”
The idea for Discover RCS was born during a meeting between the group and Carver Companies, which operates the Port of Coeymans. There are hundreds of employees working at the Port and the RCS Community Business Association wanted to find a way to encourage them to do business in the local community, whether shopping for groceries or gifts, dining in local restaurants, and so on.
Flach came up with the idea of creating a map of local businesses to inform those employees of where they can do business here in the RCS community.
“That’s where it started,” Flach said.
She called Warren Dews Jr., vice president and publisher of Capital Region Independent Media, and the two entities teamed up.
“We started by printing our first Discover RCS map in March 2024,” Flach said. “It’s a map you see in lots of other communities. Many of them have a marketing piece like this that drives people into the local businesses. It’s designed to encourage people to spend their money in our local businesses, whether they are from outside the community coming in to visit, or whether they are our own residents looking to shop local.”
The map launched in March of this year, along with a marketing campaign with a Discover RCS website.
“It features what is new, what is going on in our community, upcoming events, and there is also a business directory,” Flach said.
A second, updated map was released in October 2024.
Marlene McTigue, chair of the RCS Community Business Association and the regional director of client and community engagement for Capital Region Independent Media, encouraged businesses to list their upcoming events on the website — it’s free and can be done from the discoverrcs.com homepage.
Other initiatives of the program include social media campaigns.
Between the program’s launch in March of this year and October, 11,200 people visited Discover RCS’s Facebook page, and 3,600 checked out the Instagram account.
“This is all organic — we are not doing any sponsored posts, we are not paying for this,” McTigue said. “This is a ton of sweat equity and a very small budget.”
The Discover RCS program was modeled on the Buy in Greene, Invest in Greene marketing program that drove the renaissance that the village of Catskill is experiencing on its Main Street, McTigue said.
“If you have been on Main Street in Catskill lately, you know that it is a different place than it was nine or 10 years ago and that is because they hired a marketing agency to start promoting affordable, beautiful Greene County to the major metropolitan New York area, and they were able to bring business after business to Main Street in Catskill,” McTigue said. “That is what marketing does, and that is why Discover RCS exists. We want to see a vibrant Main Street and a vibrant community like they have in Catskill.”
Businesses that opt to participate in Discover RCS will be featured on the printed map and on the website directory — the maps can be found in high-traffic local businesses around the community, Flach said, and hard copies are also mailed out to a thousand people, compliments of Capital Region Independent Media.
The volunteers who run Discover RCS are looking to grow the program in Phase 2 by increasing social media posts, providing more content like videos, photography and blog posts, and starting a newsletter.
But they need help.
“What this comes down to is resources,” Flach said. “We are all volunteers, we all have full-time jobs and families, but we are going to start more aggressively pursuing things like grant dollars and other funding opportunities to support this because it’s going in a positive direction, but we need some financial support and human resources to pull it off.”
Anyone who would like to offer support or volunteer should visit the organization’s website at discoverrcs.com.
