Fayetteville feedback: City seeks feedback from local small business owners through survey

By Staff Report, posted Sep 9, 2025 on BizFayetteville.com

Graphic provided by: City of Fayetteville

The City of Fayetteville’s Economic and Community Development Department (ECD) is currently seeking feedback from local small businesses through an online survey.

The goal of the survey is to gather feedback from small businesses throughout Fayetteville about what resources they feel are missing to help them expand and improve their operations.

ECD leadership shared that the overall goal of the survey is to put a magnifying glass on current programs offered through ECD that were established over 25 years ago.

“We hadn't really taken a holistic look at our economic development programs. This is where the survey comes in. We want to know from businesses, what are those gaps? What are the things that we ought to be looking at? Yes, we have a facade program right now, [but] is that facade program set up in a way that makes sense for people? What we're looking to do is to just take everything off the table and say, ‘This is what the small business community has told us is needed for growth,’” shared ECD Director Chris Cauley.

The seven question survey aims to give each business a chance to voice their unique needs when it comes to resources, support and opportunities to grow. Input from survey responses will provide insight to help shape potential programs and initiatives, expand existing programs and address the needs of businesses in Fayetteville. The results will determine how Fayetteville ECD redistributes resources received at the local and federal levels.

“The survey is going to give us some of these ideas that may be something we’ve missed,” shared Economic Development Manager Derrick McArthur. “This is a quick survey. We don't want you to spend an hour, this should take you five to 10 minutes tops. We sent it out to

(Women's Business Center of Fayetteville at) CEED, we sent it to the (Fayetteville-Cumberland Regional Entrepreneur & Business) HUB, we sent it to the FTCC Small Business Center. We sent these out to say, ‘Hey, what are some questions that you think we should ask to help us get these answers?’”

Business owners are encouraged to submit their input by Oct. 3. The small business growth and needs assessment survey can be found at FayettevilleNC.gov/ECD, along with resources and opportunities for small businesses.

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