By The Numbers: The Impact of Boomerang Greensboro

When Action Greensboro first launched its Boomerang campaign, the idea was simple: help people who grew up or spent formative years in Greensboro return to the city.

Five years later, a new study suggests it’s succeeding to the tune of $26 million in annual economic impact.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” said Cecilia Thompson, executive director of Action Greensboro. “But the level of detail they went into for the analysis was super interesting.”

Thompson and her team helped Lightcast, the data company Action Greensboro uses to help track who migrates to and from Greensboro and why, put together information on the more than 100 people and families they’ve helped return to make the city their homes. From that, they were able to quantify the impact of the program on everything from business sales and labor income to the amount of labor income generated annually.

Each person had their own reason for coming back—family, career opportunities, cost of living. But many needed help making professional and social connections, finding the right neighborhood, or making a professional transition. That’s where Action Greensboro came in. Most found a different city than the one they left, Thompson said.

“We’re talking about a lot of people who are now in their mid-thirties,” Thompson said. “When they left Greensboro to go to college or grad school, or moved to a larger city for career opportunities, Greensboro may have been a place where businesses were leaving—jobs and industries that had existed so long, manufacturing and textiles.”

But new industry from a nearby Toyota battery plant to multiple aviation companies has changed that, Thompson said. Remote work has also given more people the opportunity to choose the community where they want to live, buy a house, or raise children. Greensboro isn’t just an affordable place to live that offers more opportunity than people may remember from growing up in the city, Thompson said. These days there’s so much to do in the city that people are spoiled for choice.

“Greensboro can really be what you want it to be,” Thompson said. “You can live in any city in any state in the country and sit at home and watch Netflix. But if you want to go see a show in Greensboro, if you want to go to First Friday downtown or watch the World Cup at LeBauer Park, go to a new coffee shop or get to know other parents and explore the Children’s Museum—that’s all here for you.”

Today, we’re taking a By The Numbers look at what that analysis says about the return of these “boomerangs” and the impact they’re having.

All the figures come from Lightcasts’ analysis and represent the estimated annual contribution of returnees at a point in time, not a cumulative total over the last five years.