Category: Partnerships

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Gina Suydam. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

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Introduction

Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

And now your host. He’s a fan of Bitcoin. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the chamber chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Gina Suydam . She’s the president of the Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce in Pennsylvania, where she works with a variety of businesses in rural Northeast Pennsylvania. Gina believes a strong community leads to better quality of life for residents of Wyoming County and the surrounding endless mountains region. Over the past eight years in her position, she’s facilitated the development of natural gas utility service to the white Wyoming County Seat of Tunkhannock. Working with the county commissioners and Borough Council chamber board of directors GUI Utilities and Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation. Gina encouraged public private partnerships, securing $2 million in grant funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to launch this development and bring natural gas service to residents and businesses in Tunkhannock. Currently, Gina is collaborating with several other Wyoming County organizations on a community heart and soul Initiative, a humanities based approach to community planning sponsored in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Gina facilitates leadership Wyoming Regional Leadership Program, which she implemented to develop to develop a more complete awareness of Wyoming County’s industries amongst local professionals. In 2021 22, Gina will lead new initiatives to engage youth with local workforce and structure an Economic Development Council to identify sites for potential development.

Gina, I’m thrilled to have you with me today on chamber chat podcast. And if you would just take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little bit better.

Something Interesting About Gina

Gina Suydam 3:12
Sure. Well, hello, Brandon. And thank you for having me on the show. And thank you to all of our chamber champions out there. I’d said it’s great to be here with you today and great to talk with you after we’ve had such a crazy past, you know, two years in the in the chamber world than in the business world in general. But it’s great to be here today. Something interesting about myself. So I was born and raised in Wyoming County. And I grew up on a very small dairy farm. So I come from, you know, kind of very humble rural beginnings. And being here as a part of our chamber now seeing industry kind of take off here in our area has been really exciting for me. When I grew up in our town, there was really nothing to do right now. I have three teenagers who tell me there’s nothing to do here and I just shake my head.

Brandon Burton 4:09
You only knew and I was a kid. Yeah.

Gina Suydam 4:13
You feel like it really all they say back when?

Brandon Burton 4:16
That’s right. No, that is something special, though, to be able to work at the chamber where you grew up, and then that’s your community. So that’s a rarity to see that in the chamber industry. So that is pretty neat. Yeah. So share with us a little bit more about your chamber kind of size, scope, first staff budget, that sort of thing, just so we can kind of get into our discussion.

About the Wyoming County Chamber

Gina Suydam 4:44
Sure. So our chamber is a county wide chamber. We are the only chamber in our county. Our county total population is about 27,000. So our chamber remains small. Were at about 300 60 Members, we have a three, two full time staff and a part time staff person. And then our budget is roughly about 250,000. But I’m going to talk about some interesting things today that will allow me to have about a $350,000. budget next year. Right. So it’s a we’re very excited about the movement and things that we’re doing here in Wyoming County to help grow our community. But again, I think that size right doesn’t matter in you know, in the chamber industry. Thank you. You can do great things for your community, but it’s all in perspective. And it and that’s that’s what it’s about.

Brandon Burton 5:51
That’s right. And I’m hoping everybody’s ears perked up when you talked about budget going from 250 to what you have going on? It’s going to take it to 350. And percentage wise, that is huge. So I mean, as you scale that for chamber who may be larger, you scale that up to your size, I mean, tune in, you know?

Gina Suydam 6:12
Yes, exactly.

Brandon Burton 6:14
So our topic for discussion today we’re going to talk about partnerships with nonprofits, and how that plays into your budget like you kind of alluded to, but we’ll get into this discussion as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Non-Profit Partnerships

All right, Gina, we are back. So as we talk about nonprofit partnerships, why don’t we just start by having you share what you’re currently involved with and things that you’re doing there at the Wyoming County Chamber in this room?

Gina Suydam 8:58
Sure. So back in 2019, kind of you know, the pre COVID world, I was approached by the Wyoming County Community Alliance, which was a small nonprofit that received some funding from our local United Way. They received about $10,000 A year from United Way and they really only ran one program and focused on students and kind of helping students to engage in activities. Great program, and I was really excited about it. But really, why they asked me to get involved was they were their 501 C three was kind of in jeopardy. They were they were at a place where they didn’t have a strong board of directors and they didn’t really have a strong vision for the future of their organization. So they asked me to come in and do some strategic planning initiatives with them. And fortunately for me, one of my chamber board members also sat on their board. And he said, I think this is a real opportunity for chamber, because we had been talking about getting our own 501 C three, as many chambers are right now. And he said, I think this is an exciting opportunity for us to partner with his 501 C three, get a lot of our things accomplished that we want to accomplish, but still have that 501 C three, a little bit at arm’s length. And so that’s how that started for us. Right. And And now we’ll get into I think some of the the bigger things that we’re able to accomplish with with that partnership.

Brandon Burton 10:46
Yeah. So as you work that partnership, what is the scope with what this nonprofit? So, so the Wyoming County Community Alliance? What is it that they were doing? And then in partnering with them, what was the chamber able to add and bring to the table to help further the mission and vision of the chamber as well?

Gina Suydam 11:09
Sure. So in in 2019, when I got involved, we were looking at creating the Alliance to be an organization that would really help other nonprofits in our community to grow. In the chamber world, we spent a lot of time focusing on our businesses. And there’s this the sector of nonprofits who, at least for my chamber, I didn’t feel were getting enough attention from us, right. They they wanted or needed, you know, training on how to do proper fundraising and those things. So that was our vision going into 2020 is that we would start setting up some trainings and helping other nonprofits. And the mission, let me just back that up a little bit. The mission of the Wyoming County Community Alliance is to create a healthy community. Right? So it was very

Brandon Burton 12:04
vague, it was like a chamber kind of

Gina Suydam 12:06
which was perfect, right? To get us, you know, to get that chamber and the Alliance melded together, it was it was perfect for us. So when 2020 started, you know, we were you know, we were kind of in that mode of, alright, let’s get some of these trainings scheduled that we talked about. And then as we all know, the world came to a screeching halt. And in March, and by about April, one of my fellow board members on the Alliance said to me, Hey, do you think that that the alliance could run a Food Distribution Program? Because we are, you know, as in many communities, food resources became very scarce? And I said, Sure, the alliance can do that. Right? Because we had the ability to filter in money as we were doing through the United Way with this other student project. So we started a Food Distribution Program. And then we went on and then throughout COVID, other organizations approached us the local four H group approached us and said, Hey, for he has kind of shut us off for the year, right, shut our funding off for the year, but we have students in our agriculture program that have raised livestock, and they normally sell them at the county fair. Well, there is no county fair this year. But these students have $800, you know, cows and pigs that they still need to sell, because what happens is they sell the pigs, they get scholarship funding, and then those, then they use that scholarship funding to buy their animal for next year. And eventually they use that money to go off to college. So these kids are they’re entrepreneurs, right? These are the kids we want to invest in now. So they said, Do you think the alliance could help this livestock group, this Wyoming County livestock group and be our pass through for the the auction of our animals and then pass through the money to the students of scholarship funding? And I said, Well, sure. We could do that. Right. You know, again, much like chambers where? Yes, yes, we can do that. Yes, we can help right, let’s figure out a way. So by the by the end of 2020, the Alliance had also run a restaurant workers relief program where we funneled money out to our restaurant workers who, in the state of Pennsylvania, all the restaurants were shut down about three weeks before Christmas. So we had, you know, lots of moms without jobs, three weeks before Christmas, and they were feeling a little a little down on their luck. We were able to give, we were able to give 40 families $500 In a very short timeframe just again get getting this money and kind of leveraging the chambers

in the chamber name in the community and saying we’re partnering on this, we believe in this organization, this is a good cause. This is a, this is an organization that you can give to safely and the money is going where we say it’s going, right. So we did all of those things very quickly, in 2020, which was great, because we then got that notoriety of the partnership between the chamber and the Alliance. And now going into 2021, we were able to step up our game. And we have gotten $170,000. For the projects that you talked about, in my introduction, the student engagement, we’re continuing a Food Distribution Program, realizing that transportation is a big issue for a lot of our families and in our rural area, and then, again, with economic and community engagement. So the chamber is going to run those programs. But the funding for those programs was donated by a chamber member through a tax credit program that is offered here in the state of Pennsylvania. So I’d encourage you all out there and chamber world to kind of look at those programs in your prospective states to see if there’s anything like that I think I was Googling the other day think Missouri has a similar program. And I know a few others came up. But it’s in our community anyway. In Pennsylvania, it’s called the neighborhood Assistance Program. Okay. And it allows for corporations to receive tax credits for their donations. So my $170,000 of donations was just leveraged by those companies receiving 75% Tax Credit. On that donation

Brandon Burton 17:15
makes it easier. Yeah,

Gina Suydam 17:16
yes. So so the asked is really right, so much easier when you’re saying all this money. One is staying with a trusted entity, right here in our local community, all of your dollars are going to an organization that you believed in for years. Right. And it’s, it’s just been, it’s been an incredible process for me to see, you know, of course, how you apply for state funding is, you know, as anyone who’s ever applied for state funding, I’ll tell you, it’s a little tricky, right. So that process of applying for the state funding was very eye opening, and then kind of walking through those other pieces. And you know, now we’re at the point where we’ve received the donations, and now we’re going to begin implementing the projects.

Brandon Burton 18:05
So do you know about how long the state tax credit program has been available?

Gina Suydam 18:11
I don’t, um, it’s an annual program here in Pennsylvania. So you have to apply annually for those tax credits, and you have to, you know, find your own donors. But it’s much like the education tax credits. It Well, it’s similar but different, right? As, you know, as many states do, they create these similar programs, but put their own little nuance, to make it you know, to make it a little little more difficult for everyone to understand. But it’s definitely a program I think, worth worth looking into. Because as I recruited, you know, I recruit my own donors. So that’s what makes it different than the education tax credits, his education, tax credits all go into one pot. You know, someone else is working to recruit those donors and get that money in the door, where this is, I’m recruiting my own donors. And that was a very valuable thing for me. And you told me before the recording got started that that Kyle Sexton had recommended that you talk to me, and I just want to share this little chamber story because many of us know Kyle and I was out with Kyle when I had my my tear dues, right our chamber moved to tear dues, and we’re having those meetings and I met with a gentleman in our community, who’s been a chamber supporter for a long time owns many businesses. And we walked out of the meeting and I had gotten my big win from him. I’d got my big yes pile, you know, pat me on the back and he was all excited for me. And then he turned to me. And we got the car and he said, save that guy’s phone number, right. Put his card in your back pocket for the big ass because he is your go to. He’s the guy when you want something big. He’s going to be at the table giving it to you And sure enough, he funded $150,000 of my $170,000 project. Wow. So, so thank you to Kyle. Right. Yeah. For giving me the the encouragement. Right that I could ask that big. And pointing out who to go to when your site? Yeah, right. Yeah. So that was that was really exciting for me. So I’ll share that with you that, that maybe that’s why Kyle connected. That

Brandon Burton 20:32
is me. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s coming to my mind is, I mean, you’re having some great partnerships, it seemed to align very well with the Chamber’s mission. I know most chambers are not sitting around saying what else can we do? You know? So how do you? How do you manage it as you as you run these additional programs, these partnerships with nonprofits? As far as bandwidth goes, they’re in your office, your staff, versus with the nonprofits that you partner with? How much of it is on your shoulders? How much of it is on on their side? And how does how did those relationships look?

Gina Suydam 21:15
Sure. So I think every, every, you know, relationship is going to look a little different. For us, the alliance has no paid staff. Right. So the staffing part does fall on our chamber. But that’s, again, where the where the financial relationship comes in. So the alliance has hired us contracted with us to do that work for them, therefore, enabling me to hire another person, right to bring in and then I do hope to bring in another person this year on our team, who will help us facilitate this. But I want to step back a little bit, because you said, you said a little bit that right, creating more for me to do, all of these things are something that most chambers are already doing, or are feeling like I wish I could write, I didn’t take on anything that I didn’t think we should be doing, maybe with the maybe with the exception of our Food Distribution Program, which was really just a wild lead for our community. But that is 100%, volunteer driven, right, we have, you know, my staff time on that is, is pretty limited right now. But everything else, our student engagement will eventually turn into, you know, workforce awareness here. And that’s something chambers are doing our economic and community development. I mean, if you’re not at at those tables in your communities, you need to find a way to be and for us having the money, right is is a way for us to call the right people to the table. And I think that was really important for us to, to kind of step up. So now my county commissioners are paying a little more attention when I say, hey, we need to do this in the way of economic development, because I can leverage and I can leverage now, a lot of funding that they have, right? So they’ve already come to me and said, what else do you need? Right? We have some funding, what else do you need? Right? So that that makes it interesting, it’s it’s very much turned to the turn the chapter for me, to put us I think, to leverage our chamber, where we should be in a in a role of community leadership.

Brandon Burton 23:40
There’s that lesson from Kyle, again, if seeing a couple steps ahead. And you know, being strategic with how you do these partnerships to, to build to have that leverage going forward and to develop more meaningful programs, even in the future that kind of sprout out of these things that you’re doing now. So I think that’s a very important distinction that you pointed out. And just a lot of times we look to simplify joblessness, to add to it, but every year, right, everything you’re doing is adding to the greater mission of the chamber and where you want to be, you know, a few years down the road. So I think that’s very good. I’d like to ask if there’s any maybe tip or action item, that a chamber listening maybe based on our discussion, maybe not something they can take to help elevate their chamber up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Gina Suydam 24:38
So I think my my advice in that space, right is to make sure that your board as I said, again, it was my board member who came to me with the Alliance and said, you know, hey, we can help them and I think in turn, they will help us Right. And if he if he didn’t know what I was looking for. And many of you may be saying, well, my board isn’t that engaged or my board doesn’t really understand the picture. I didn’t think my board did either. Right. But it’s those one or two little nuggets of people that, that they’re listening, right? They’re listening. And when the bulb lights up for them, they will take action. Right? And, and sometimes, right? Sometimes it’s, it’s those off the wall ideas that are going to bring the big dollars to you, right? It’s those, hey, let’s, let’s build a strategic plan for this other organization that that is essentially falling apart. Right? Let’s, let’s help them with their strategic plan and figure out how we can partner and I’m thinking great, here’s one more thing on my plate, right? And then I stopped and said, let me look at the big picture this, let me really see how down the road, we can really become a powerhouse. And I think that that’s what has happened.

Brandon Burton 26:09
But there was something else that you had mentioned early in our discussion about that about going into 2020 wanting to do some of these trainings for other nonprofits in the community. And I think some chambers would look at that as competition, you know, why are you going to go and get the competition, the tips to be able to get those resources that you’re after to in your community? But you obviously don’t see it that way. And that in, and I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it either, is competition because it’s all for building the community. And if you can align some of those same missions and visions together to further the cause of the community. I think that’s right on what you’re doing. I don’t know if you have anything more you wanted to add to that. I meant to ask you about it earlier as a follow up, but as far as looking at other nonprofits is competition.

Gina Suydam 26:59
Yeah, I, you know, I’ve never, you know, for me, I started in the nonprofit world, right? I started with places like the American Cancer Society, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. So I have a strong fundraising background. And for me, when I look at other nonprofits in our community, I really look at Yeah, maybe, you know, maybe they are asking for funding, but they’re asking for funding for their cause. And where and and there’s enough, you know, funding, if you will, you know, to kind of go around. And I think that when we do start creating that community over competition, right, that that that community space, where we’re all working together. You know, I think that that joints that unity really raises, you know, raises everyone up.

Brandon Burton 27:57
Have you seen from the other perspective, as you go to some of these nonprofits? Do they view the chamber at all, as any competition? Have you experienced?

Gina Suydam 28:06
Um, no, I don’t think they do. I think they understand, you know, what our role is, and, and the role we can play in helping them. So there are many nonprofits who who come to me who come to the alliance and say, you know, hey, I’m struggling to get funding in x area, right, or I don’t understand how I can apply for this grant. Right. And then, you know, we help them in that space. Because again, I think a lot of times that funding is funding, I’m not going to get right that funding is specific to Veterans Services, or, you know, library education or funding, you know, it’s not, it’s not funding for me, and I think, again, creating that, that better community for all takes our chamber and takes our community to the next level.

Brandon Burton 29:02
Yeah, I would agree. So as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward? Well,

Future of Chambers

Gina Suydam 29:13
I again, I think, and I think ACC he says says this, The best is that, you know, chambers are really poised right now, right to be that, that center space that everyone can come to the table and realize that, that the future is about, about growth, that the future is about coming together and uniting and bringing our community forward. And that’s really where I see chambers. I think we need to continue to have an open mind and I think we need to continue to to grow and encourage our members at every level. All right to participate and allow their voices to be heard.

Brandon Burton 30:06
I love that. And I think you’re so right. ACC is right about being that that same center. When you look at a community, if you’ve got that division, you know, the polar opposites, all that does is pull your community apart. So how can you pull people together be that that center, that meeting place that table where you can bring together both sides, it’s so key to building a strong community. The Gina I wanted to give you the opportunity to share any contact information for people who are listening, who might want to reach out and connect with you maybe learn more about how you went about creating these partnerships, how you got the right board people on your board to to help do this, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Connect with Gina Suydam

Gina Suydam 30:52
So I’m, you know, pretty accessible, right? So my email address is gina@wyccc.com. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, I’ve connected with a lot of chambers. I’m also on Twitter, I don’t use it very often, but I am there. So I’ve connected with chambers and colleagues from all across the country. And I really truly enjoy it. My I’m in my second year, I just finished my second year of IOM. I try to attend ACC conference when I can. So I’ve met a lot of chamber colleagues and I’m always happy to connect and encourage each other because they do again, I do really think it’s about that collaboration.

Brandon Burton 31:39
Absolutely. Well, I will get your contact information in our show notes for this episode, which can be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode157. But Gina, I enjoyed visiting with you, you guys are doing some neat things there, the Wyoming County Chamber and and I think this idea of partnerships and really just having a model for someone to follow and, and be able to do their own R&D and see how they can apply this back to their community. So thank you for sharing all this with us today.

Gina Suydam 32:11
All Thank you, Brandon for having me on the show.

Brandon Burton 30:28
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