Category: Strategic Planning

Creating a Clear Focus with Brian Anderson

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:00.928)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton. And here on Chamber Chat, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is a dynamic leader with a deep commitment to community and economic development. Brian Anderson is the President and CEO of Chamber RVA, the regional Chamber of Commerce serving Greater Richmond, Virginia.

A native of Florence, South Carolina, Brian is a proud graduate of Francis Marion University with a degree in economics. His career journey is nothing short of inspiring from serving four years as a U.S. Army and Military Intelligence Officer to nearly two decades in the beverage industry with giants like Coca-Cola and Anheuser-Busch to serving as chairman of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners in Georgia.

Brian transitioned to the chamber world in 2008, leading the greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce and later the greater Columbus, Georgia chamber before taking the helm at Chamber RBA in 2019. Brian has earned his IOM designation and is a certified chamber executive. He is a recognized leader in regional collaboration and workforce development.

Brian currently serves on several key boards shaping the future of Virginia’s economy. He brings to this conversation a wealth of insight on business leadership, regional strategy, and the importance of public-private partnerships in driving long-term growth. But let’s dive into an engaging and energizing conversation with Brian Anderson. Brian, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say…

Hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Brian D. Anderson (01:57.651)
Well, hello, Brandon. It’s a pleasure to be with you today and to have a conversation about, you know, not just our industry, the things we’re doing because we are very proud of what we do. But I’ve been around this long enough to know that our chamber colleagues out in the listening audience, we all learn from each other. We can all do better at what we do by understanding how each of us has faced different opportunities and challenges. So happy to be with you today.

interesting about me. I think the biggest one that I tell young professionals when I meet with them most of the time is how I got here. And it’s interesting more and more that I meet younger leaders coming into the industry. I didn’t start the Chamber when I was 42 years of age, which is a late and never knew what a Chamber would do, what a Chamber does. But I felt that

Brandon Burton (02:25.752)
Thank you, Mark.

Brian D. Anderson (02:53.201)
going coming out of the beverage industry after 20 years, I wasn’t having the impact I wanted to make. I was doing well as far as their their goals and their measurements, but I didn’t feel like things were that I made a contribution. And so opportunity came open through my political life that the Chamber of Commerce in Dalton was in need of a leader. And I. You know, wanted to try something different. I didn’t know what that really meant.

But I got into it and here I am 18 years later and found that intersection of business and government to be a really sweet spot for me as an interest and also a passion for me to help make a difference in not only the life of the communities I’ve served, but also me feeling that I’ve validated my skill set and things I can do well and give back.

Brandon Burton (03:40.973)
Yeah, absolutely. I like that, you know, being able to want to make a difference and feel like the work you’re doing is making an impact and that’s important and Chamberworld is a great fit for that. But thank you for your service as well in the Army. We appreciate that.

Brian D. Anderson (03:53.291)
Here it is.

Brian D. Anderson (03:57.643)
Thank you. That was fun too. I tell young and younger people, you can get leadership development anywhere. Just get it. Whether it be through the military, whether it be through a service organization, you just, just you learn leadership by doing it, not by necessarily reading a book. That’s helpful. But you got to just go out there and experience things, make some things happen, make some, you know, fail at times, but then fail off. And so I think experience can help you in any way, any way you can get it.

Brandon Burton (04:13.219)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (04:19.587)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Good piece of advice there. So I’d like for you to share with us a little bit more about Chamber RVA just to give us an idea of the size, staff, budget, scope of work, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Brian D. Anderson (04:38.921)
Well, I’ve been here six years and the organization is, it was in good shape when I took over, which is not always the case in my other two stints, but Richmond is a wonderful region to live in. Our chamber serves nine localities in Virginia. You don’t have cities within counties. They are separate jurisdictions. So we serve one city, the city of Richmond, a town of Ashland, and then seven counties ranging from Chesterfield and Wrico and over.

Colonial Heights, Guchelin, Palitan, and Hanover. And that’s a pretty large geography, but they’re also contiguous in the sense of not only being connected in geography, they all work well together. So we serve that region to be an enabler across the full region. We have 12 staff members, which is not enough. We could use 15 or 16, but 12 is what we have currently.

And they are all wonderful teammates that are in the right seats doing the right work. And so I’m fortunate to have a very qualified team. They’re not all experienced. There’s some of them are young and have just could joined us, but they’re the right people for the work we’ve hired them to do. Our budget’s about three and a half million dollars up from about three one when I took over. One of the areas we had not done well when I got here was membership development. We have been declining.

And now for six years in a row, we have added net new members and net new revenue. And we’re very proud of that. And we serve about 725 members. We don’t count locations. So those are actual member companies. So if you have 10 locations or 15, it’d be more. We serve companies. And that’s about a population of about 1.4 million people in this region.

Brandon Burton (06:23.276)
It counts as one.

Brian D. Anderson (06:34.443)
We currently are operating and we just finished our first year of the three year strategic plan. We used 2023 and 24 to develop that plan. Because before that, we felt we were like a lot of chambers, a little bit not as focused as we needed to be, kind of a little bit of everything. Anytime somebody asked to do something, we’d go do it. Had a lot of events. And I’m not sure we were making the impact that we needed to make. So we, as a team and with some volunteer board members.

and a strategic consultant coach went through a process and said, how do we become more impactful in the work we do? And we settled on kind of revamped things we were already doing, but also cut out some things. And we settled on four strategic pillars, two of which chambers do every day. The first is we connect people. We have events and we build relationships. We build capital and we continue to do that. But those events we have now are

very targeted to the work we do and or the audience. We do some small business events, we do some lead investor events, I host a CEO round table monthly, any way we can connect a member where they are. So that’s been a real focus and really paying dividends for us. Advocacy, we are in the middle of the General Assembly as many states are and so we are at the state house daily advocating for bills that are pro-business or trying to

have bills that aren’t, we oppose those. And we also take no action on some. They have nothing to do with the business community, we ignore them. We do the same level of advocacy at the local level. We’re always weighing in with our jurisdictions, whether it be zoning and planning, whether it be budgeting and how they’re gonna do bond referendums. So we try to take an active role with our local governments as well in the spirit of how does their actions, their policies make the region stronger.

Our other two are a little bit different, probably from some chambers. The third one would be economic development, economic empowerment or economic mobility. And that’s looking at our data coming out of COVID. We knew the thing, we knew where we were going in, but the numbers post COVID showed the disparity or the difference between those with means and those without. And so we’ve been very focused working with the Brookings Institute, the Urban Institute, our regional partners.

Brian D. Anderson (09:00.445)
on understanding what drives economic mobility and how we can help every family and individual move up that ladder to some degrees. We’ve been very focused on that the last, really five years, but really intently the last three. And then the fourth one, again, some chambers have some role in workforce development. We have taken on that as a primary charge. Again, not to deliver programming. We have plenty of partners that can do that, but we are working with NextGen

Brandon Burton (09:01.518)
Thanks.

Brian D. Anderson (09:29.417)
sector partnerships out of Nashville to really put the business community at the center of the conversation, C-suite executives telling us what’s not happening in the development world, development, and what they want to happen or need to happen. And then those of us around the outside of the room, community college, four-year institutions, K-12, Boys and Girls Club, any of those that can have out of school or around school activity.

they now are leaning in differently to try to get the outcomes we need. Being able to get young people to go into the paths that we need, construction, IT, health sciences, advanced manufacturing, and then having those programs deliver faster outcomes. You can get a certificate, a degree, all the way up to a four-year in a faster way. So those four pillars drive us every day. We’re very focused. We just had our annual meeting recently where we talked about how we successfully

Brandon Burton (10:19.8)
Here we go.

Brian D. Anderson (10:27.512)
executed those measures in 2025 and how much we have left to do in 2026, but very focused on again the work we have to do to make the best difference for our region.

Brandon Burton (10:38.594)
That’s fantastic and that that leads in very well to our discussion today.

to stand on is really just as a chamber developing that clear focus, that clear direction to go with your core work and things that you’re working towards to really move the ball forward in your community. like you mentioned, a lot of chambers get involved and get pulled so many different ways because something comes up in the community and everybody wants to volunteer the chamber to take that on, right? So.

Brian D. Anderson (10:52.555)
.

Brandon Burton (11:12.578)
So we’ll dive in deeper on this topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

All right, Brian, as we mentioned before the break today, we’re talking about creating a clear focus for your chamber. you had mentioned you guys just went through your strategic planning process and kind of the four areas, the four pillars of work that you guys are focused on that really helps chart your work and makes things a little bit more clear.

as things are presented to you and what direction you guys need to go in. Talk about the adjustment, you know, from how things were in the past to realigning that focus to make it really work within those four pillars.

Brian D. Anderson (11:40.832)
Mm-hmm.

Brian D. Anderson (11:45.148)
Thank

Brian D. Anderson (11:57.115)
The first step, I think that you should start with and we did. I’ve always had this experience because we get better at it as we do it. Start with your mission, vision, values. We had a good mission statement, a good vision statement. Wasn’t as crystal and crisp as we needed it to be a little bit too broad. Even just refining the words within that. That took six months of not just what was in the mission statement, the value statement, but the words we chose.

And then from that, you have a lot more license to again, narrow down what’s really critical to the business community. Now, the other thing I’d say real quickly is, you know, what’s your chamber’s role in that geography? If you’re a local community chamber serving a city or a county or a very defined geography, you may have a different set of expectations and things you need to be focused on. As a regional chamber, we had a little bit more license to what we can and can’t do.

And we’re very upfront about like, I’ll give you an example. A florist is probably not going to get much value out of being a chamber member, a chamber RBA. We don’t do retail type chamber activities. We are focused on large regional issues that affect cross jurisdictional populations. And we’re clear about that. And every meet the chamber, we have to talk to prospects. If you’re a retail type operation, you’re probably not going to…

Brandon Burton (13:14.99)
Okay.

Brian D. Anderson (13:23.787)
be served by us well, so don’t join and write a check that you’re gonna regret. I’d rather you go join the local chamber or some other place you can get the value you need. We serve, but with that, we serve about 60 % of our membership, or 50 employees or less. We serve small, medium, large. We have all the corporate partners. We have the Fortune 500 companies, but we serve a good mix of people. So with that, we’re focused on professional type companies.

rather than the retail type. being knowing your mission and who you serve is the first kind of step. And then the third might be what’s your member value, member proposition. What does a member want out of the work you do and how can you deliver that? So we spent, again, a long time defining that and understanding it before we got into what are we gonna do. But eventually you get to that point and you’ve got all that focus.

you say, okay, what’s the most critical things we can do as a region and what’s the business community’s part of that, then it’s a little easier to get into, okay, these three things or four things will drive that. I’ll tell anybody having not done it this well in the past, don’t have six, seven, 10 strategies. Get it as close to what you can get down to this manageable and again, is also going to give you the biggest impact and how you deliver that. So the four I mentioned earlier are what we got.

Brandon Burton (14:21.326)
So thanks for watching.

Brian D. Anderson (14:51.881)
got our focus on. And right now, again, at least through 18 months or 15 months, those strategies are delivering the tactics we need to execute. And now we can see through some measurements how that’s generating the impact we want. So mission statement, member proposition or member value, member benefit leads to how you get the strategy right to go forward.

Brandon Burton (14:54.006)
I like it.

Bye.

Brandon Burton (15:08.526)
you

Brandon Burton (15:20.43)
Yeah. So you have that strategic plan with those four pillars that you mentioned earlier. You guys also have taken on a regional vision as well. So you want to talk to that and how that aligns with your strategic plan as well?

Brian D. Anderson (15:32.331)
you

Brian D. Anderson (15:37.385)
Yes, and in this case, they’re very much aligned because we already had the economic mobility focus within our strategic plan for the chamber. But again, coming out of the pandemic, working with two regional partners, which now grown to five total. We knew that our business union had a role with economic mobility, just like the local government has a role. So does philanthropic activity. So all of those focus.

on how we lift families up and people up, we take that and drill it down to say, how does the business community weigh in there? So how do we have a different member, have a different employee benefits program? For instance, maybe 401k is not the best thing I need right now as a 22 year old, I’d like down payment assistance or help with childcare. So helping our member companies think about mobility difference in a different way.

so they can help their employees be successful and meet them where they are in their life. So it’s taking that regional thought, drilling it down to again, what individual companies can do and then us as a business sector weighing in together. So RVA Rising, which we now call it, came out of that five year journey of deep diving into data. Dr. Raj Shetty from Harvard has a whole lot of data across the country from a study he did.

that basically can tell you kind of what your economic mobility number is. And we found we were pretty low. I Charlotte, in 2013, Charlotte was the 50th out of 50 cities as far as not having economic mobility. We weren’t ranked, we weren’t big enough. But when you look at the heat maps of that data, we looked just as poor in economic mobility as Charlotte did. So we said, okay, let’s partner and understand what Charlotte’s doing, drill it down to the level of what we can do and now track that over time.

From all of that work, we worked with the Urban Institute, we worked with the Regional Growth Initiative out of the Brookings Institute, with eight other communities around the country. And that again validated that we were on the right path, but also gave us some metrics to understand what mobility looks like. So that regional visioning now has a deeper dive on affordable housing, a deeper dive on workforce development, and a deeper dive on what happens with health delivery.

Brian D. Anderson (18:02.409)
both modality and inequity. And that’s the three we’ve kind of worked on so far with a couple more coming later. But that’s where all of us like leaning in now on those three priorities in the forefront.

Brandon Burton (18:07.662)
Bye bye.

Brandon Burton (18:17.249)
Yeah, that makes sense. So you mentioned, you know, working with different institutions, like you mentioned the Brookings Institute. how do these, you know, arrangements come about when you work with these institutes? Is there formal agreements? And I’m asking for those chambers that are listening, I’m asking on their behalf if they want to take on this kind of a focus, how do you get started and how do you build those relationships to be able to help drive

Brian D. Anderson (18:33.355)
Thank

Brian D. Anderson (18:44.223)
Great question. I’ll tell you, sometimes it’s intentionality, sometimes it’s luck. In our case, it might have been a little bit of both. Yeah, because we were already, I guess, in tune with what’s happening in that kind of economic mobility space, the conversation. One of my colleagues, mean, Vice President Strategy, kind of learned about this thing out there, something you could apply for with Brookings. And she said, I think we should do this. I said, of course we should. So we kind of pulled together a team and.

Brandon Burton (18:50.872)
Take either one, yeah.

Brian D. Anderson (19:13.385)
We applied to be a part of this regional growth initiative network. There was going to be eight regions around the country that were picked and we were selected. And I’ll tell you, not know even from the application, I couldn’t have told you how much, how impactful it was going to be at the end. We thought we would just do some sharing and we would do some learning. We would do some, you know, data work, but we, basically had eight convenings. Each city hosted one over about 18 months.

And we went, had a very curated two day discussion in each city by the Brookings folks who brought us in some cases, things happening around the country. And then they’d say, now, how do you react to that? So sometimes it’s being in the right place, the right mindset, meaning what you’re listening to, and then having the will or willing to take the risk and spend the money in some cases to go be a part of something bigger. That was the first one that really, and then from that we would have never known about wealth. We may not have known about next gen.

sector partnerships, having not done that work. But since we went through it, we learned what somebody else was doing. We said, you know, that really could apply to us and how we’re thinking about workforce. And so, you know, one good idea, one good pursuit turned into a second one. Urban was our community foundation, very forward thinking organization. We’re doing some work on their own. How does their work make an impact? They learned about Urban Institute and all the work they’ve done around the country and all the data they now have from working in those.

Brandon Burton (20:21.88)
So, thank you for watching and have great

Brian D. Anderson (20:41.439)
those communities. So they were working parallel with Urban, while we were working with Brookings, and now we’ve brought all that together under RBA Rising. And they both have been critical to helping us see how we’re doing or not doing, how we can measure success and progress. And we’ve now leaned in more heavily with Urban because their data is much more far reaching. They’ve got 16 or so measurements of how you can determine if you’re economically mobile. And we’re using their first five pillars right now.

Brandon Burton (20:51.822)
you

Brandon Burton (21:04.622)
So, excited to be here.

Brian D. Anderson (21:11.071)
to keep us focused.

Brandon Burton (21:12.758)
That was my next question with RVA Rising is what metrics are you looking at to measure success and see that things are moving in the right direction?

Brian D. Anderson (21:20.675)
And I encourage the listeners to go just Google Urban Institute. They’ve got a whole lot of information on their website that, can be applicable anywhere. don’t have to just be like that. Because I think the thing I’ve learned again after 18 years is every community is different. Every region is different. We have similarities, but you got to know what’s happening in your geography and how you can impact that. they’ve got 100 different measurements that could be tracked and looked at.

We’re now taking their wide ranging set of information from all these communities around the country and we’re picking which ones matter to us. So we’ve got a whole group at our Plan RVA, which is our local government, regional commission type entity. They’re taking the lead on building us a dashboard or a scorecard or whichever term you’re happy. They’re looking at what measurements fit our region and will determine whether or not we’re

Moving the needle quick example a lot of times you’ll hear people talk about our poverty rate 12 % of our our citizens live in poverty Well, if you have a whole lot of people move in to make good money That number could go down to 9 % or 10 % and you haven’t affected the people who are already there who live in poverty So we’ve we’re looking at data that says how do we get down very granular? Into the zip code and the neighborhoods and the families to measure whether or not mobility is happening or not

Brandon Burton (22:50.062)
super helpful and being able to have that dashboard or scorecard to be able to see how things are moving and growing and developing is going to be super helpful as things progress.

Brian D. Anderson (23:01.739)
Yep. And it’s hard. I mean, we give a caution. It’s hard. We’ve just been trying. I mean, I don’t have anything I can hand you right now that says this is how we’re doing, because every time we think we’ve got the 10 or five or whatever, something else kind of comes in. So it takes time, but I’m confident we’ll get there. But again, we’ve got to get away from measuring things like in education or workforce development. Graduation rate really doesn’t mean a whole lot. Yes, you want your students graduating from high school.

But what happens after they leave? they going into a post-secondary track to get a credential or a certificate or a diploma? Are they going straight to work? And if they’re going to work, is it fast food, minimum wage? Or is it into something that can build? So you got to be careful, again, how the data can be, one, understood by the group you’re talking to, but secondly, is it really measuring something that’s important?

Brandon Burton (23:56.897)
Right. So I’m curious between your strategic plan that’s recently rolled out and your regional vision, you guys have your focus. You guys are really honing in on those things that are important to really move the needle in your community. Throughout this process, did you guys have to address any sacred cows or have other ideas been presented to you since? And how do you respond in saying that this isn’t

Brian D. Anderson (24:03.061)
Thank

Brandon Burton (24:25.538)
the focus of the chamber at this time.

Brian D. Anderson (24:28.491)
Often, I mean, just last night, the last thing I looked at before I left the office was, again, a good partner that we work with regularly said, hey, we’re going to, this group wants to apply for a grant. We want you to be a part of it. We looked at all the information. We didn’t see anywhere that it made sense for us to do anything, write a letter of support or not, but certainly encourage them to do that work. So I think every day you creep in because again, I…

You got to be careful when you have the brand power a Chamber of Commerce does because that can work for you or against you. And too often it gets you pulled into things you shouldn’t be a part of. Now, I also wrote a letter of support last night from one of our local government officials to be recognized as a C-suite executive for the contributions he’s made. So I don’t mind doing things and lending the Chamber brand, the Chamber horsepower when it’s needed. What it can’t do is distract our team going down another path.

Brandon Burton (25:01.965)
Yeah.

Brian D. Anderson (25:24.731)
that pulls us from the things we’re core. I’ve joked about in my career, I think I it at the Institute, but I’ve certainly carried it. Don’t do the Christmas parade if you can get out of it. Now, some places, the chamber has to do that because it actually is core to who they are and core to that town. But most chambers probably should not be doing the Christmas parade. It’s a lot of manpower, a lot of cost, and maybe not gonna get you where you need as far as policy.

and working on the other things you need to work on. But that’s the kind of example that we work, and I call it, don’t let it be the Christmas parade project that pulls you into something you don’t need to be a part of. We had a few, ours remained on the event side. Chamber people also think you gotta have something going on every hour of every day. So I’m constantly kind of reminding our team, when you plan a, you, your team, little part of the bigger team, plan a breakfast, and then another part of our team plans a lunch or a dinner the same day.

Brandon Burton (26:02.167)
Yeah.

Brian D. Anderson (26:21.791)
That causes some of us have to be, you know, almost half our days committed and we’re just there as participants. So we’ve been very careful to make sure everybody looks at a master calendar. We try not to have anything of significance the same day and maybe same week. We cut the number of events, probably 25%. We’re very focused on ones we have to make each one count rather than let’s just have another one. But then we use that filter when people say,

Brandon Burton (26:37.4)
See

Brandon Burton (26:48.92)
Yeah.

Brian D. Anderson (26:51.563)
Hey, I want you to plan a dinner and do this topic and invite these people. If it doesn’t answer the first two or three questions of our filtering, it doesn’t happen. We politely say you ought to go partner with somebody else.

Brandon Burton (27:02.38)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And just having those events that you do choose to do, having them fit those, the areas of focus that you guys are honed in on is so important because it would be very easy for a member to say, well, I was just at the breakfast yesterday. Why do I need to go to this thing today? And I mean, they’ve got their own calendars they’re trying to deal with. So the things that they’re involved with need to be focused and impactful as well. So being respectful of their time and resources is just as important. So.

Brian D. Anderson (27:16.683)
.

Brian D. Anderson (27:29.695)
Yes.

Brian D. Anderson (27:32.975)
And I have to another question just for regional chambers are some that may cross two or three different jurisdictions. We even go so far we plan something we try to go reach out to other parties. Is anything happening? Especially it’s a big signature event or the tourism folks got anything that week or the economic development people. We talk to our partners so we try to also not contaminate or take away from other people’s events because we know what happens when we plan something to find out.

The city’s doing something at the same time.

Brandon Burton (28:06.35)
Exactly. Well, as we start to wrap things up here, this has been a great conversation and reminder for all of us listening to hone in that focus and sharpen it. But I always like asking for some sort of a tip or action item for the listener who’s wanting to take their organization up to the next level. What would you offer them as they strive to do that?

Brian D. Anderson (28:30.955)
A of quick ones. The ACC, which I’m a member of the board for the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, has a ton of data, ton of information. You can go get all kinds of reports that they keep as a repository. If you haven’t been to IOM as a young or entering leader of a chamber, I highly recommend IOM. It’s the best place to get the grounding for our profession. And then if you’ve been around the industry for a while and you need some personal motivation or maybe to validate that you know what you’re doing,

CCE is a good process to go through too. You need to be, I think, five or six years experienced in the role and some other criteria. on the ACC website. But all three of those will help you have the things you can have sort of at hand. You can go out and just get those. Another more, another area you can think about is have a mentor or a partner. Somebody that you respect either in your state, in your state association, maybe somebody you’ve met at

Brandon Burton (29:22.988)
Yeah.

Brian D. Anderson (29:28.829)
a convention or a conference, have somebody you can call when you’ve got a question you can’t ask your chairman. You know, this just happened. I’m nervous about it. My website had something happen and you don’t want the boss to know that you’re dealing with something. Have somebody you can call and share that with. All of us have been there, at least if you’ve been there as long as I have, you faced a lot of different challenges. Reach out to somebody in the industry. We’re all, we’re only as good as all of us are together.

because this is a tough job. met a young lady yesterday who’s running a one-person chamber. Her job’s 10 times harder than mine because she’s got, she’s expected to be on all the meetings I’m expected to be at and to deliver the same value as I’m expected. But I’ve got 11 partners on our team that help us do that. So help each other. Each chamber should be talking to each other regularly. We are not competitors. We are collaborators. If we do those kinds of things, I think you got a chance to be successful in a very rewarding profession.

Brandon Burton (30:04.878)
you

Brian D. Anderson (30:26.027)
that I’ve enjoyed for the last 18 years.

Brandon Burton (30:28.34)
Yeah, I love that. I also like asking as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Brian D. Anderson (30:38.591)
Challenging, you younger business leaders, entrepreneurs aren’t joiners as other generations have been. You’ve got to work harder to get people into your community, your fold, get them to be investors. Secondly, on the political front, we’ve never been more divided. We can’t even debate topics anymore. Either you’re in or you’re out or you’re pro or you’re con. So chambers are going to have to bring that business voice into the policy arena even more than they ever have.

use the trust that people still have in the corporate or business community to your favor. We’ve got to be in conversations that are probably more more uncomfortable, but that’s why we’re there. We’ve got to make a difference on the policy side. And then lastly, just talent like everybody else, finding good people to do what we all need to do because you don’t go to chamber school necessarily. We hire people who have a skill set and maybe a good experience or two, and we turn them into chamber professionals.

Those are the three things that I’m watching right now that give us challenge every day is just, do we stay focused to what we can control, but also influence sometimes what we can’t control while we find a different.

Brandon Burton (31:50.936)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, I wanted to give you an opportunity, Brian, to share any contact information for listeners out there who may want to reach out and connect or learn more about your strategic plan or about RBA rising and really sharpening that focus. Where would you point them and what would be the best way for them to connect?

Brian D. Anderson (32:13.355)
Well, chamberrva.com has all of our information from what we’re doing. As most chambers, we have a really good website, got our contact information on it. But my email is brian.anderson@chamberrva.com. Reach out to me, happy to help. Our team is very talented. We got a lot of good people that would be willing to help as well. So if you’ve got a question, we’re happy to help you.

Brandon Burton (32:35.028)
Awesome. We’ll make sure we get all that in our show notes for this episode. this has been great having you on. Chamber chat with us today, Brian. I appreciate you setting aside the time and sharing your experiences and things that are making a difference in your community and really just helping all those listeners out there to adjust their focus and make sure the work that they’re doing makes an impact. So thank you.

Brian D. Anderson (32:39.295)
Wonderful.

Brian D. Anderson (32:59.947)
Thank you for what you’re doing, Brian. This is a wonderful way to help all of us be better. So thank you for the work you’re doing.

If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts, Spotify or now on YouTube. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your feed each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.

Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

How Forward-Thinking Initiatives are Reshaping Communities with Linda Parsons

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:00.972)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is a seasoned leader in the Chamber and Association Management with more than 25 years of experience, advancing economic development and community collaboration. Linda Parsons has served as President and CEO of the Moore County Chamber of Commerce. since 2014. Under her leadership, the chamber has been nationally recognized as a four-star accreditation from the US Chamber of Commerce and twice named as a runner-up for the National Chamber of the Year. In 2025, Linda was honored by her peers as the North Carolina Chamber Executive of the Year, a testament to her impact across workforce development, business advocacy, and strategic planning.

Her leadership extends far beyond her role as she actively serves on a wide range of local and state boards focused on education, healthcare, childcare, and economic growth. Before relocating to North Carolina, Linda gained valuable public policy experience with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and served under two Ohio governors as a state and local government commission. She holds a degree in politics and government from Ohio Wesleyan University and is a CCE and a graduate from the US Chambers Institute for Organization Management. Please welcome to the show Linda Parsons. Linda, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so you can all get to know you a little better.

Linda M. Parsons (01:50.836)
Well, Brandon, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. It’s always great to connect with our chamber colleagues across the country. So a little bit about myself. I think you asked for an interesting fact. And a lot of people do not recognize that I am artistically inclined. I was a ballerina until I was 18. And I am fluid in piano, violin, and a vocalist.

Brandon Burton (02:04.59)
That’s right.

Linda M. Parsons (02:19.341)
I am a painter and I have thrown pottery throughout the years. Currently not doing that, but so artistically, that’s always what’s motivated me and it’s what brings me joy when I have the time to do it.

Brandon Burton (02:34.7)
Yeah, I love that. And I wish we would talk more about that just as a society, just the joy that comes from creating things, know, just being expressing your creativity. There’s so much goodness that comes from that. So I’m glad you’re leaning into it. It is. It is. Yeah. Very good. I love getting those those little interesting facts about people.

Linda M. Parsons (02:49.299)
It’s also relaxing.

Brandon Burton (03:00.494)
If you would tell us about the Moore County Chamber just to give us an idea before we dive into our discussion today. Help us understand the size, staff, scope of work that you guys are involved with, budget, just to set the stage for our discussion.

Linda M. Parsons (03:14.291)
where I’d be happy to do that. So the Moore County Chamber of Commerce is located about an hour south of Raleigh in two hours from Charlotte, North Carolina. We are a population of about 110,000 people, one of the fastest growing counties in the state of North Carolina outside of an urban area with a projection to grow 50,000 people by 2050.

So it’s a lot of growth that is expected. I’ve also seen figures of another 70,000 residents. So we shall see. We are a tourism-based economy, and we also have a strong healthcare economy. We have currently 620 members with a staff of three, with just shy of a little over a half million dollar budget. And we are a mighty three.

Between the three of us, we have almost 40 years of experience in the chamber industry. All of us have a chamber background, which is extremely rare in the chamber industry. I’ve gotten both of them from seasoned chamber organizations, one in our state, one in the state of Texas. And we work very hard on a variety of issues ranging from workforce development, childcare is a very strong advocacy area, housing.

Brandon Burton (04:19.607)
Yes.

Linda M. Parsons (04:39.315)
transportation, leadership training. We have one of the oldest leadership training models in the state. And then of course, you know, just supporting that general member, whether it’s a solopreneur or a large corporation in our area. Golf is heavy. are home of the second home to the USGA. They built their second headquarters here in Moore County. And we also are home to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

And so if someone is a seasoned golfer, they’re probably very familiar with Pinehurst Resort, who is in the process of building another course in our community. So we have about 43 courses within 15 minutes of our community.

Brandon Burton (05:23.402)
Wow, well that is a great snapshot, but also painting a picture as you do, right, with your creativity, but painting a picture in the mind of what the community looks like. And I’m picturing with these beautiful golf courses and whatnot, just the beauty of the area as well. That definitely does help to set the stage for our discussion today. And as we kind of went back and forth a little bit on trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to cover,

Linda M. Parsons (05:24.263)
I’m out.

Linda M. Parsons (05:34.298)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (05:52.943)
I see a lot of the things that you guys are doing there in the Moore County Chamber as being very future forward, leaning and thinking. So we’ll dive into some of that future thinking, as well as some of the more actionable things that you guys have been doing to really take action on those thoughts and vision of what the future looks like. And we’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, Linda, we’re back.

As I mentioned before the break, today we’re talking about some of these future looking things that you guys are doing there at the Moore County Chamber of Commerce. One of the first things that I wanted to learn more about is I know you guys recently have gone about this, a new co-working space in your community and really targeting those people that work from home or those entrepreneurs and.

individuals like that, businesses like that. So please tell us a little bit more about the co-working space, how that came to be, how it works. know different chambers have co-working spaces, they’ve stood up, they all have their own nuances. So I’d love to hear the approach that you guys have taken and hopefully others listening will learn some things and be able to take some notes as to what they might do in their community as well.

Linda M. Parsons (07:12.209)
I’d be happy to do that. And I think one of the things that’s been very fortunate about our chambers, we have a board that has had progressive thinking throughout the years. They understood that if we remained the same, we would no longer be relevant in our community and for our region. We do serve a six county region, meaning we have a lot of traffic that comes into work and a lot of traffic that comes out. And we are also 45 minutes away from the largest military installation outside of the Pentagon.

So back in 2014, literally 30 days after I was hired, our building sold. It had been on the market for quite some time and I was working at the chamber at the time, but it wasn’t CEO. And so we sold our building and went to a temporary home and really tried to develop what our vision was. And we had heard about a particular business in downtown Southern Pines that was going to be building a building, three story building in the historic district.

So I approached him and asked if we could go into the building with him together and take the top floor. Fast forward to 2020, we built a building during the pandemic. We started that building in 2019 and finished it in 2020. There was some delays with supplies, but he was very forward thinking as the owner of the building, majority owner of the building where he had a lot of supplies dropped in before the final roof was put on. So a lot of the people that were having delays,

We didn’t necessarily have some of those delays. We did with appliances. But we went from a 10,000 square foot building that was built in the late 80s and was able to take that investment and turn it around into a 3,500 square foot penthouse suite in the downtown historic district of Southern Pines.

Brandon Burton (08:41.741)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (09:05.18)
It was probably one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. I literally threw the spaghetti on the wall and said, I think this is what we need to do. And when we do it, we need to open a collaborative workspace. Obviously not realizing that the entire world was going to shut down in March of 2020. So at that time, this construction had already started and I didn’t have the ability to shift the layout, but we moved forward and kept got creative. So we have a platform where people can drop in and work on a daily basis.

with a drop in rate. have subscriptions very similar to some of the corporations you see across the country, such as WeWorks, where they can pay to play a couple of days a week and a month. And then we have a conference room space that serves as overflow for individuals working quietly, not on Zoom calls or other things like that nature. And we have that ability to rent out that space.

One of the most popular things for us has been that remote worker who works for Fortune 500 companies across our country and they regularly use our space, they consider it their home. It does help where above a bar, but we also serve in adult environment if they so choose, as well as other snacks and coffee. I never thought an espresso machine would be so popular as it is. But one of our biggest leaders really has become the military

Brandon Burton (10:19.234)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (10:29.806)
Bye!

Linda M. Parsons (10:33.78)
component. So we have a lot of groups from the military that use that space sometimes for transitioning veterans to learn what they need to be doing to acclimate into the civilian world, as well as other training opportunities that they do in our space. And so I would say that is the majority of our user with the second being our members. And based on their membership, they have that option to use the space. So we have a lot of people that do team meetings, interviews.

Um, if someone is opening a new place in town, they have that opportunity to do other interviews if their growth is still under construction. It has been a revenue generator. So we were able to eliminate the God, the events that were a burden. Shall we say a time sucker for the stack. And now we just have to manage a calendar, which is fairly simple because we kind of have a regular users.

Brandon Burton (11:19.202)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (11:29.628)
And from there, it’s got a website, it’s got a following, and we are regularly booked. And it’s been a great investment for the organization and for our community.

Brandon Burton (11:43.437)
Yeah, I love that. love the, again, the forward thinking of being able to have that kind of space and before, you know, COVID even hit and to be able to see where needs are going and to be able to address that before they even really showed up in mass numbers like they did after the pandemic. I think there’s a uniqueness too of being able to serve

So you mentioned the remote workers, also entrepreneurs and startups and kind of that vibe that comes into it because they’re getting associated with the chamber early on in their journey. But I’ve also, I’ve seen and heard of some coworking spaces that are not connected with the chamber as being almost a chamber in themselves as far as the networking aspects go.

and who you meet within that networking space. Do you have any additional thoughts or insights on those points with the entrepreneurs and startups and the networking effect that happens in the coworking space?

Linda M. Parsons (12:52.752)
It absolutely is true. It is an opportunity for people that are working there to connect with others that may not have in otherwise while sitting in their living room navigating their children or their barking dog. And so I’ve actually seen some relationships form where they have now gotten into business together. Meaning we have a couple of consultants who have been able to do some work with some of our other workers.

During the holidays when everybody kind of took a break, it was fun to see everybody come back in January. How was your holiday? What are you working on? And we actually have one gentleman who used our space transitioning in his career, not military, but just a career transition. He got his MBA while in the space, was able to connect with one of those military groups and has now opened a consultant business.

So it’s fun to see those success stories, as well as the members who use the space as they grow and upsize their business and utilize it for team meetings and see that growth of those businesses or nonprofits that are using this space.

Brandon Burton (14:04.6)
Yeah, I love those success stories. What’s the relationship like with the work, with the chamber itself, kind of the space that you guys have within this top floor versus a co-working space? it kind of blend into each other? Is there distinct areas for chamber and co-working space or what does that lay out?

Linda M. Parsons (14:25.202)
It’s a complete blend. So we went with an urban design, meaning open ceilings, lots of metal. We did not shy away from comfortable furniture. We have standing desks. I’ll be honest, my board gave us complete discretion. They said, here’s your budget. You make it work.

And so we have an office in the front that is a collab space with a desk, a desk and a standing desk and a round table so people can have meetings. Then our offices are with incorporated within the middle. And then there’s another office in the back that gives a little more privacy. Again, conceivable, fix people. And then the conference room space is off of a massive kitchen and what we call the gathering space. So.

Great example on Friday mornings from seven in the morning until nine a.m. We have a group of military veterans that move our space for coffee. And when we come in at nine, they’re wrapping up, they clean up our kitchen, they go about their day. They’ve had their time to have a private coffee and we’re able to jump in through our workspace and do what we need. I do have a standing nine a.m. meeting every Friday. They know that. And even if they stay behind, they respect the fact that we are in our space.

working and doing our thing, but it gives a good blend. So our collab users have key fobs. can come and go as they please. And if we’re not there, they have access to the space, they have access to the kitchen and it works really well. So it’s a good blend. and it, it makes it feel like home. I don’t know how it’s. In fact, one of our coworkers users use that term this week.

Brandon Burton (15:48.93)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (16:08.77)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (16:13.875)
It’s a place that I call home.

Brandon Burton (16:17.132)
Yeah, that’s nice. That’s very nice. So I’m curious with the design and building it out, just from the little things from the scheduling to the key fobs to having the kitchen stocked. And did you guys consult with somebody else who’s done this before or was dreamed up on your own amongst the staff and the board and you guys like, let’s go do this. How did things come together?

Linda M. Parsons (16:44.479)
So when we initially came up with the concept and got the board approval, A, to move forward with the building and B, to do the collaborative workspace, we did visit several co-working spaces in our state. Most of them were corporate or other forms of, they weren’t connected to a chamber. And so we took some of those ideas, particularly knowing we were gonna be above a bar.

You know, we even discussed putting taps all the way from the first floor to the third, but we felt that we wouldn’t be able to go through a keg fast enough. So then we created relationships with local breweries. And so those breweries were able to put in the beer, can beer, so that the shelf life was a little bit better. We looked at those spaces from, you know, aesthetics, furniture, comfort.

Brandon Burton (17:17.219)
Right.

Linda M. Parsons (17:32.47)
And those things were very important to us. Standing desks are extremely important, but not everybody likes the standing desk. Some people like the sit. Some people like high tops, so we have high top tables. And then we very thoughtfully configured our conference room. If anybody remembers their science days from high school, you had a black top science lab table with wood legs. We reversed it. have

Brandon Burton (17:52.877)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (17:58.368)
custom-made tables made in the state of North Carolina out of ash wood with black metal legs all on casters. So the room can be configured in whatever format somebody wants. Whether it’s a large conference table, they want to do classroom seating for a training session, which obviously works really well for the chamber when we hold a session. I’ve seen it done in pods where people are working with individual teams.

Brandon Burton (18:09.368)
Very cool.

Brandon Burton (18:17.944)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (18:25.225)
And that has been very good. And then the other thing is we went with very top of the line technology. We did not shy away from technology. I talked to our IT guy and I said, I want you to bring in the best IT that you can possibly bring in. If the chamber is encouraging businesses to be on the top of their game as it relates to marketing, IT and other things, we can’t not do the same. So we have a seven-point television.

that does direct streaming. have access so that they can do Zoom meetings or other video type teleconferencing. We have mics around the room. We have a second TV in the room, because it’s kind of an L shape. So you can have a private session in the other part of the app. We have the same technology in the other offices. And we’re not shying away from updating it. With some of our military folks, we have some more restrictions.

Brandon Burton (19:12.622)
Okay.

Linda M. Parsons (19:25.211)
in reference to how they access technology. We’ve been working with them as well so that they can still access due to their firewalls and be able to utilize the space. So we didn’t shy away from the technology. And when we had our full budget, that was something that we thought, Philippe, thought about. Plus we have TVs in the lobby. So if they need to stream something while they’re in the kitchen using space or highlight a sponsor.

whatever their program is, they can do this thing. As it relates to the key fobs, it’s part of our security system. Probably the biggest challenge is if we lose internet and power. That’s a problem. But we can work around it and we have, but technology’s great, but you can’t control mother nature. And a couple of years ago, unfortunately, Moore County was

Brandon Burton (20:07.342)
Ugh.

Linda M. Parsons (20:24.277)
had a massive power outage that was done by a human, not by Mother Nature. And so we could not access our space because the town with the county was out of power for seven days. I was the only one with a computer, but all of our collab users completely understood because they couldn’t work either.

Brandon Burton (20:38.328)
Move.

Brandon Burton (20:45.39)
Brave.

Linda M. Parsons (20:46.005)
We didn’t make the national news and it’s unfortunate that someone chose to do that to our entire power grid. But those were good lessons to learn. How do we overcome that? We put in some other parameters so that we can get into our space, but sometimes you just can’t control technology. So it’s great, but Mother Nature or unfortunately some people have other plans and you just have to work around them. And we’ve got great people. They’re like, understand it.

Brandon Burton (20:56.27)
Thank

Brandon Burton (21:05.059)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (21:15.778)
Yeah. So there’s been a few different times and ways you’ve mentioned the forward thinking of the board and of your staff. It sounds like historically, at least in recent years, there’s been a very forward thinking board for your chamber. What are some, a few other examples maybe of looking to the future and planning ahead and not getting caught, you know, with the

unexpected with what the future presents.

Linda M. Parsons (21:47.328)
think I’ve been very fortunate in my tenure as president to have a board that understands that the three of us do have chamber experience and we look thoughtfully at studies, whether it’s ACCE studies, whether it’s our own studies that we’re doing and monitoring our membership trends, things of that nature. And so we bring things to the board and we make our recommendations on not what’s happening today. You’re always gonna have your

these events are happening or this program is occurring, we are always moving five years ahead. So a great example back in 2014, I actually made my board read the book, The End of Membership as you know it. And I’ve used a lot of those books and guides to help them understand that if we continue to, I used to use the term be our grandfather’s chamber, maybe to some it’s a

great grandfather. Not that they didn’t do wonderful things, but we wouldn’t remain relevant in our community. There’s a lot more competition. There’s a lot more ability to do things digitally. There’s just a lot of competition. And so by being able to stand out as a organization who’s been around for 59 years, I think always looking ahead, how can we do something differently? So we eliminated a majority of our events and we really focused on some key

leadership, HR training that’s connected to workforce development, childcare, housing study. So we’re investing in a different wave, the long-term of our community and our employers in our area, whether they’re a nonprofit, a small business, a large business. And it’s been really good. I think that members, we still do networking. You’re always gonna have a little bit of networking.

It’s a critical piece, but sometimes you can remind them you can network differently. You can network digitally, even through our own organization. You can connect with a military person and help them as they develop their resume and transition into the civilian life. And so it’s really been, we’ve been really fortunate to have that board who really hasn’t stopped us from trying something. Have we had failures?

Linda M. Parsons (24:13.233)
Absolutely. And I think those failures too.

Brandon Burton (24:15.726)
I’d hope so. Otherwise, that means you’re not taking any risk, right?

Linda M. Parsons (24:18.641)
Exactly. And I love to take risk, calculated risk. The building was probably one of my biggest calculated risks. That’s a pretty big risk. But I know that if it is a beautiful building, it is set in a beautiful place. And a lot of people think it’s an historic building. To me, that is a win.

Brandon Burton (24:24.195)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (24:30.318)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (24:44.514)
Yeah, that is really cool.

Linda M. Parsons (24:46.037)
I had someone recently come in, they’re like, so how old is this building? And I’m like, five years?

Brandon Burton (24:51.47)
But with the spirit of 100, right?

Linda M. Parsons (24:56.731)
Exactly. I think, you know, analyzing what programs are successful in a chamber. What does the chamber industry look like in five, 10 years? What are trends that we’re seeing? For example, AI, know AI is an important trend. So we’re in process of developing a curriculum in partnership with our local community college to help our business community navigate AI to their benefit and learn it so that

they’re doing things safely and that they’re doing things that are going to be helpful to their business as they continue to right size their business. we’ve held a session last fall. We sold out in seven days and we did it in our our own respective conference room and we’ve had a request to have it again. And so it’s it’s been great to see that excitement and the people that were in that room for that program are

were not traditionally attending events. And so I think you have to, you can’t just do one size fits all. Our chamber is not a one size fits all. We like to…

Brandon Burton (25:57.708)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (26:08.437)
cater things to the members’ needs, whether they’re small, medium, or large.

Brandon Burton (26:15.918)
I love that. So as you’re giving that response, my mind’s racing with all these different things, but like you’d mentioned, networking is always going to be some aspect of the chamber and paying attention to tools that are coming. I recently did an episode with the founder of an app called Chamber, but with a Y, so the C-H-A-Y-M-B-E-R. And it’s all about being able to network digitally or you meet somebody in person, but then you connect digitally and

continue to build that relationship and that networking. And there’s great tools and resources available that we just need to be aware. And like you mentioned, AI and being able to stay on the forefront of some of these things and introduce them to your membership and help them gain the confidence to use some of these new tools because change can be scary, right? I mean,

just human nature, like if you wanted to survive, you don’t change, right? So being able to help hold their hand through some of this change is so important. But being from Ohio, you may be familiar with Matt Appenzeller, Southern Ohio Chamber Alliance, but he’s made the distinction between with chambers being either a lamppost, where you’re shining a little bit of light on a

portion of town square or being a lighthouse where you’re really showing, you’re shining the light of where the direction needs to go. Really, you know, bringing people along to where you see things are going and guiding them that way. And that’s, that’s what I see you guys doing there at the Moore County Chambers, being more of a lighthouse and really shining that light, saying this is where things are going, come along with us because this is where the future is bright.

Linda M. Parsons (28:03.125)
We talked a little bit about in the beginning about my artistic background. I’ve always said that sometimes a chamber is kind of like a conductor, a conductor of a symphony. We may not always have the answer, but we can connect and collaborate with different organizations or people to help make our businesses and our local economies be successful. I may not always have that answer, but I can connect a business to our local school system. I can connect them to the college.

Brandon Burton (28:11.011)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (28:30.447)
When everybody was saying, what are we going to do? Everybody’s leaving the workplace. I need employees. I need more students to go into this career path. OK, well, let’s start a workforce development collaborative task force so that we can work in partnership instead of all working in silos. A lot of times, that’s what happens in communities. Everybody’s working on something, but they’re not talking to each other. OK, well, it’s not going to be successful if you’re not talking to each other, being direct and open. And events will always have their place.

Training will always have its place, but our world is changing and we’ve got to change with it to continue to remain relevant to our members, otherwise known as investors, who are investing in us and our community.

Brandon Burton (29:17.08)
That’s right. I love that. Well, Linda, as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask on behalf of the listener who is striving to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they strive to accomplish that goal?

Linda M. Parsons (29:34.804)
I do think reading the book, End of Membership as you know it, is a really good idea. And I really think taking a pause and stepping back and doing an analysis of everything that you’re doing, what is successful, how much time are you putting into it. The people time does cost you money. And if you’re doing an event to turn around to do in another event to pay for that event, is that really the most cost effective thing?

Brandon Burton (29:54.99)
We are finished.

Linda M. Parsons (30:02.101)
for your organization and the members that you serve. Sometimes taking that pause is scary, but by doing an analysis of everything that you’re doing, helps you move forward. While we did that back in 2017, we actually had a discussion yesterday that we’re gonna be doing it as a team discussion again, so that we’re prepared for this next 10 years. And…

and are able to continue to serve that investor of our community. So I do think that’s important. I also think if you’re really new in the career, find a mentor, find somebody that you, an organization and a person that you can regularly check in with. Being at the top is lonely. It’s a lonely place to be and one of the most exciting places to be, but it can be scary. Taking those risks are scary at times. And so being able to talk

Brandon Burton (30:53.539)
Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (30:57.599)
through those things with somebody I think is important.

Brandon Burton (31:01.324)
Yeah, absolutely. And really the idea of looking 10 years in the future and trying to plan and work towards that before too long, you have a 10 year plan, but you probably have to readdress it on an annual basis and see, we still on track? And I had heard a recent interview of Elon Musk and somebody was asking him about how he sees the future. And this is the man who’s literally building the future, right? With self-driving cars and robots and

Linda M. Parsons (31:28.341)
Correct.

Brandon Burton (31:31.286)
putting people on Mars. And he gave a great forecast of in the next one to three years, but himself, he said, 10 years? I have no idea. I have no idea what the future looks like in 10 years. And I think it’s good to have a plan, but we need to constantly make sure we’re still on course with that plan, that we’re going in the right direction.

Linda M. Parsons (31:51.638)
Absolutely, because you never know what curve ball such as COVID, which a lot of people got thrown at, know, nobody knew that was coming and you had to pivot and you have to be able to pivot quickly.

Brandon Burton (32:00.751)
Yeah, exactly. Well, Linda, I feel like this whole episode we’ve been talking about the future of chambers, but I’m going to ask the formal question that I always ask towards the end of an episode, which is how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Linda M. Parsons (32:21.449)
think we are at a great place to really excel our communities forward. Kind of looking at that road where you have two choices to go, Chambers had the opportunity to really pull their communities and help them in the areas of workforce development and bring employees to their employers, whether it is cultivating that relationship as young as kindergarten.

to others who are maybe second chance individuals looking for employment, veterans, the opportunity is there. And I think the chambers that embrace that and start working as collaborative units in their communities are gonna excel and be extremely successful.

Brandon Burton (33:09.526)
Yeah, I love that. And that visual again, that road, I think Alice in Wonderland, right? She comes to the fork in the road and she asks, which way do I go? Right? And the Cheshire Cat says, it depends on where you want to go. You know, and you got to know where you’re headed. Yeah.

Linda M. Parsons (33:15.658)
Mm-hmm.

Linda M. Parsons (33:20.277)
She does.

And every community is unique. Every community has its place. Every community isn’t the same. And yes, we borrow things from communities, but you have to look at your own community and what does that future hold?

Brandon Burton (33:38.004)
Exactly. Well, this has been a fun discussion. I’m grateful to have had you on the show. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more maybe about the co-working space or how you guys are navigating the future. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Linda M. Parsons (33:58.176)
So they can contact me directly at the chamber, 910-692-3926. If they want to see a little bit about our space, they can visit thirdfloorcollabspace.com. And if they want to visit a little and learn a little more about the chamber, it’s moorecountychamber.com. We do get confused with Moore, Oklahoma. In fact, today we have an application for a membership in Moore, Oklahoma.

Brandon Burton (34:15.371)
you

Linda M. Parsons (34:24.937)
We are not in Moore, Oklahoma. We are in North Carolina. So please be mindful of that. You can find me on LinkedIn as well, as well as LinkedIn.

Brandon Burton (34:32.334)
Very good. I’ll make sure to get those in the show notes and make it easy for people to find and connect with you. But Linda, thank you so much for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast sharing your experience and some of these things that you guys are doing to really position your community well for the future and look after those investors that are within your stewardship. I really appreciate you sharing those things with us.

Linda M. Parsons (35:00.106)
Thank you, Brandon, for the opportunity and I wish the Chamber community all the best.

Chamber Bitcoin Foundations with Brandon Burton

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:00.824)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our topic for this episode is going to be a little bit unique. It’s something that I haven’t really dove into on Chamber Chat yet. Typically, I have guests and

Given this time of year, we’re coming into the holiday season. I wanted to be able to give a little reprieve to the guests that I would normally have on and allow them to enjoy the holidays, but also to dive into what I see as an important topic for Chambers to be paying attention to right now so you can be better prepared for the future. So before I dive in,

In this episode, I am going to be sharing some ideas around Bitcoin and how Bitcoin can help strengthen the finance, the outlook, financial outlook for your chamber. But I do want to put out the disclaimer that I am not a financial advisor, that this is not financial advice. You know, all the disclaimers go along with that. What I want to do with this episode

is really just give you some exposure to Bitcoin, what it is, kind of a vision that I’ve had of seeing how Chambers can utilize Bitcoin in the long term and give you something to be able to talk over with your board, with your executive committee, with your accountant, see what makes sense for your organization and to look to some other models and

how they’re utilizing Bitcoin as well. without further ado, this episode, the thought came to me, chambers are always looking for long-term sustainable revenue streams and ways to strengthen their role as community stewards. that’s a long way of saying chambers are always looking to remain relevant, right? But as Matt Appenzeller,

Brandon Burton (02:22.881)
talked about as he was a guest on the podcast a few weeks ago, it’s not enough to be relevant anymore. You need to be forward thinking. You need to be looking at what’s coming next. And it’s part of my thesis, you can say, that Bitcoin can very much be part of that long-term sustainable revenue stream and way to strengthen your role as community leader. We’re seeing

around the country, around the world, major institutions, Fortune 500 companies, and even universities are adopting Bitcoin as a long-term strategic asset. And I’ll get a little bit more into that as we go along. But to kind of frame the thought process as we get into this, what would it mean for a chamber foundation to build a strategic reserve

designed for growth for decades, designed to grow for decades. Think about that, ponder on that. What would it mean for your chamber foundation to build a strategic reserve designed to grow for decades? This is big thinking, long-term thinking, and we’re gonna dive into it as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, so before the break, I kind of set the table for you. Explaining what this episode’s all about with introducing you to Bitcoin and more importantly with how Bitcoin can be a great asset for long-term growth for your chamber, specifically for Foundation. So I’ll get into the details of it. I do kind have an outline that I’m going to follow. So as I go through the outline, it may seem like I’m reading some things, but I wanted to make sure that I had…

as much of the detail and reference points available as possible so I’m not missing anything. Bitcoin can be a complex topic. So I’ve been in it and involved with Bitcoin for nearly a decade now. So as I’ve gotten into it, there’s some things that I take for granted that I realize other people don’t have that framework or that foundation for understanding Bitcoin.

Brandon Burton (04:44.844)
I’m hoping to be able to give some of that background about what Bitcoin is generally before I build on the bigger ideas. So what is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a decentralized digital monetary network. So some people call it like a digital gold. So it’s a store of value. It’s an investment tool, but it’s a way to be able to send money digitally.

anywhere in the world for very low fees. In the past, as I use the term digital gold, in the past, people would look to gold as a store of value. But if you needed to send gold across the world, there’s a lot of effort required with that, including insuring it and transporting it and the whole nine yards. So Bitcoin is a way for you to digitally transfer large amounts of money without

or large amounts of value without all the extra friction. Bitcoin is not a company. There is no CEO of Bitcoin. There is no website for Bitcoin. It was created anonymously about 17 years ago at this point. So as I record this, we’re in December of 2025, which is important because I will reference some different

things that will be important for us to pin back to this date in mid-December 2025. So Bitcoin was created anonymously and the way that it works is it’s mined a lot like gold is. Where gold, you have to get the tools, you gotta go into the mountains, you gotta dig through the granite and put forth a lot of effort to reveal the gold. So with Bitcoin,

Bitcoin is mined in the digital landscape. And the easiest way to explain this is there’s very complex equations that are put out there that computers work on essentially nonstop. And as a computer solves this equation, they are rewarded with a block. So a block

Brandon Burton (07:07.598)
for the blockchain technology maybe. So a block is mined roughly every 10 minutes. So every 10 minutes a block reward is issued. And what that is is that block of transactions gets approved and there’s a consensus across the different nodes that are being run on the network to validate that the ledger is correct. And then that block of transactions can get cleared and

and move on into the history of the blockchain. So as Bitcoin is mined, so there’s miners who they have expensive mining rigs that are used to mine the Bitcoin and it uses an intense amount of power to be able to do the mining. So a lot like mining gold, there’s a lot of effort that goes into it, a lot of energy. Same thing with mining Bitcoin.

So there is a difficulty in achieving it. And if there’s a whole bunch of miners that come on at one time, there’s a difficulty adjustment that gets made within the software. So it makes it harder to solve those problems, to earn that block reward. And if there’s less miners on the network, then that difficulty adjustment comes down to where it becomes a little bit easier to solve the problem. So it can stay on track for every 10 minutes for a…

a block to be mined. And that’s important too because miners, they are not online unless they can be profitable. So if they’re in an area where you can’t get cheap energy, then they’re not going to mine. So they tend to go to places where energy can be as close to free as possible. So maybe by a waterfall or some kind of water source where they can get electricity or solar or nuclear plant or

Even in oil fields where they’ll use some of the flare at the oil rigs to be able to convert into energy. Even methane from junkyard, from landfills, they’ll use the methane and convert that into electricity to be able to run their mining rigs. So there’s very creative ways that miners are able to access power to be able to do the mining. And it’s kind of transforming the world with giving a

Brandon Burton (09:33.311)
Access to energy in places the world that haven’t had it before so back to the minor so minor Is online they they go through the process to Earn a block reward and I keep saying block reward because if they win the block saying they solve the problem and and get that block there is a reward to it so that reward is a certain number of Bitcoin, so

Let’s say at one point it was 10 Bitcoin and then every four years there’s a halving cycle. So every roughly every four years, what was 10 Bitcoin be cut down to five Bitcoin as a block reward. And then four years later, that five gets cut down to two and a half. And then four years later it gets cut down. So you understand what I’m saying. Every four years that block reward gets cut down, cut in half.

However, the price of Bitcoin continues to rise very dramatically. So with that having, it tends to help boost the price of Bitcoin as well. Some of this may seem technical and really I just want to give a basis so you can kind of have a concept, a better concept maybe of what Bitcoin is. But Bitcoin is built to be long-term inflation resistant store about

So in the end, that’s what it is. institutions are starting to pay attention to Bitcoin. And you might ask why, why are institutions paying attention? Well, there’s the number go up technology. So the price of Bitcoin is dramatically increasing. But over the last 15 years of operation, there’s been zero downtime with the Bitcoin network. So because there’s no company, it’s not centralized into one.

building or one locale, these nodes and miners are spread throughout the world. So if one node or miner, if there’s a power outage in a certain area, there’s redundancy throughout the world. So there’s been zero downtime with the Bitcoin network. Historically, there’s been a 200 % average annual compounded return over the past decade.

Brandon Burton (12:00.258)
That number is a little bit deceiving because on the front end of the decade, this is averages. So the front end of that decade, that return was much higher. And as time has gone on, it’s not quite as high, but it is still very attractive. Usually around 40 to 50 % return annually at this point in time. Bitcoin has outperformed stocks, real estate, bonds, gold, and nearly every major asset class.

which is mind boggling. A lot of people say Bitcoin is too volatile and it is, it’s volatile. has its ups, it has its downs, but once you zoom out and look at it long-term, it’s just up and to the right ever since its creation. it is an amazing asset. Bitcoin is increasingly recognized as digital property. rather than risk on speculative assets.

This is where I want to make the distinction. People talk about crypto, cryptocurrency, and then there’s Bitcoin. So technically Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, but cryptocurrency is not Bitcoin. So I hope we can be clear on that. In fact, I don’t ever talk about crypto. I have zero interest in any crypto asset. I don’t even want to name them, but there’s a lot of speculative assets in the crypto world.

to me, Bitcoin is the only thing that matters. Because even with all those speculative cryptos, people will buy and sell them, but they’ll accumulate value just to buy more Bitcoin, because that’s Bitcoin’s key. So let’s talk about what Bitcoin is not. So Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme. It’s not as, in fact, when you buy it, I would say you need to buy it and hold it. Otherwise you’re going to get burned. It’s not something to trade.

So if you try to time the market, try to buy low, sell high, one, there’s going to be tax ramifications, two, you’re never going to beat the market. It’s always going to burn you in the end. So it’s not a get rich scheme and it’s not something you trade. It’s also not a traditional investment managed like equities. It’s best used as a long-term reserve asset. So just buy it and hold it and.

Brandon Burton (14:26.57)
As you buy and hold it, there’s other things you can do with it, which I’ll touch on in a little bit. So the background or the inspiration that I had into bringing Chambers into the Bitcoin world is there is a company, it was called MicroStrategy. Now it just goes by strategy and MicroStrategy was, I’m going to say more of a struggling

software company. They were doing, I believe, about a hundred million a year in software. But as a software company, that’s not a lot. As we hear in his chambers, that’s a lot of money. But software speaking, that’s not a whole lot. But MicroStrategy, it’s a publicly traded business, intelligence company, software company. Their CEO is Michael Saylor. And he pioneered what I’m going to call the Bitcoin Treasury Strategy.

So in 2020, Michael Saylor was looking for ways to save their company. And he learned about Bitcoin and he dove in about what all Bitcoin has to offer. And in 2020, Michael Saylor announced that they would be shifting excess cash into Bitcoin as a long-term reserve. As of early 2025,

Um, and this number is not even going to be accurate anymore because they keep buying and acquiring more and more Bitcoin. But as of the beginning of this year, um, they, they held about 1 % of the global Bitcoin supply. I believe they’re closer to 5 % at this point. Um, every few weeks they’re buying more, um, in massive loads. So they accumulated initially through.

excess cash reserves. So whatever cash was sitting on their balance sheet, they were buying Bitcoin because cash as we know is subject to inflation and over time devalues itself where Bitcoin, it inflates over time and it’s inflation proof as it continues to outpace every other asset out there. And once they exhausted their cash reserves,

Brandon Burton (16:52.472)
They started looking for other ways to accumulate more bitcoins. So they got into convertible notes. They got into issuing bonds. They got into regular, regular treasury allocations. So they are creating new treasury products that they’re putting out there in the market that you can purchase. And essentially by one of these different treasury notes that they

that they produce and it’ll return, depending on the price of Bitcoin, roughly a 10 % return. So when you look at people on fixed income, for example, looking at retirement and they want a steady return, you can purchase some of these shares, these fixed income equities, and they’ll return roughly a 10 % a year guaranteed return.

MicroStrategy has built out their balance sheet and issued these notes and bonds and so forth where they are over collateralized massively with Bitcoin. So the price of Bitcoin, when it was at its peak earlier this year, it could take a down ride. It could dip down to like 80 % of its top value.

and MicroStrategy would still have a strong balance sheet to be able to make all their debt payments. So super strong company, very creative with how they’re accumulating Bitcoin. But as a result, the market cap or the value of MicroStrategy went from about $1 billion to over $80 billion during peak cycles.

So within about a five year period, went from 1 billion to over 80 billion. Their operating business didn’t change, but their balance sheet strategy did, and that’s key. So as we think of Bitcoin for chambers, I don’t want you to think of changing your operating business. Your day to day, what you do shouldn’t change much, but the way you structure your balance sheet should to be able to adopt

Brandon Burton (19:15.454)
this kind of a strategy. So you don’t need to change your programs or events. You can strengthen your foundation by adopting a smarter treasury approach. So that was the initial inspiration that I had. And then as I’ve, I dove into Bitcoin education several years ago, just learning as much as I can about it. And there were ideas floated out there about

what’s called bit bonds. So what a bit bond is, if you think of a municipality issuing a bond, maybe they need to build a new fire station. They can allocate a percentage, even just a small percentage of the bond to purchase Bitcoin with, but then as the math plays out would vastly outperform the interest on the rest of the bond. So then in the end, the

the end of the term of this bond would be split between the bond purchaser and the issuer. So they both end up better off for it. So BitBonds are tokenized bonds issued on Bitcoin’s layer. They have been issued first in El Salvador.

to raise capital through what they called volcano bonds. So if you wanted to Google that and dive in more on what volcano bonds were with bit bonds. But they resent a government using Bitcoin, the Bitcoin rails to raise capital. It’s a hybrid model between traditional bonds and the Bitcoin upside. This matters kind of as a precedent because it shows that public institutions are now using Bitcoin.

as part of sovereign financial strategy. It demonstrates how Bitcoin-backed instruments can support infrastructure growth, tourism, national development projects. And as far as the relevance to chambers, if nation states, El Salvador, we’ve recently heard even the United States building a Bitcoin reserve, strategic Bitcoin reserve for the United States,

Brandon Burton (21:38.145)
I’m in Texas. Texas has started a strategic Bitcoin reserve. But if nation states are leveraging Bitcoin for a long-term capital formation, then why shouldn’t local business institutions consider smaller scale version of this? Why shouldn’t chambers consider having a long-term capital, strategic capital, strategic Bitcoin reserve rather? So as my thinking, it went from

MicroStrategy, the corporate Bitcoin reserve that they set up, it’s the idea of these BitBonds. And I’m thinking, man, how can Chambers take advantage of this? So as I started diving into that thought and exploring that and flushing it out, the idea came to me of Bitcoin being part of a strategic reserve for Chamber foundations. So a lot of you listening will already have…

a Chamber Foundation or 501C3. I know many Chambers out there are exploring starting a foundation or would like to start a foundation. And I would suggest having the 501C3 to hold the Bitcoin, just the structure for it is much better and how you can allocate it throughout its life. But foundations are already managed and restricted.

sorry, foundations already manage restricted or endowed funds. So it’s a right entity for that. They operate with long-term stewardship in mind. So it’s not just something that you get money in, turn around and use it, but it’s meant for long-term growth and development in your community. And they are ideal vehicles for building intergenerational financial resilience. So.

the proposed chamber Bitcoin reserve strategy that I would put out there. So this is where you get your pen and paper and start jotting down notes. But I would say to accumulate small amounts consistently. I mentioned before trying to buy low, high. if you buy, if you dollar cost average consistently, you’re able to take advantage of the upside. So whether you use fundraising,

Brandon Burton (24:03.646)
surplus of revenues or earmark economic development funds or maybe you do a capital campaign and you take a portion of the money raised with that capital campaign to fund your strategic Bitcoin Reserve. You could also accept direct Bitcoin donations from local tech forward businesses. If they knew that you’re building a Bitcoin Reserve,

there would be people in your community who would want to give you Bitcoin directly to participate in that. And you probably know who some of those tech forward businesses are who would be interested in that. So the accumulation is one way. So how do you accumulate it? And there’s different strategies of how to do that. But then the custody of the Bitcoin. So Bitcoin has keys.

There’s a key phrase that accesses the Bitcoin. I would strongly, strongly recommend that, again, this isn’t financial advice, but I would strongly recommend that you use a third party as a custodian for your Bitcoin. And that way you can do what’s called have a multi-signature vault, which means maybe you as a CEO

maybe your board chair and this third party all have a signature to access the Bitcoin. if you wanted to, let’s say one of the, you or your board chair, you know, were to lose the keys, you could still access it with two out of three of those individuals having those keys. The other thing is,

A lot of chambers have policies in place, so you can’t write a check or sign a check over a certain amount without a second signature. So multi-sig would kind of help with that as well to make sure that any transactions or spending of the Bitcoin is done with a lot of thought to it and not done casually or just on a whim. But there’s some good companies out there that can help with that.

Brandon Burton (26:26.702)
And it just, really reduces the exposure to losing the keys. So you want to make sure you have a third party multi-sig vault and there’s some that will even insure it. So if anything were to happen and you’ve lost the Bitcoin, you can purchase insurance on it as well, which is pretty cool. So the next point is

My thoughts on this is if you choose to go with the strategy of building a strategic Bitcoin reserve, don’t do it unless you can commit to at least five to 10 years of holding the Bitcoin. Don’t sell it. Whatever you do, don’t sell. Ideally, you would accumulate the Bitcoin within your foundation and you would never sell it because it’ll continue to increase in value over time.

And there’s ways that you can access it. So you could take a loan out against it. You can, can act as collateral to do some pretty interesting things. that marketplace for how to use Bitcoin as a collateral is just growing and becoming more innovative. But let’s say, well, if you have this reserve and

you have that commitment of five to 10 years to not sell it, hopefully never sell it, the reserve becomes a long-term economic development asset. So chambers could eventually use the appreciated value to acquire land for industrial recruitment. You could seed a revolving loan fund for small businesses. You can fund chamber-backed grants or workforce programs.

You could create interest-based scholarships or talent pipeline programs. It could serve as a rainy day fund for future crises that may come. Again, I would say, please don’t sell it, though. I would take a loan out against it. so for the example, if you’re acquiring land for industrial recruitment,

Brandon Burton (28:40.878)
You acquire the land, you get that recruitment, you turn the land over, and then you pay off the loan that you had from the Bitcoin. So you continue to grow in that appreciation of Bitcoin while you’re putting that capital to use. So hopefully that makes sense. So expected outcomes over time. So just to give you an idea, if a chamber accumulates $100,000 in Bitcoin and holds it for 10 years, just as an example.

Historical averages suggest the potential 10 year growth to be about 25 times that initial investment. So that’s huge. I always want to think more conservatively. So even if it was 10 times, that still, that turns a hundred thousand dollars into a million over 10 years. But even 10 % of the historical performance will, you know,

dramatically outpace a bond or CD yield. I would say start small, contribute steady and consistently, and in the future you’ll have meaningful economic power in the future. So there’s validation. This is already happening with other institutions like Harvard.

is Harvard’s endowment, the largest academic endowment globally. They began holding Bitcoin in private funds as early as 2019. Other institutions, Stanford, Yale, MIT, all have different levels of Bitcoin exposure. Black Rocks, Bitcoin ETF or iBit.

is now one of the fastest growing ETFs in history. And Fidelity has publicly positioned Bitcoin as a superior store of value. And why does this matter to Chambers? Well, foundations with the 100 years outlook are embracing Bitcoin. Chambers, which also should have a plan for generational impact, should consider doing the same. So thinking big, thinking well into the future, building your community.

Brandon Burton (31:05.902)
Having that resilience Bitcoin is that tool to get you there now as you present this idea to your board as you present this to your accountant as you present it as you start talking about it out loud, sometimes I’m a little hesitant because People have different ideas about Bitcoin and more and more they’re becoming positive but man about eight years ago when I got into it

I mentioned Bitcoin to people, they thought I was crazy. But now it’s obviously much more mainstream and it’s been proving itself. But people will say Bitcoin is too volatile. And yeah, that’s true. From day to day, it’s super volatile. But long term, it’s been extremely strong. And as a chamber, you shouldn’t be trading the day to day. You’re building reserves for long time into the future.

The volatility really can be a gift. And Michael Saylor has talked about that. The volatility of Bitcoin is really a gift for us long term. Somebody may say, well, we can’t risk member dollars on Bitcoin. So this strategy uses foundation funds with clear restrictions and long-term intentions. So it’s not for operating budgets or for event revenue.

It has a specific purpose for funding this foundation. Some might say our board won’t understand Bitcoin and this is why education matters. It’s important for you to learn about Bitcoin so you can help answer their questions. You can compare it to land. There’s a limited supply. There’s only ever going to be 21 million Bitcoin ever produced. 21 million. That’s it. There’s not even enough Bitcoin.

for every millionaire in the country to have a Bitcoin. So there’s definitely an early mover advantage. And Bitcoin can be broken down into smaller units called Satoshis. And you can learn more about that as you dive into your education on Bitcoin. But it’s a hard asset, has long-term appreciation. It doesn’t require ongoing maintenance. So the idea of like real estate, there’s always, know, maintenance that goes on with that.

Brandon Burton (33:30.754)
Bitcoin doesn’t have any of that. Bitcoin is digital land, globally scarce and infinitely divisible. So another risk, I guess you could say, or objection to it is what if we lose the Bitcoin? And that’s a question that makes me sick to think about, to lose your Bitcoin. So I’d mentioned before the multi-sig vaults.

use a third party, a trusted third party multi-signature vault, and that removes that risk of a single person losing the Bitcoin keys. But keys can be distributed among board members and with rotating responsibility. All right. So if you are wanting to implement this into your organization, into your foundation,

So one would be set up a foundation or sub foundation specifically labeled as a strategic digital asset reserve to adopt a written policy that says we’re not going to sell the Bitcoin for five to 10 years or whatever you want that policy to read. But that would be my my guideline is for sure. If you sell it if you sell it less than five years, you may end up losing money.

But if you keep it five to 10 years, you’re going to be on the upside. If you keep it forever, you’re definitely going to be on the upside. Part of that written policy, have it spelled out what your annual allocation target is, what your specific custody standards are. So you know how to access it you don’t lose your keys. Educate your board and your membership about what you’re

doing and how you’re going to put this strategic fund to use in the future or ways that it could be utilized in the future. And then begin to dollar cost average, just monthly or quarterly or annually, whatever interval you want to set up, but have a way to dollar cost average. then track reserve performance annually as part of your foundation reporting, you know, see what that growth looks like here to here.

Brandon Burton (35:49.719)
start getting excited because this can really transform your community and your organization. So imagine your chamber foundation in the year 2035, 10 years from now, with a reserve worth two to $10 million because you simply committed to accumulating a small amount of Bitcoin each year. Imagine funding major workforce facility.

securing land for a business park or seeding your own microloan program, all because your chamber thought ahead. This position’s chamber’s not as followers, but as innovators in community economic resilience. So in closing, I this has kind of gone a little long just hearing me ramble on without another guest or somebody to have that ongoing dialogue, but.

Chambers have always been the boots on the ground leaders in economic development. The future will reward those who embrace asymmetric opportunities early.

Bitcoin is not a silver bullet, but it is an incredible tool for long-term local prosperity. And I would encourage you to explore, ask questions, and consider whether your foundation is structured to take advantage of generational opportunities. But I hope that you found this interesting, at the least, transformational at the most. I really hope that

Chambers listening right now will take this and really transform the organization. And I would love to hear of anybody who adopts this strategy, especially 10 years from now. And you are that chamber who’s sitting on a $10 million strategic fund because you implemented something today. I would love to hear about that. But if you have any questions, reach out to me.

Brandon Burton (37:54.201)
Brandon@ChamberChatPodcast.com and Anyways, I hope this episode helps and hope you hopefully you learned a few things and sparked some ideas of how you can Set up your community for long-term growth into the future

Strategic Initiatives in Action with Yvonne Myers

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:01.038)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest today is Yvonne Myers. Yvonne is the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce, a role that she’s held since 2022 after a remarkable 31-year career with Columbine Health Systems.

Yvonne didn’t just pivot into this role. She brought her 14 years of board experience at the Chamber and a passion for building talent pipelines that meet real business needs. Under her leadership, the Chamber has secured over $2.1 million in grants to support work-based learning, sector partnerships, and workforce program development. She’s grown the talent team from a solo effort to a thriving team of three.

and currently chairs the NOCO works executive committee, a two county regional workforce initiative. Yvonne also serves on the boards of the arc of Larimer county and the early childhood council of Larimer county. When she’s not driving strategic change, you might catch her playing the string bass in the local band and orchestras. Yvonne, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity.

to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Yvonne Myers (01:34.82)
Well, Brandon, I’m excited to be here today and honored that you would ask me to participate in your podcast. So so hello, everyone. I’m excited to share the little bit of work we’re doing here. One thing I’ve learned about Chambers, it’s all about sharing and stealing and supporting each other for sure. So this is a great place to do it. So I really appreciate that. I think interesting fact is I was the first person in my family born in the United States. I don’t know why that’s cheering me up. But anyway,

first person to go to college. And so today is Fridays. We support Colorado State University. have a big basketball game this weekend. so having gone to university is very proud for my parents and it’s proud for me as well.

Brandon Burton (02:19.039)
Yeah, that is very cool. I love hearing stories like that. It’s awesome. America is a great place for that. Well, if you would tell us a little bit about the Fort Collins area chamber just to give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work, budget you guys work with, just to kind of give some perspective before we dive into our topic today.

Yvonne Myers (02:26.522)
And it’s for sure.

Yvonne Myers (02:41.594)
Sure, yeah, the chamber, we’ve been here since 1904, so we’re not one of the oldest ones around for sure. We have 13 staff members, some are part-time, I think eight are full-time, the rest are part-time. We do have a couple of consultants that we have, subcontractors that we work with as well. We have a place-setting company that does some of our events, and we have a wonderful, cranky advocacy person that writes a lot of our things and supports that work for us. We have about a $2 million budget.

Brandon Burton (02:49.547)
Thank

Brandon Burton (03:06.829)
Good night.

Yvonne Myers (03:10.2)
that we work from, we also have, we’ve done a Northern Colorado Prosper’s event. We’re on the fifth year of our second NCP event where we raise about four and a half million dollars each one of those times to do work like work on transportation, advocacy, workforce, those sorts of things. We also do a total resource campaign every year. We just finished our 15th year of our total resource campaign called Moving Fort Collins Forward, exclamation point at the end of that.

Brandon Burton (03:16.013)
Thank you.

Brandon Burton (03:22.317)
Thanks

Brandon Burton (03:33.901)
Yeah, it’s just like being on the top of a spot, just playing with nature.

Yvonne Myers (03:39.262)
and we raised $536,000 this year for our sponsorships and our new members and all that sort of thing. So we have, you know, a volunteer team of about 50 that help raise funds for that. So we’re busy in the Fort Collins area. We also play well with the Greeley and Loveland chambers in our area as well. But we’re also, I would say, a pretty strong, strong lead in our region as far as the chamber goes.

Brandon Burton (03:41.901)
from the way I understand it, I was thinking the same thing.

So you have to be able to concentrate on the details.

Brandon Burton (04:05.249)
Very good. That definitely helps to give us an idea of where you’re coming from as far as the chamber goes. Today we’ll focus a lot of our conversation around that work-based learning, some of sector partnerships you guys are involved with, and some of these workforce programs that you guys are sponsoring. And we will dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All Yvonne, we are back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re diving into some of these work-based learning and these sector partnerships you guys are involved with all around workforce development. I don’t know if there’s a certain area you want to dive into first. I think there’s a lot of branches to this, but maybe just tell us where you guys saw the need and how you guys are addressing the need. Maybe that’s a good place to start.

Yvonne Myers (04:49.645)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (04:56.154)
Yeah, so, you know, the governor in our state, Governor Hickenlooper back in the day in 2013 brought the sector partnership model to the state because he came from industry, right? I mean, he was a geologist and he also had a brewery and all those sorts of things. And our economy was not doing well and he felt like, well, industry is the one to bring that economy forward. So I was lucky to be on our local workforce board working at a long-term care company at Columbine Health Systems and

Brandon Burton (05:08.525)
Thanks

Yvonne Myers (05:24.438)
started the sector help start the health sector partnership and the chamber at the time said boy you know it’s industry-led we should be a part of that and actually became our fiscal agent for no fee we had somebody else doing it for eight percent and when i called the chamber and said can you help us out i hope to get only one or two percent and they actually said well we’ll do it for no cost it was like yay so all of our money was just great

Brandon Burton (05:47.905)
Wow.

Yvonne Myers (05:49.882)
And we are still that fiscal agent. 15, since 2013, we are now fiscal agent for five out of the six sector partnerships in our region. 2013, the House Sector Partnership and Manufacturing Sector Partnerships launched. We’re the two longest sector partnerships in the country that are still active. So that’s a pretty crazy thing we didn’t imagine. And then when I came to the chamber, we

Brandon Burton (05:59.404)
So.

Yvonne Myers (06:18.882)
I really felt like we needed to launch more industries around because I really believe in the sector partnership model of industry leading where things are going. They’re the one who purchased the product of education. They’re the ones that have the issue and opportunity. And I do think our workforce friends, our education friends, our government friends really do want to help us. But when we’re sitting in our businesses doing our work and they’re in their secret lab imagining what we need, it never works. It just doesn’t work.

Brandon Burton (06:36.611)
and turn it into a little bit a little bit.

Thanks

I love that. Just imagining, right?

Yvonne Myers (06:49.114)
So we have to get up out of our house and then speak to them and say this is what we need and they will magically help us, right? But we’re not there at that conversation. so, the vice versa also, which is they’re in their secret lab going, we know what industry needs. So we’re going to create this and they should be also including us in those conversations. So that really is a very basic tenet of the work that we do here is like industry needs to be there and you need to be speaking up. And so,

Brandon Burton (07:09.39)
So, we’re to have a great time.

Yvonne Myers (07:18.508)
When I started then, the nonprofit sector partnership, some of the nonprofits came to me who knew about sector partnerships said, we want to start one. And I was like, are you an industry? I know it’s a terrible question to ask, but I was like, are you? And so we pulled data around how many we have, how many employees, the economic impact, and went, holy buckets. And they don’t tend to show up in numbers because they’re tucked under government. They’re tucked under here. don’t really have to kind of pull them out of light cast in some of those places.

Brandon Burton (07:31.34)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (07:46.75)
Great.

Yvonne Myers (07:48.25)
We launched the nonprofit sector partnership. You hope to have 30 industry members at your launch meeting to get impact. We had 90 people there from nonprofit. You hope that they walk away with three things they want to work on. They want to work on five. know, nonprofits are used to roll up their sleeves and doing their work. And so we, our region had formed a TID attacks incremental district to

Brandon Burton (07:59.907)
Wow.

Yvonne Myers (08:16.826)
charge more, if you come here, you have to pay a little bit more to our hotels and motels and things. And then that money goes to marketing the region. And I said, well, you’re then already a sector partnership because you have to lay down your competition as industry and come together to work on issues you can collectively solve. So that was an easy lift of the hospitality sector partnership. So they’ve now been launched about four years ago. And construction launched during the

I mean, they launched like March 10th and then we all got shut down like the 20th, right? And so they did very little during COVID. They relaunched and they said, we’re gonna do a construction con. We’re gonna bring hundreds of kids in to learn how to, I mean, they bring in like big equipment and the kids actually get to sit on big equipment and do some things and all of that and do welding and that kind of stuff as well. so they…

Quickly, people want to write them checks, and they’re like, hurry to take the checks. And we’re like, we’ll be your fiscal agent. We’ll help you. So we provide directors and officers insurance. provide, we sign the contracts for the events they go to. We use our liability insurance. So all we do is create that frame for them to be successful and hold them up. And they go off and do the work, right, as well. So a year ago, we launched the Financial Sector Partnership. And I can tell you that.

Brandon Burton (09:21.102)
Thank

Brandon Burton (09:37.39)
Okay.

Yvonne Myers (09:41.221)
We kind of launch them all a bit the same with the leadership team and the committees of work you want to do. And then we let them be who they are. And they are completely all different. They have websites. And you can imagine it’s colorful and lots of stuff on the nonprofit. And the financial sector partnership is black and white. It’s very streamlined and much different. And so we get the opportunity to let them be who they are and do the work that they want to do.

Brandon Burton (10:05.806)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (10:10.508)
So with that, then received grant funds to the Health Sector Partnership came to us and said, we’d really like to do more work-based learning, but it isn’t working the way it’s going. Schools are calling us. We’re calling schools. It’s just like this disconnected mess. We don’t know which schools to call. Schools are reaching out to us multiple times. We were getting asked too much. So.

We collectively wrote a grant between the school districts in our region, the health sector partnership, and the chamber. And we were the fiscal agent and became the lead for the grant because we can more quickly write the grant and do the grant. You have to go through school boards. have to go through. And the health sector partnership is not an entity, so they can’t apply, as you know. So we received funding and hired a subcontractor to work directly with CTE teachers to bring industry to do work-based learning.

Brandon Burton (10:55.938)
Thank

Brandon Burton (11:07.822)
you

Yvonne Myers (11:07.834)
And we’ve gone, they have gone from 40 to over 400 with our help of activities where students are either getting paid and they’re in internships or they’re doing job shadows or informational interviews. And what we find is when we can really hook that industry member and write that plan well of what a student could do in an internship or even in a job shadow, they will take more, right? And they will say, I need two or three.

Brandon Burton (11:34.978)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (11:37.755)
figure out this will be my pipeline for my employees. Some say well I went to Rocky Mountain High School I want to support Rocky Mountain High School I’m doing good work for these students to get exposures and we really push this notion you hear this across the country you know I can’t imagine a job I’ve never heard about right so we really and the we use the Zello platform which is what the school district started with so it’s XELLO

Brandon Burton (11:56.062)
Great.

Yvonne Myers (12:05.698)
And students also make requests. now the grant ended and it’s now a staff member and we found some more funding through our local nonprofits and our county who gave us funds to continue doing this. We find that our staff member has to cold call. Three kids wanted interior design, so she calls the interior designers and she’s got now two wonderful interior designers who regularly take students, them in a great way. These students are

Brandon Burton (12:08.504)
So.

Yvonne Myers (12:34.394)
amplified and say this is what I want to do and off they go into the wide world of you know learning how to be an interior designer. So that’s been highly successful. When the state of Colorado then put out more funds to incentivize business to do this workplace learning, they recognize the cost. I mean the staff member that’s off the floor or out of the position to do that work to develop the plan all those sorts of things. So

We applied and received a half a million dollar grant and we were able to give out 400,000 in incentives and did so in eight months. gave up to $10,000 if you did all the way to an internship. And so we had 150 businesses, we could only fund 48. We really found that this was really, and it didn’t.

Brandon Burton (13:12.194)
Nice, that’s cool.

Yvonne Myers (13:25.252)
There’s not a one-to-one match. Industry isn’t getting fully paid for the work they’re doing. That little donut shop is not, the 2,500 is not gonna cover their costs, even the 10,000. But it’s a recognition that there is a cost, that there is an effort that you have that we recognize that for you. And so we actually received $50,000 in funding this past year from Woodward, one of our larger industries in the area.

Brandon Burton (13:47.886)
you

Yvonne Myers (13:51.109)
who said, well, we want to continue doing that work. have a charitable trust, and they gave us funds. And we have a request in for more funds from them to do this incentive work as well. And that all came out of the sector partnerships wanting to do work-based learning with funding that we got. So it sort of just starts to build on itself as you go.

Brandon Burton (13:59.599)
And that’s awesome.

Brandon Burton (14:07.97)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s very cool. So these business sector partnerships, you know, I imagine for some listening, it may be a new concept. Maybe their chamber doesn’t, you know, take this approach. How do you go about starting a business sector partnership? And do you feel like you have to get all of the businesses in that sector in your region or whatever to be a part of it? Or are there going to be some that abstain from being a part of the partnership? How does that work?

Yvonne Myers (14:37.358)
That’s super. Those are super great questions, Brandon. So when Colorado started it, we used what’s called the Next Gen Sector Partnership model. And they’ve just changed their name to Foundation. So I think you could Google Next Gen Sector Partnership as well. And you do reach out to those who are most influential in that region that are going to bring that

Brandon Burton (14:50.538)
Okay. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (15:03.95)
Makes sense.

Yvonne Myers (15:05.88)
are going to bring others. If you get an invite from that restaurant owner, you’re like, I don’t know what it is, but I better go. So you kind of lean on those. they don’t have to be leaders after that. You kind of not use them, but you activate them for that moment. And so we traditionally always use the Purple Wall model. It’s a Canadian facilitation process. So if you Google Purple Wall facilitation, you will find it.

Brandon Burton (15:12.962)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (15:35.693)
And it’s really just a parachute piece of material that’s purple. And you spray sticky on it, and you put all the industry at a U-shaped table, and you say, what keeps you up at night? And it takes a minute. Someone has to be brave and write the first thing. And with our health care one, one of the hospital administrators wrote, I don’t know how to discharge mentally ill people out of my hospital, and I have no resources. And they’re just sitting there. And so I

Brandon Burton (16:01.046)
that’s huge.

Yvonne Myers (16:03.222)
I lifted that up and read it to all the other people at the U-shaped table and they said, that’s what we’re talking about. And then the cards start flying, right? And you place them together, you know, in cards that match. And pretty soon you have 42 cards that say behavioral health is an opportunity, Workforce is an opportunity. What the last purple wall for the health sector partnership is every couple of years you do it again to be sure you’re on track. For the now for hospitals, it’s safety and security of the staff.

Brandon Burton (16:14.635)
Thank you.

Yvonne Myers (16:33.05)
That is becoming a very big opportunity for a second party to work on. And there’s a bit of a model that says you need a leadership team, you need some bylaws, and you shouldn’t have quarterly meetings and committees, or so. I mean, after that, do what works for you, absolutely. And a lot of times, when we started, I didn’t worry about who came. I just thought, we need to make it.

Brandon Burton (16:34.807)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (16:47.502)
Or do what works for you, right?

Yvonne Myers (16:59.854)
We need to keep moving it forward so people will find out and say, well, I better become a part of that, right? And that we kept it valuable and important. So like the health sector one that I led for eight years as a healthcare employee, we always did a post-legislative recap of what happened. Nobody has time to follow what’s happening in the legislature and know what’s going on. And then sometimes, then they’ve moved to now they have a legislative committee because we have a lot of legislation around healthcare now. So now they’ve moved to a

not a listening after, but a proactive before, right? And that’s again, that evolution of these sector partnerships moving and they want. But for me, they are a confab of the willing, working on what they want to work on. So he who shows up, we work on the things you wanna do, right? And so if it’s not meeting your needs, then you’re not gonna come, or you get a group of people together who say, want to work on this sort of a thing. So yeah, and not everybody has to join.

Econ Dev Ops is the virtual assistant service built specifically for small Chambers of Commerce and Economic Development Organizations (EDOs)

Brandon Burton (17:53.603)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (17:57.755)
Keep it going, keep it moving forward, and people will come when they want to.

Brandon Burton (18:01.548)
Yeah. And I imagine in every community, those business sectors are going to look slightly different. I you may have some overlap where healthcare is something important or housing or manufacturing or whatnot, but others, maybe manufacturing is not as big of a factor and you go a different direction.

Yvonne Myers (18:10.595)
Right.

Yvonne Myers (18:18.616)
Very much so. We have one of the only nonprofit sector partnerships in the country because nonprofits, there’s a part where industry also contributes, right? They may pay for all partner meetings. They may, you know, for the construction con, they’re all buying the booths, they’re bringing their equipment. mean, they’re spending cash to do this and nonprofits don’t have as much money. But our nonprofit sector partnership is very active and has figured out how to…

Brandon Burton (18:36.994)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (18:45.156)
to do all of that without pulling money away from the nonprofits themselves. So they’re very active. So you’re right. It’s unique to each community in each region. We found the financial sector partnership when they launched, they’re one that kind of crosses over all the sector partnerships and fiscal literacy or financial literacy has become a topic with everyone because even though wages have gone up, people are still struggling with what things cost and housing and all that.

Brandon Burton (19:00.258)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (19:12.738)
So they’re looking at how they can bring trainings and education to the other sector partnerships. They also highlight the financial sector partnerships. Every all-profit meet and all-partner meeting hosts a nonprofit to share with what they’re doing so these banks and other financial folks can understand what’s happening in the nonprofit world. And so they’ve actually started to cross across each other to support each other as well, which has been fun to watch.

Brandon Burton (19:33.219)
Yeah.

So.

Very cool. Now, I know you guys have gotten into the work with focus with automotive and HVAC industries. You want to tell us about that and how that came to be?

Yvonne Myers (19:47.405)
Yes. Yeah, yeah. So our state did some financial training for those of us that are intermediaries. As the chamber has gotten into workforce, we’re now listed as a workforce intermediary. So we’re a connector between industry and workforce, economic development, all of that. And so, right?

Brandon Burton (20:05.42)
Yeah.

Convino, right?

Yvonne Myers (20:10.606)
And they recognized with all of the ARPA money that had flowed into all of us, post-COVID, that that was going to dry up. That’s once in a lifetime. We hope none of us want to live through another COVID situation. And that what was going to happen after this big infusion of cash, and then things were going to stop. And so they did financial training for us. And in that were folks from the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation and their Talent Pipeline Management Program.

Brandon Burton (20:20.215)
Great.

Yvonne Myers (20:38.682)
And so I started to learn about that program. So I decided to take the course. And so glad that I did, because it really builds on sector partnerships, which is industry-led, but in really the workforce committee. The sector partnerships might work on legislation or labor laws or other things, labor laws, or liquor laws. We have a thing that went on in liquor laws with hospitality. And so.

Brandon Burton (20:57.186)
Good.

Yvonne Myers (21:03.49)
With the talent pipeline management, really is industry coming together and kind of owning what’s happening in that space. And what I mean by that, like with HVAC, when we met with them, we said, what is your greatest need that you have to solve in the next two years? That’s how TPM is. And they said, we need entry-level maintenance technicians. But guess what? With those 10 folks, they titled that title 10 different names.

And that’s a problem, right? So how can I as a CTE teacher, how can I as a parent, how can I as an applicant even figure out what role this is across all of these vendors and providers? Also, we went through an exercise of agreeing to what are all the skills they need to have to be hired and what skills are they going to be taught as they’re moving forward. So they come into alignment with that because then we take that to education and say,

Brandon Burton (21:30.432)
Really? Yeah it is.

Yvonne Myers (21:58.157)
If you can teach these things, we will hire them from you. And maybe there’s 15 things, and my business wants 18 things. Well, those three are mine to teach. These 15 will come from education. And then you survey your education and say, what programs do you have? How many students can you take? So in our region, our HVAC providers, and it’s from Brighton, Colorado, which is a little closer to Denver, up to Laramie, Wyoming, that’s the

Brandon Burton (22:02.52)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (22:26.616)
the geographic area our HVAC members provide, they said we need 250 over the next two years. Well, that number wakes up education, right? If I call as my own little HVAC company and I say I need three people in next two years, they go, well, isn’t that sweet? I’ll send some resumes or, you know, come see our students. You say 250, you move the nation, honestly. And so our local school district here, are

Brandon Burton (22:34.478)
Wow.

Brandon Burton (22:44.898)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (22:54.292)
aging as a state in Colorado and we’re not having as many babies and our schools are you know some places in Colorado are closing schools and our district would like to repurpose them and use them for education of other folks right in the evenings on the weekends adults that kind of thing I’m sure that’s happening across the country as well so the HVAC folks did surveys with educators and community colleges and you know do you need a two-year degree do you know

Brandon Burton (23:09.314)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (23:24.154)
what education do you need? Where can we hire folks and then train them and then put them back into education? How can we look at this differently? The automotive is in the same place. There are a few months behind them. in both cases, like yesterday’s meeting with our automotive, we had our school district here and they’re like, what would it take for you to hire somebody under 18? They’re like, well, we can’t. Well, right.

Brandon Burton (23:49.342)
Why not?

Yvonne Myers (23:53.131)
In healthcare, when I was asked that question, why can’t you hire him under 18? I said, well, it’s a nursing home regulation. Well, it’s not. And I said, it’s an OSHA rule. It’s not. It must be a labor law because we’ve always done it that way, right? It’s not a labor law. I asked our liability insurance provider. He said, yeah, you can’t. And I said, can you show me where that is? Because I needed to tell other people why we couldn’t do it. So give me the piece of paper. And then he came back two weeks later and he said, yeah, I got it.

Brandon Burton (24:03.48)
No.

Brandon Burton (24:16.11)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (24:22.042)
So we started taking students in high school when they finished the med prep program because you want to grab them when they’re ready and you want to get them going and you want to get them in your, you know, in jobs and, and then we’d scholarship them. Then we would pay for their nursing, right? And so same sort of thing in automotive and HVAC. And what I love about it is it, it holds industry accountable to stop stealing from each other and paying another dollar and taking that employee there collectively together.

Brandon Burton (24:47.512)
breath.

Yvonne Myers (24:49.848)
They also are helping develop curriculum. They also are helping to donate supplies. Like they can push on their suppliers and say, hey, so our high school automotive bay is one bay and I guess the lift is bad. I don’t know about lifts, know, but all the automotive people are like, this is terrible. We need to get to four bays and they can use their influence with their suppliers who want students to be hired so that they can supply the supplies. And so

Brandon Burton (25:06.007)
yeah.

Brandon Burton (25:19.182)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (25:19.896)
Here it works. And the magic of it is that industry has had their head down all these years saying, well, they just don’t provide me the right people. Those educators don’t know, get to play and understand the parameters of what education has to work under and the limitations they might have or the issues they might have. The educators who say, well, these industry people never hire the right people, they get to hear on the other side. And then we collectively come together and try to solve that problem.

Brandon Burton (25:46.742)
Right.

Yvonne Myers (25:47.567)
You know, it’s a long journey, right? We’re not going to get to 250 students. But three to five years, we should look back. And the idea is now we’ve done maintenance technician for both HVAC and automotive. Now what’s the next step? And what’s the next step? So the last part I’ll say is that for automotive, the greatest need they have are master mechanics. And that takes 10 years. You have to have enough pipeline coming in to get enough people to go that decade to get to be your master mechanic, right? And that’s what we’re doing.

Brandon Burton (26:01.518)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (26:16.686)
Yeah. And really with both of those industries, HVAC and automotive, I mean, with the rise of AI, those are going to be jobs that are around for a while still while a lot of white collar jobs are going by the wayside with AI.

Yvonne Myers (26:17.476)
create here.

Yvonne Myers (26:31.702)
are going away. And yesterday we had our Larimer County Workforce Center staff member with our automotive meeting and he said, and I had never heard this before, but that a lot of AI jobs are filled by women, jobs that AI may take away, and that this would be a new place, a new market to get, have women that can come into HVAC and automotive. And most of the people in our area anyway that are managing, owning, running these businesses

Brandon Burton (26:51.534)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (27:00.362)
all came out of like VOTEC programs. They had automotive in middle school, right? And those programs are gone and they’re coming back, but they need to come back with industry supporting them and getting the right equipment. can share an interesting story. One of our community colleges here had a tour with all the automotive folks and they said, and over here’s our showers, because we know you all have showers, so we wanna mimic that, we wanna teach them how it’s all gonna be. And…

Brandon Burton (27:05.454)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (27:16.942)
for the AI on the of this unit.

Brandon Burton (27:24.472)
Thanks.

Yvonne Myers (27:26.914)
I looked around and all the automotive people had such funny looks on their faces. And so when we got back to the main room, I said, I want to go back to that shower. You all had such funny looks on your faces. And they said, not a one of them has showers, not a one. And so there must have been some automotive person someplace that said we had a shower and then education thinks they need to provide that. And think of the cost of putting in the showers and having the showers and talking about the showers. That’s not what we need. We might have needed.

Brandon Burton (27:41.077)
Wow.

Brandon Burton (27:48.162)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (27:53.989)
three more car bays or an electric car bay or something different than that. And so I’m super excited and to watch the aha moments. So yesterday they said to the school district, well, if you have 18 students and they’ve gone through semester one and semester two and they have their ASE certification, how do we get those kids? You could just like, wow, 18 kids, you know? And she said, well, have this, do you do a career fair? And I said to them, when you’re in this talent pipeline management,

collaborative and you’re coming to meetings and you’re donating equipment and maybe even giving scholarship funds. You you pay or do what you want, but you have opportunities to play more because you know what the need is. You have first bid on those students right like you are helping to create the pipeline and it was like. What like crazy town and the other part is that industry, whether it’s HVAC or automotive, we’ve heard this a lot honestly feel like.

The students that come out of the schools are the ones who everyone said, well, Timmy and Sally, they’re not going to make it. So we’ll just stick them in automotive or HVAC. And that is right. And that really isn’t true. And with the advent of computers and the technology around automotive and even HVAC, I you have to plug in with your phone and understand the error messages and all the things. These are becoming highly technical positions.

Brandon Burton (29:02.798)
Right, yeah. Kind of a negative connotation, right?

Yvonne Myers (29:21.294)
They want all of the levels of students to come to them. And with HVAC, we’ve learned there’s 49,000 openings right now in the country for HVAC across the country. And these call centers and all these other places that have to be cooled and heated and all of that. And they say if you get HVAC trained, you can work anywhere in the world. And so kids are starting to hear that, parents.

Brandon Burton (29:45.858)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (29:50.359)
It’s very interesting, exciting stuff. And these were folks that sort of just popped up because the chamber hears and listens and sees what’s going on and has those industries with us. It wasn’t like we have this big data. We had all these automotive people saying we cannot find people we can’t get. And then HVAC, because it doesn’t have a union, which is maybe good or bad, I don’t really know. But because of that, they’re kind of.

Brandon Burton (30:02.638)
Makes those connections. Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (30:16.118)
out there a little bit and because it involves some electrical and some plumbing and a little bit of sheet metal they kind of fall in this no place and I’m super excited to help bring them together with a voice.

Brandon Burton (30:28.45)
Yeah, that’s fantastic. It’s exciting work that you guys are involved with with these partnerships. And yeah, it’s awesome. Well, as we begin to wrap things up, wanted to ask you, for those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you leave for them as they try to work towards that?

Yvonne Myers (30:33.119)
well, thank you. Yeah, it’s fun every day. So.

Yvonne Myers (30:51.212)
Yeah, yeah, I do think that I feel very strongly, obviously, I’ve said a little bit earlier in this podcast, but that the chamber is a natural place to be leading this work, because it’s industry that needs to lead it. Education is mandated and is there and government and workforce and all those things are there. And, you know, we’re unabashed at saying industry would never do that. That’s not how you would meet with industry. This is how you would do it.

And our state is really flipping that script because many of our chambers are playing in that space. Our VATA chamber, Boulder, Grand Junction are really also, we’re all collectively in this space. And so I think you’re remiss if you’re not playing in that space, even being at the meetings. You may not have to be leading a TPM, but lifting up that voice and then bringing your chamber members to that.

Brandon Burton (31:35.95)
Thank

Brandon Burton (31:39.849)
Thank

Yvonne Myers (31:43.175)
Because the way the workforce system has worked for a long time isn’t going to continue working the right way if we’re not at that table. So I think that’s a really big deal. Don’t undersell yourself. you are vitally important in the workforce space if you’ve never stepped into it. You really, really are. And it doesn’t take much for you to get going. So don’t be afraid. Call me. I’ll help you.

Brandon Burton (31:48.44)
Right.

Brandon Burton (32:05.932)
Yeah, that’s great. I’d love that. I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of chambers and how you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward.

Yvonne Myers (32:17.21)
Yeah, know, next month I’ll celebrate five years here, but as you stated in my bio, you know, I was on the board for 14. And when I took over the marketing position at our company, not running an assisted living anymore, I thought, well, I don’t know if I can do this. The owner said, you have to go, you better go to the chamber. And I thought, well, what is that? So I went and it was Rolodex days way before the computers. And so I went from one Rolodex to two and I became someone at our company that, do you know somebody here?

Brandon Burton (32:36.685)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (32:46.626)
I do, and if not, know somebody who knows somebody here. so chambers are, to me, have to always be here. The collection of how industry comes together, has their voice, advocacy for business, that voice of business. But also, it’s a journey for a business. I come as a new, I just start, opened up my business. So this is how I learn how to market and how to, where SBDC is, where all the resources are to start my business. And then,

Brandon Burton (32:59.118)
Bye.

Yvonne Myers (33:13.752)
I get successful in my business and I start taking on internships or I start, you know, donating back to the community. And then I’m far enough along that I join your board and I’m making impact and decisions about all of that. And even past board members are still very connected to us and call us with ideas and suggestions and all those sorts of things. And I think the future of Chambers is even more important because of the importance of business and how we

Brandon Burton (33:25.432)
Thank you.

Yvonne Myers (33:42.735)
drive the economy, what a big say we have and what happens in our economy. But we also recognize the importance of government and nonprofits and all the other components. But without us, none of that works. And so I feel like chambers are going to maintain their importance and coming together to collectively work on things and not being in silos. And I’m not saying that chambers are, but sometimes in a region, we have 19 chambers in our region. And we do a couple of things.

Brandon Burton (33:53.1)
Yeah.

Yvonne Myers (34:12.334)
together every year. And that’s important to continue doing and lean on each other and work together. But I feel like chambers, the value of chambers will not go away. It hasn’t gone away since the 1800s and will still continue to be vitally important. And we need to be sure that we’re raising the funds and being in the front seat of convening, championing, and connecting people and continuing to do that work.

Brandon Burton (34:36.94)
Yeah. Yeah. That touches back on your original comment you made when we started this about the R &D within Chambers and just do that ripoff and duplicate and see what works in another community. And if it can work in your community, give it a shot. No shame.

Yvonne Myers (34:53.434)
Absolutely, absolutely. I have never not, I mean, I’ve reached out across the country and I have never not had anyone say, absolutely, here’s all my resources. Then two days later, I found some more videos for it. Here’s some more resources for you. And I just love the camaraderie. I just love the connection to how important industry is and entrepreneurism is and moving the economy forward. So it’s an honor to be here.

Brandon Burton (35:04.429)
Right?

Brandon Burton (35:17.876)
Absolutely. But in that vein, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about all these exciting things you’ve covered today.

Yvonne Myers (35:27.982)
Sure, yeah, for sure. So I’m at the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. You can always Google that and we, you my picture’s there and all my contact information for sure. My email is the letter Y as in Yvonne Myers, M-Y-E-R-S at F-C as in Fort Collins Chamber dot org (ymyers@fcchamber.org). Our phone number is there as well. My cell phone number is on our website. So feel free to reach out at any point or at any time.

Brandon Burton (35:54.87)
That’s perfect. I’ll have all that linked in our show notes for this episode to make it easy. But Yvonne, this has been great having you on. And you guys are doing great work there in Fort Collins. And keep it up. And thank you for sharing some of that great work with us today.

Yvonne Myers (36:06.126)
Well, thank you.

Yvonne Myers (36:09.944)
Well, thank you for asking me to participate. I’m honored.

Importance of Vibrant Communities with Christopher Germain

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:01.171)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is Christopher Germain, CEO of the Lake Superior Community Partnership, where he’s been making waves since stepping into the role in 2022. With a background that includes everything from environmental regulation to urban planning and political communications, Christopher brings a diverse and dynamic perspective to regional economic development. Before LSCP, he spent six years with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, helping communities across the state through redevelopment ready community programs.

A proud Michigan native and Northern Michigan University alum, Christopher fell in love with Marquette and the Upper Peninsula and has become one of the strongest advocates. His leadership at LSCP has introduced an ambitious, comprehensive economic development model that is tackling major regional issues like housing, childcare, air service, and small business support.

When he’s not working, you’ll probably find him out exploring the natural beauty of the Upper Peninsula, cooking up something delicious in the kitchen, or even logging some time, or even logging some hours in flight training. He shares his adventures with his husband Aaron and their energetic cattle dog, Woody.

Christopher, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Christopher Germain (01:51.448)
Sure, yeah, thanks, Brandon, for having me this morning. It’s really great to be here. We’re excited about this. know, additionally, beyond the flight training, which is usually the part people find the most interesting about me, you know, I’ve been teaching myself to code video games as well, because I don’t have enough to do, apparently. So that has been a really cool kind of feature as well. But honestly, my dog doesn’t let me do anything that sits down. know, if anyone else owns a cattle dog or a blue healer, they would understand.

Brandon Burton (02:17.321)
right? That’s awesome.

Christopher Germain (02:19.209)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (02:20.585)
Yeah, the flight training, is super interesting. A friend of mine is a flight trainer. has his own company doing flight training. And last Christmas, I had the idea, I reached out to him, like, hey, would you take my wife and I up to look at Christmas lights? And it was pretty cool to look at the Christmas lights from the sky. But there’s a lot of cool things you can do from the air. The video game coding too, that is interesting.

Christopher Germain (02:26.509)
you

Brandon Burton (02:50.539)
That’s a first that I’ve heard. So is that a, what drew the interest to coding video games?

Christopher Germain (02:58.317)
So I learned it a number of years ago and I kind of lost it. But honestly, what’s re-driven my renewal of it is an old video game from like the early 2000s that they don’t make anymore. And I’ve been trying to recreate it. So I’ve been using Claude and Chat GPT and all those AI coding assistants, you know, in addition to those years of actual school now.

games as best I can. So it’s pretty cool.

Brandon Burton (03:22.259)
That’s awesome. That is really cool. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Lake Superior Community Partnership to give us an idea of the size of the organization, staff, scope of work, budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Christopher Germain (03:38.383)
Yeah, absolutely. So the Lake Superior Community Partnership has been around for 28 years. We’re always say we were an organization that was born out of crisis. So in the mid 90s up here, we had an Air Force base called K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base. They used to launch B-52 bombers from it during the Cold War. And that Air Force base closed in the mid 90s, like a lot of other bases. And so there were three chambers at the time. They all formed into a single chamber called the Lake Superior Community Partnership and started down this path.

towards greater economic development in addition to chamber services. So today we’re an organization that really focuses heavily on economic development but retains those chamber pieces as well. We have 400 members currently, which is about a 30 % growth over the last three years as we’ve really changed our model. A 12-person team, about a $900,000 operating budget, but a multimillion dollar budget when you factor in the grants that we’re entrusted with from our state and federal partners as well. So…

We tackle honestly everything from traditional chamber services like business after hours and ribbon cuttings and breakfast events to a full-scale business retention expansion program, tackle issues like housing and childcare. We do advocacy in Lansing and DC. My friends joke that I’m never home, you know, because we’re always so active doing something, so.

Brandon Burton (04:54.121)
That’s right. Man, yeah, that’s enough to keep you busy there. Luckily, the 12 staff helped to get that done, I’m sure. that’s a…

Christopher Germain (05:05.806)
They sure do, and that’s about a 50 % growth over the last few years. So it’s nice as we’ve grown, our team has been able to grow.

Brandon Burton (05:12.598)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, for our discussion today, we’ll focus the majority of our time around the idea of the importance of vibrant communities and the different aspects that revolve around that topic. So we will dive in deep on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, Christopher, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about the importance of vibrant communities. So what does that mean for you there in the Lake Superior area as far as building a vibrant community? know communities look different everywhere, right? So for you guys, what does that look like to have a vibrant community and what does a chamber do to help facilitate that?

Christopher Germain (05:58.157)
Absolutely. So honestly, I think the test for vibrant community is pretty simple and it’s are you proud of your community, right? Every single community looks different but the first step to asking anyone to invest in your community is whether they see everyone around them believing in the future of that community. And so for some places that’s super vibrant, downtowns with tall buildings and lots of restaurants.

For other places, it’s vibrant neighborhoods, right? Homes that are well taken care of, community organizations that band together, small businesses, right? That really define the community. So up here in Marquette County, which is geographically the largest county in the state of Michigan and one of the largest east of the Mississippi, we have a bunch of different communities. So honestly, what it looks like in the city of Marquette is different than what it looks like on the west side of the county in Ishpemine and Ragani or in Big Bay or in Gwynne, or they’re the places that we cover as a countywide organization.

So, but to give you maybe a sense, you know, of some really great examples of what we think is driving community vibrancy is obviously downtown, right? Areas that people can walk, they’re walkable, the businesses are filled, there’s events. And we’ve seen some really incredible strides on that front that we still talk about here, including the Community of the Year here in Michigan, which is right here in Marquette County, thanks to all of their downtown vibrancy.

Brandon Burton (07:15.067)
Yeah, well, tell us more about that Community of the Year. That’s awesome. you’re right, for building that vibrant community, you do kind of have to have that hub, right? That central gathering place, that downtown, like you mentioned. And there’s going to be a different feel in different communities or different parts of the communities. being able to have that focus and that hub, I think, is important. But yeah, tell us about the award. That’s awesome.

Christopher Germain (07:18.798)
Yeah. Sure.

Christopher Germain (07:41.389)
Yeah, so, you know, the city of the Gani, which is about 10 miles outside the city of Marquette, has this incredible city manager. to give a shout out to Nate Heffron and all the work that he’s done around the community to drive that pride. This idea, again, that the Gani is a community that historically has a mining heritage to it. And a lot of mining communities have struggled in recent years. But when Nate came on board, he was able to harness that community pride that did exist and really leverage it into something else. And so.

using about a million dollars in state grants, they totally overhauled their downtown a few years ago, which has then resulted in this incredible resurgence of commercial and housing developments all throughout downtown. So there’s fire pits now, there’s events, they’re constantly still doing new events on top of everything else they already have. They’ve seen the biggest turnover in commercial investment they’ve ever had in their history as far as they can tell. And there’s just this sense of pride now.

And so the Michigan Municipal League every single year identifies what they call a community of excellence. It’s actually a really competitive award. They name finalists and you actually basically have to lobby for the votes to be named that. And so to get that from a town of a few thousand people here in Northern Michigan, which only has 3 % of the state’s population in our entire Upper Peninsula, is a huge win for us up here. And so we’re really proud of the work that they’ve done, but it’s translated to additional businesses.

additional economic activity that’s still spilling over today.

Brandon Burton (09:07.079)
Yeah, that’s great. So I very much think that in order to have a vibrant community, there has to be good things going on in the community, right? There needs to be jobs. There needs to be a good economy. There needs to be those opportunities to get out and connect with others and to be able to enjoy what the community has to offer.

From the chamber perspective, what are some of the approaches and you guys are heavily involved with economic developments? So what are some of those things you guys are doing to drive the stronger economy there to be able to help, you know, in the end have that vibrant community in a place where people want to be?

Christopher Germain (09:49.187)
Yeah, so ultimately we’re taking a really multi-pronged strategy here. So the core of our work for a long time has always been a business retention and expansion program, of course, which I think it’s important to have your pulse on the business community to understand what those barriers are, not only locally, but at the state and federal level. But in recent years, we’ve really expanded that to really focus on our overall health of our communities. What does that quality of life look like? And so for us, that means tackling issues like housing.

It means helping with the availability of childcare. In a rural area like ours, it means ensuring that we have convenient and accessible flight service. A lot of rural areas might have one or two flights a day. And so that’s not exactly conducive to business. If you need to get out and that flight schedule doesn’t work. And then even for us, we dive even deeper and then we talk about rural healthcare. We talk about energy costs, which are very high in the Upper Peninsula compared to most of the country and how all of that ultimately impacts

how people feel about their community, right? And again, that sense of pride. It’s so easy, frankly, to derail community efforts, right, with the negativity that you can see on social media or that people show up to public meetings. And so working as a chamber to go meet with those businesses, to hold public events, to bring as much from outside, like from underneath, I should say, the paywall, right, a membership of the LFCP and just do good community work.

is really vital to us. And it’s possible because of our public sector partners really coming to the table. I think it’s primarily probably due to our economic development side of the house versus the chamber side of the house. But by combining the two, we’re able to leverage the benefits of both, right, and help our small businesses connect with the public sector and connect with their neighbors and connect with each other. And so they can actually offer their services, you know, in a coffee shop from the art shop down the street.

We see those kind of connections happen too and that drives that community pride too.

Brandon Burton (11:45.384)
Yeah. So what really stood out to me was the flight service and being able to have a focus on that and help bring more flights and more people in. How do you approach something like that? I mean, I think, you know, a flight will come and go as there’s a demand for it is what I would assume, but maybe I’m assuming wrong. So how do you approach that to try to get more flights coming in and out of town?

Christopher Germain (12:04.856)
sure.

Christopher Germain (12:11.116)
Yeah, you know, so it’s interesting for us up here in the Upper Peninsula, we have six commercial airports for an area of about 300,000 people. Now we’re really geographically dispersed, right? So it makes sense that you can’t just have one. But five of those six airports, federal subsidies through a program called Essential Air Service. So program that was set up in the 80s when the airlines deregulated and basically it was meant to help transition rural areas as consolidation happened. They would maintain

Brandon Burton (12:24.691)
Yeah.

Christopher Germain (12:40.142)
critical air service if you were too far away from a hub. It’s become one those programs that has existed kind of into perpetuity, right, whether or not, and our airport actually doesn’t get essential air service because at the time of deregulation, we had two airlines and one of the requirements was you can only have one. And so for us, what air service looks like is actually going to meeting with airlines and doing what we call demand and leakage studies where we actually see what demand is generating in our travel shed and where it’s going.

In our case, we’re actually losing 52 % of the demand that generates in our travel shed to places that are either subsidized by the federal government or folks are driving the six hours to Chicago to take an international flight, which sometimes that makes sense. So we literally go meet with airlines. We do the data studies. We do marketing. And we work directly with our airport to make sure that they’re enhancing the overall experience. in the last state budget,

The LSCP was really the one who put in the request for three million dollar state investment in our airport primarily because we don’t get federal subsidies and we’re now working through how to spend those dollars in a way that’ll drive long-term fiscal sustainability for the airport which will make it more appealing to airlines and I think part of you all of that work we’ve done for years just last week maybe two weeks ago now actually the

United Airlines announced that they’re coming to Marquette-Sawyer Regional Airport, it will be the only airport in the region that has three, all three major airlines coming out of our airport going to Chicago, Minneapolis, and Detroit. So it’s been a collective effort. It really takes a whole village to make that happen, but you just have to stay proactive, sort of the answer.

Brandon Burton (14:21.181)
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s a great win to be able to see American come in and to be able to open those doors. Yeah, yeah, that’s amazing.

Christopher Germain (14:26.766)
Yeah, we were very surprised but happy. Two years ago, I was out in Utah, sky west, which is one of the biggest regional carriers in the country. We had lost service in Minneapolis in 2022 during the pilot shortage and the plane shortage prompted by COVID. We were able to get it back starting this year and it’s been a game changer for our businesses, especially who have business out west.

They can now hop on a plane in the morning via Minneapolis and make it out to the west coast by lunchtime.

Brandon Burton (14:58.119)
Yeah, that’s awesome. That is, that’s a game changer for sure. So I know you guys recently had a local economic exchange. You want to tell us what that was about and how that plays into this whole conversation of building vibrant communities?

Christopher Germain (15:16.686)
Yeah, absolutely. So we were really proud of this event. It’s been on my list since I started in this role in 2022 to just bring together the public sector, the private sector, our nonprofit partners and have a day focused on solutions, right? We sort of know what our challenges are. And so the whole idea was to bring folks together, talk about how we move the needle on issues like housing and energy and childcare, rural healthcare, all of those issues. And so the day had about 120 attendees, which I…

say for a first time event is a really big win. We’ve had nothing but positive feedback about it. But ironically, you know, people laughed at us a little bit when we started out the day with a data dump, right? Just tons of data. We had the Federal Reserve come and go through their data. We had our own data. And I think we saw some rolling eyes and some confusion, but it really set the foundation really well for folks for the rest of the day. And so between that, from there, we went to an inspirational story from the village of Casapolis, which is an incredible success story here in Michigan.

a small village that just decided enough was enough, right? And they were just going to go after every resource they could go after to make their community more vibrant. And that led to these great breakout sessions and a legislative panel. And so we were just so proud of the events. And in the month since we’ve had it, the momentum has been very real. We’ve had more people come to the table. We’ve had more ideas come out of the woodwork than we can even handle right now. And so that’s a good problem to have.

We’re really proud of it as we move into planning for 2026 and figuring out what are our focus areas. They’ll likely come out of that event.

Brandon Burton (16:47.175)
Right. Now that event sounds like it’s great and really just drawing attention to some of these good things that are happening throughout the region. But at the beginning, as we started talking about vibrant communities, I really liked what you had to say about really creating a place that you want to be. it may be tough to measure, you know, what is, are we a vibrant community? Have we increased our vibrancy? we decreasing? Where are we at? But what are some of those

marks you look at as far as is your community vibrant? it going in the right direction? Is it going the opposite way? What are we doing to help kind of regenerate that excitement and desire to be a part of the community? What are some of those things that you look at to measure that?

Christopher Germain (17:32.921)
Sure. So, you know, I think there’s, yeah, there’s qualitative and quantitative stuff, right, that you can look at. And so I think on the quantitative stuff, there’s some simple things like population growth, right? Are you seeing new housing being built? Are you seeing new students in your school districts? Are you seeing investment, right, in your downtowns your business community? And you can ask your businesses if they’re seeing growing sales because that likely indicates new events or more people coming to those businesses, choosing to spend their dollars locally.

We can look at city municipal tax revenue, right? As well as a really big key indicator of a vibrant community. But it really is that qualitative stuff. I always get those two mixed up. The qualitative stuff that you walk downtown and you see folks, you know, are they pointing to the shops, right? Are they deciding to move events that maybe left the community back into the community? Are people taking ideas that they have and actually finding the other people in the community who also share those and can…

create those ideas. And like one really great example is there’s a group of folks in the western side of the county that are looking to create a Christmas market for the first time ever. And I honestly think maybe five years ago, you would have found a lot of naysayers, right? Who would have said there was just no way this is going to happen. And today that momentum feels so real. And so they had no problem finding people to form a committee and finding partners and finding people to build stalls. And so

it’s that kind of qualitative stuff that is really hard to measure. Economic development, think in general, you we’ve really always measured ourselves based on investment and job creation. And those are really core metrics that we need to have, but there’s a lot more to economic development than just that piece of it. And so I think that’s where community really comes in.

Brandon Burton (19:16.795)
Yeah, I think, you know, we’ve all seen and talking for the people listening as well. We’ve all seen the communities for the downtown is just basically a ghost town, right? Where it’s just depressing. It’s sad. It’s, you know, it hasn’t had any life going on there in 20 or 30 years, maybe. versus the communities where there’s stuff happening, you know, there’s events going on. There’s holiday things. There’s, you know, all these different things that happen and drive people out there.

Christopher Germain (19:30.84)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Burton (19:47.012)
and really build that sense of community. One of those things you had mentioned as far as measuring the growth was the population growth and the housing. I know housing is one of those things that you guys are trying to tackle as an organization. What are some of the approaches? I mean, obviously, you guys are creating a vibrant community because it becomes enough of an issue that the chamber needs to say, hey, what are we going to do about housing? So what are some of those solutions?

Christopher Germain (20:01.88)
Yep. That’s right.

Christopher Germain (20:12.846)
Sure.

Brandon Burton (20:16.655)
the approaches you guys are taking to housing.

Christopher Germain (20:20.014)
Sure, so we could do a whole podcast on this brand and just in alone. And as a trained planner, of course, we have a plan, right? And so we have an eight point plan right now that’s really focused heavily on things like collecting data and educating the public, right? Arming folks who want to say yes in my backyard and showing up and giving public officials cover to approve housing projects. But really there’s some really cool, tangible things that are happening too.

Brandon Burton (20:22.055)
Right?

Christopher Germain (20:45.218)
Marquette County is the first county that we’re aware of, at least similar to ours, that has a dedicated housing specialist. So somebody whose full job is basically to work with developers and work with local government officials to move the needle on projects. And he also happens to be the executive director of our land bank. So we have a kind of a one-two punch there in terms of having two great tools. The LSTP and a number of other partners helped fund that job and our position, I should say initially, and we really…

move forward with that. But we’re also working on things like pre-reviewed housing blueprints. We are collecting data through a target market analysis that shows our market could hold up to 10,000 new and rehabilitated housing units over the next five years. We don’t think we’ll hit those numbers. We think that’s where the market breaks, but there’s clearly a demand for those. And the story I always tell people honestly is

I went to Northern, you in the late 2000s, as you mentioned, the introduction and like a lot of folks, I left after that, not because I wanted to, because I just couldn’t find an opportunity in the field I was in. Ended up in Ohio and spent the next 14 years trying to get back. And in 2022, I was recruited back to this position. And the night before I had to give the board an answer, my answer was no. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be here. It was because I literally couldn’t find anywhere to live.

And so it was too hard to move from Grand Rapids. And I had to find something that my husband would also be happy with. And so something, know, a view of the lake and all that kind of stuff. But it is still was, you know, I don’t ever want anyone to have to go through that situation. And we lose far too many northern students who want to stay here or people just in general who want to stay here. And they start to get priced out as second homes get built and as Mark Hat, you know, particularly does get more expensive.

to live in. So that’s really why housing is a critical issue because if the folks who work in our restaurants and run our schools and operate our libraries, right, and public safety and all these folks can’t find places to live, you lose the vibrancy of the community. And so that’s really why we take an issue. And so we have a website, it’s called housingnow906.org that I always tell everyone to go to. Everything we do around housing is there. We’re happy to share it.

Christopher Germain (22:56.418)
We’re really proud of our leadership position on housing because I think a lot of economic developers in general would tell you housing wasn’t on our radar even five years ago. It was somebody else’s problem. And now I think we’ve really figured out that we’re losing projects. We are losing deals and losing expansions because our businesses can’t find the workers that they need to expand. So they’re opting to just not expand. so housing is the real deal there.

Brandon Burton (23:24.883)
Wow. I almost feel like you needed to have that experience of not being able to find housing to really be able to share your personal story about why this is so important. know, the community loses out on talent. Like you said, the vibrancy when we don’t have places for these people to live and be a part of the community. So that’s a, I love that you guys are approaching that and making that a priority there at the organization.

Christopher Germain (23:51.543)
Absolutely. Yeah, it’s necessity. Every meeting I have, Brandon, housing, housing, housing, it doesn’t matter what it is. Housing comes up.

Brandon Burton (23:58.634)
Yeah, and there’s a lot of creative opportunities out there that I’ve heard from different chambers. And each one is unique to their own community. it’s fun to see those answers, those solutions come to pass. Well, Christopher, I wanted to ask for those listening who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them in trying to accomplish that goal?

Christopher Germain (24:31.118)
So, you know, the thing I always tell folks is chambers should be talking to their local planners, like their local community planners. And you know what? It feels like an odd one to throw out there, but the decisions that your planning commissions and your planners make around zoning and regulatory reform and the future of the community impact the business community. Right. And so having a really deep understanding of those and not having a confrontational relationship with them, I think is really critical to any chamber really being successful.

And again, I say as a trained planner and as a board member of the Michigan Association of Planning. So like I see both of those worlds and I see how planners also don’t necessarily understand chambers very well or economic development in general. so having that dialogue, I think is important. So breakout, right, of the traditional chamber training modules, which are again, very helpful. And I do a lot of those as well, but go to a planning conference, take a zoning course, take something that can really help you understand.

with that other side of the regulatory environment and seeing, and it’ll make you a much more effective advocate for your businesses when you understand.

Brandon Burton (25:36.754)
Yeah, I have not heard that as a tip yet and that is so wise as I think of a chamber executive just being able to understand what’s possible from the community planning standpoint, being able to understand what obstacles they’re dealing with as well, what their constraints are, what their blind spots are, and being able to come to the table and say, here from the business community, these are the things that are important to have a vibrant community. So how can we make these things match up?

and find solutions together, but without having those conversations ahead of time and kind of knowing what those community planners are thinking and what they’re working with makes it really hard to walk into those conversations without having it be a little bit confrontational because you’re coming from perspectives that neither of you understand. So I think that’s such a wise tip. Yeah, I love that.

Christopher Germain (26:29.658)
Exactly. You know, and the example I always get folks brand into is I sat on the master plan steering committee for the city of Marquette and early on we had the set principles, right, guiding principles for the plan. And one of them was to protect neighborhoods. And, my response was like, yes, like I love the area where they live in and I don’t want it to massively change. But if we’re setting out to not change anything, we’re not creating new business opportunities and we’re not creating opportunities for the neighborhood to really evolve in a way we want it to.

And I think it took the business community pushing to change that a little bit. And so it’s a balance, right? But really, our local government partners and planners, not our enemies. They really can be our allies when we understand each other.

Brandon Burton (27:10.589)
Right. Yep, absolutely. Very well said. Well, I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Christopher Germain (27:27.864)
So I think there’s always going to be this human need for connection, right? And this idea of learning from each other and partnering together. And so I see chambers that are embracing technology like AI to amplify their value for their members. And whether it’s a smarter business listing or taking your networking events that maybe are heavily on networking right now and incorporating an educational component to them, that’s what we did with our breakfast and business series. So it’s not just about having coffee with your friends, but…

you always leave having learned something or met somebody new. That’s where I really feel the future is continuing to evolve in that way, but also integrating economic development. I’ll admit like our structure is very complex and sometimes it is hard to balance the economic development and the chamber side of things. And sometimes quite frankly, they’re in conflict. And so trying to figure out how to balance those two can be really difficult. But I also think if chambers in their local communities have an opportunity to

partner with their economic development organizations to consider some sort of structural marriage, I would really encourage them to do that because I also think that really is the future if you can plan it correctly. There’s a lot of models that don’t work too, but if you can find the one that fits, you’re going to be better off as a chamber working directly with your economic development organization than you are as separate entities.

Brandon Burton (28:45.789)
Yeah, yeah. And there’s no harm in looking to other communities and seeing how they do it and what’s working for them and seeing what those structures look like that are working. All of us have those other communities we look to and maybe want to be a little bit more like and look and see what those structures look like in those communities. So I think that’s a great.

Christopher Germain (28:54.721)
yeah.

Christopher Germain (29:06.956)
Absolutely our model today, I borrowed from someone downstate, you know, and I’m not shy about it. And so it works.

Brandon Burton (29:11.389)
There you go.

There you go. Well, Christopher, I wanted to ask for those listening who might want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about how you guys are doing there, how you guys are doing things there at the LSCP. Where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Christopher Germain (29:33.106)
So honestly the easiest way is to find me on LinkedIn. My team jokes a lot that I’m on there more than I am on Facebook and so people can see that. But also you know our website marquette.org so marquette.org has all of our contact information so they can reach out to us directly that way for sure. Yeah I love to chat about this stuff you know I sort of stumbled into this world and like so many of us but I find it fascinating.

Brandon Burton (30:00.551)
That’s perfect. We’ll make sure we get both your LinkedIn account and your website on our show notes for this episode. So we’ll make it easy for listeners to be able to connect with you. But thank you for spending time with us today, sharing your insights, your experience with the listeners here at Chamber Chat podcast. Really appreciate you spending time with us today. I think it was a fun and insightful conversation as well. So thank you.

Christopher Germain (30:14.475)
you

Christopher Germain (30:26.456)
Awesome, thanks for having me Brandon, I appreciate it.

Workforce Housing with Natalie Hawn

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:01.269)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is a dynamic leader shaping the future of business and community development in Northwest Missouri. Natalie Hawn is the President and CEO of the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, where she champions economic growth.

strategic partnerships and a thriving business environment. With nearly two decades of experience at the chamber, Natalie previously served as senior vice president and membership and brings a strong background in business development and public relations honed through roles with Woody Bibbins and Associates and Prior Resources Inc.

A proud graduate of Missouri Western State University, Natalie’s influence extends far beyond her city. She’s the treasurer of the Hawthorne Foundation, a commissioner on the Missouri Military Preparedness and Enhancement Commission, and a national representative in the Air Mobility Command Leadership Academy. She’s also a 2024 recipient of the prestigious Women of Achievement Award from Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe.

From education to the arts and military readiness to economic innovation, Natalie is deeply woven into the fabric of her community, serving on numerous boards and leading countless initiatives that drive progress. She’s a passionate advocate and connector and a true civic leader. Natalie, we’re thrilled to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Natalie Hawn (01:47.97)
Hi guys, and wow, that was probably the best intro ever. Way to go, Brandon. So I am here in St. Joseph, Missouri. I have a 16 year old son that just played in the district champions of his high school, six day high school here. We played a Kansas City team last night. Unfortunately, we didn’t.

Brandon Burton (01:52.929)
we go, chat GPT.

Natalie Hawn (02:14.958)
win. So it’s the end of fall football season, but we have a couple years left because he was a sophomore this year. So he’s, I’ve spent a lot of my fall supporting his team and their football. So that’s kind of been my life recently. But I am from Mid-Missouri originally. I grew up on a farm. I have four brothers and I absolutely love Chamber World and I love what I do every day. It gives us passion.

to build a better community so that my son can have a better place to live for tomorrow. So that’s a little bit about me.

Brandon Burton (02:49.025)
That’s That’s what makes fall so great is football. I love it.

Natalie Hawn (02:52.118)
Yeah, the boys of fall. love it. And we are at the home of the Kansas City Chiefs training camp. So we’re big Chiefs fans in this part of the country. And I know that’s unpopular right now. I love it that we celebrate that you should be successful, but not too successful. Because we love you for a minute. Now we hate you. Be successful, but not too successful. But we’re still diehard Chiefs fans in this part of the country.

Brandon Burton (03:08.863)
Yeah, don’t do it over and over again. We want to see other people win too, right?

That’s right.

That’s funny. Well, tell us a little bit about the St. Joseph Chamber just to give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work, your budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Natalie Hawn (03:31.234)
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been, as Brandon said, I’ve been at the Chamber for 20 years in a little bit different role. The last four years, I’ve been the CEO. So prior to that, I kind of ran the whole membership side of the House. Now I have the opportunity to kind of dive more into economic development and really see this full scope of the Chamber. So it’s been a lot of fun. But our Chamber has about 1,300 members.

Our community is about 75,000 and we have a budget of 2 million. We do economic development and chamber. So we have a contract with the city and the county to do economic development. And we also have economic development partners that go into that budget. So we’re combined budget for about 2 million. We have a staff of 11.

Brandon Burton (04:21.205)
good. That definitely helps to give us that context. Obviously, every chamber has a different size, different resources, different focus even. But as we kind of hone our focus on to our topic for discussion today, which will be around workforce housing, that’ll help to give us that background and kind of what those needs are in your community. So we will dive into that topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Natalie Hawn (04:25.165)
Yeah!

Natalie Hawn (04:30.156)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (04:47.905)
All right, Natalie, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, our topic that we’re diving into today is about workforce housing. So I know this has become an issue, a hot topic rather, throughout a lot of the country, trying to figure out how do we, and it depends on the community, right? Some are trying to figure out housing for employees who maybe live outside the community, who have a long commute that are coming in, maybe the housing’s not affordable. Different scenarios that have

different needs to look for workforce housing. as you have the lens of the St. Joseph Chamber, tell us what needs are arising and how you guys are working to approach those needs.

Natalie Hawn (05:30.84)
So when I took over this role, the very first meeting I had was with one of our major employers. it hadn’t been a conversation or really a space that we had really been involved in. And they said to me, you have to figure out this workforce housing piece. We just can’t find affordable appropriate housing for our workers. And they’re having to drive a significant amount of way to work. And so I started digging into that and really

trying to better understand the need, because it was really, we were hearing it kind of across the country. This was about four years ago, but we weren’t really hearing it in our community and nobody was really, nobody was really digging in to try to solve it. So I started, I did some surveys, started having some conversations and kind of found that our members really were struggling with workforce housing and it really was a major issue to them. And I think they really hadn’t come to us because they weren’t sure what role we could play in solving it.

But we did a survey and we recently did a labor reason study and it showed that we are having labor issues, that we are significantly having challenges with people living here. And we had a population decline of 6.4%. And the top three reasons, number two was affordable appropriate housing. And so we thought, okay, you know, this is different world today for economic development. You know, it used to be that you could kind of say,

economic development, we’re going to, we have great land, we have great incentives, they’ll come here. It’s no longer that way. Now we have to kind of think about how do we solve the problems for that business? It’s such a competitive market these days because of technology and incentives. You can really live and create your business anywhere. So for the really great companies that we have here, what are we doing so they continue to expand and grow here?

to solve their problems. So we kind of dug into this workforce housing initiative because nobody was really having the conversation. And we did a study, so we partnered with the city and we did a study so that we could really make our decisions based in facts versus emotion. We intuitively knew what the challenges were, but it’s always great to really know what the data is telling you so that you can do some solution-driven.

Natalie Hawn (07:51.662)
problems around facts and data. And it really helps when you need to go out and get funding or get people to the table to be able to say, no, this really is the challenge and here’s where we are. So we found that we needed all housing, but we found that we really needed workforce housing. And I’ll break that down. We needed housing for people that make $50,000 to $100,000. The average wage in our community is $57,000. And we’re the seventh highest in the state.

So if you made our average wage, you were really having a hard time finding appropriate affordable housing. And we were getting, as we dug into this, were hearing we have 30 teachers living on couches. We had a lot of our young engineers that were having to drive in from other areas and they were having to spend a lot of time and money commuting and they didn’t wanna do that. They wanna live here, they couldn’t find any place to live.

And so as we dug into that, found that there are really what the challenge was. think, you know, our, had never got around the table and kind of thought about, we have to cultivate an environment to solve the problem of what we need. just assumed that developers and builders would provide the housing that we needed if there was a need. And that’s not the case today. And that’s why you’re seeing it across the country. So we incentivize low income housing.

through the state with tax credit dollars. And I think that’s probably similar across the country. So we have quite a bit of low income housing because there’s incentives for developers to make money. And then we have high income housing because you can make money on a custom built home. But where in today’s climate where you can’t make money is that moderate middle housing. So it’s really hard if you’re not incentivized with a tax credit.

to really be able to keep that rental rate low. So what we’re finding is the rental rates are extremely unproportionate for those folks that make 50 to $100,000. And in that housing study, we saw that we are about 2,400 units of rental or home under the need that we have in our community for people that make that amount of money. So we had to really get creative and think differently about how to solve this problem.

Natalie Hawn (10:19.566)
And so we kind of approached it like we would in economic development. So we give incentives for people that are expanding or bringing a job here. So why not give incentives for someone that’s developing housing that we actually need? Now, this is not something our community has done. So this took us probably two years to really educate.

the municipalities and the partners to understand the role they play because again, they’re just thinking well, if there’s a need there’s a demand somebody will fill it not if they’re not making money on it. It’s still business guys. So we had to just come at it a little differently. So we created a task force that was ran by the chamber and we’ve got everybody who touches housing at the table. So whether that’s your housing authority, that’s your Habitat for Humanities, your nonprofits, but also your for-profits, your builders.

your bankers, your home mortgage loaners, your employers. I’ve invited our major employers to the table to talk about what they need. The school district, because we have a huge need for teacher housing because teachers don’t make a lot of money. So we brought everybody to the table and we started facilitating the conversation. So we started bringing in speakers and topics and kind of educating the players on what is happening.

and what’s not happening and what other communities are doing. And by starting that conversation and really kind of championing the needs in the community, so educating the politicians of what we needed and educating the community of what we needed, then we were able to actually start, that’s where we were able to start making real change. So we went out and we looked at a community that was doing some great work in this space. And

we were able to kind of replicate some of the things that they were doing. So we wanted to go, how are you making this work? How are you doing this? They had, so for the state of Missouri, it might be a little different, but you could certainly do these things in your own communities. We were able to find the Abandoned Housing Act, and that was one of the tools that they were using. So we know that you have to be a nonprofit to do the Abandoned Housing Act. We have a lot in our community of blighted vacant properties that we could.

Natalie Hawn (12:36.832)
rehab and kind of get back on the tax rolls that we could have as affordable properties. So we started with, we started having conversations in our community and from that a group of four ladies that work at several of our major employers, CFO, HR came together and started a nonprofit called the Housing Improvement Initiative and they’re at the task force with us. A couple of them are on my board of directors and they started this nonprofit

And here’s what’s really cool about it. They have this nonprofit and they give first right or refusal to their employees to purchase these homes that they’re rehabbing that they got off of the Abandoned Housing Act. So they put their employees through a boot camp. And so that boot camp, they kind of target generational renters. And so they’re putting them through a boot camp where they can learn how to get their credit scores up. They can learn.

fiscal responsibility, they can learn how to be a good homeowner, and they give them a mentor in home ownership, and they put them through this boot camp. Once they’ve graduated the boot camp, then they become qualified to purchase one of the homes that they have. So this has come quickly. They put this whole program together, and we now have eight homes in their control. They’re buying and…

more through auction as well as through the Abandoned Housing Act every day. And then they’ve come up with creative ways to rehab these homes. So they’re working with our Youth Alliance on a trades program. So the students in our community get to go out and learn from tradesmen as they rehab these homes. So it’s a great way of kind of learning and skilling up for trades for future jobs for high school and young adults that need a trade. So

That’s been really great. And then we also partner with for-profits on that as well, where we can bring a rehabber in and they can, you know, rehab the home and we can certainly get it back out to a person to live in quicker than we do through the Youth Alliance program. So we have a couple of different ways that we do that. They sell the home then to somebody who has graduated from the program or somebody who’s qualified that kind of meets the scope. is not, it’s a…

Natalie Hawn (14:56.302)
Non-for-profit, so it’s not a for-profit. Anything they make, they put back into purchasing another home or rehab, et cetera. And the reason this is important is because about 60 % of our homes that are kind of in that affordable market of the range that are needed, they are really getting swept up by landlords. So the cash buyers, if you’re a normal buyer, you’re gonna take that cash offer. You’re not gonna take the chance on that person that needs a VA loan, that veteran.

because it’s a harder process. But they will not sell to a cash offer. They will not sell to someone that has a VA loan or has a first time home buyer. So their program is set up in a way where they’re really trying to get this into the hands of the people who really need it. And they’re targeting neighborhoods so that you can truly have change in that neighborhood. And they’ve targeted neighborhoods close to their manufacturing facilities. We are a…

large manufacturing towns. So they’ve kind of targeted neighborhoods around their facilities so they can start to build community. That is one example of really something that has come from conversation about need, identifying need, the task force. The chair of my task force actually started that program. So we were really excited, but we certainly didn’t stop there. have Doug.

so much deeper. So it’s one thing to start a task force and start the conversation, but you can also start to move the needle on real progress and change. So we dug a little deeper and we saw that one of the great tools that another community was using was a Nuisance Act. And we found out that St. Joseph didn’t qualify at state legislation for the Nuisance Act that only Kansas City and St. Louis did. So this last legislative session, we worked

hand-in-hand with our legislators and we got some legislation passed where St. Joseph got added to the Nuisance Act. And what’s cool about the Nuisance Act is it now allows us the ability to go after commercial blighted buildings, vacant buildings versus just abandoned houses. So we’ve also started our own charitable trust that we are now having, we’re working on a scoped area. So we’ve been working on our downtown. We have a lot of vacant buildings downtown.

Natalie Hawn (17:14.882)
that are owned by absentee out of state homeowners, a lot of times for tax shelter. So, but then we have people where we’re really trying to make strides and putting in a lot of investments and redeveloping certain areas of our downtown. So with the Nuisance Act, we’re able to go after that owner that maybe isn’t as progressively moving our downtown forward. And we’re able to put some pressure on them.

to either rehab their building and make it not blighted or we give them the option to gift it for the tax write-off to our charitable trust. We’ll then turn around and sell it for a dollar to a developer that will rehab it and really get it back on the tax rolls so that it becomes a thriving piece of our downtown because we have these investors that are putting hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into

rehabbing these buildings into our downtown, only to have an investor that maybe has a vacant blighted building that is really making it where people want to come commit crimes, catch it on fire. And then that really puts the whole progress that you’re making in your downtown at risk. So we have really kind of put our money where our mouth is per se, and we’re really trying to dig in and kind of tackle some of these issues.

Brandon Burton (18:43.763)
So, I mean, a chamber is perfectly positioned to be able to go after these difficult issues and find solutions and convene those parties to get the job done. I love the idea of the Housing Improvement Initiative and the nonprofit that was built around that.

So I had a question about that, also with the Nuisance Act. So first with the housing improvement initiative. So as they rehab these homes and go to sell them, are they being listed close to market price or are they keeping the prices lower to try to attract or try to make it work for those employees or how the pricing I think could become a difficult thing.

Natalie Hawn (19:26.562)
Yeah, so they are pricing them affordable for the person who needs to purchase it. So we know that the market hole, so we have the hole in rental, but we also have the hole in kind of that first time homebuyer. So we know in our market, 120,000 to 200,000, you can’t find a home. And if it is available, they’re getting swept up by the cash buyers.

So that is really where that first time home buyer or traditional home is where the need is. So they’re making it affordable. They are not flipping it and then putting in high rates because they’re not trying to make money on it. They want to get their employee into that home for a responsible, affordable amount in a safe neighborhood. And it’s also transforming those neighborhoods because you took that vacant home.

that obviously, you know, a couple of them have had squatters in it just because, you know, so it takes that vacant home and makes it a home again. And then you put an excited homeowner in it versus a renter, which there’s nothing wrong with renters, but we know that if you put the homeowner in and they are just going to have more pride in it, they’re just going to be more excited about it. And you do that with

Brandon Burton (20:41.739)
And they’ve been through a boot camp to know how to be a great homeowner. That’s right.

Natalie Hawn (20:43.596)
And they’re giving, they’re giving mentors. I mean, they have resources and people that are supporting them and cheering for them. And then when you put them in a neighborhood, you put two or three of them in a neighborhood, the pride becomes contagious. And that slowly starts to turn around your neighborhood. So no, they do not make money on those. If they happen to make money on the project, they just put it into the next project. And then think about the employee retention piece of that, Brandon.

Brandon Burton (21:05.995)
goes back into. there’s, yeah.

Natalie Hawn (21:10.4)
So if you care enough about your employee that you have rehabbed at home, put them through a boot camp and help them achieve a dream that they’ve never been able to thought possible, how loyal are they gonna be to your place? Like it’s a great employee retention tool.

Brandon Burton (21:23.957)
Yeah, that’s an awesome point. So is there any stipulation to those new homeowners, first time homeowners, do they need to stay in the home for so long when they sell it? Does it go for STIBs to another employee? How does that work?

Natalie Hawn (21:38.776)
So they do put some clawbacks on it and they don’t limit it to employees. So the employees that go through the boot camp don’t have to buy a home from them. They just get first right or refusal. And right now it’s such a new program, you know, that they’re not churning out the houses as fast as the need. So it’s kind of twofold. You’re getting your employee trained and ready to go out to buy a home and giving them the resources they need. And they have opened that up to the community. It doesn’t just have to be their employees, but they have more

people wanting to buy them, they do houses. But they definitely try to make sure it’s a great fit to whom they sell the house to. And they do have some clawbacks in there because they’re doing a significant amount of work on this house and then selling it at a fair price. they’re putting them some, they have a lawyer that they work with that’s doing a pro bono. And they do put some things in there to have safety precautions so that the person doesn’t just turn around.

and sell it for twice the amount of money because that defeats the whole purpose. And it’s really about building a better community and rehabbing homes. Our community has been here for about 175 years and we traditionally haven’t had a lot of strategy around housing. So what’s created from that is we have blocks of neighborhoods that have abandoned housing and abandoned commercial properties. And so…

That’s where we’ve really tried to dig in and kind of create some strategy. And the cool thing is the municipalities have come along. And so now they’ve been the biggest cheerleaders and the biggest champions now. And it’s really created something special.

Brandon Burton (23:20.043)
So with the Nuisance Act, what sort of threshold is there for these vacant buildings to be able to qualify for the Nuisance Act or for you to be able to go after the owners of the building?

Natalie Hawn (23:29.954)
Yes. So this is still brand new. So we’re still writing the book on this chapter. We just got the legislation signed into law August 28th. So we’ve literally just created the Charitable Trust and the team that’s gonna kind of tackle this. So we’ll have to do another podcast to let you know how that unfolds. We kind of have our first building identified.

Brandon Burton (23:35.764)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (23:41.406)
Okay.

Natalie Hawn (23:58.318)
And, but we’re, we’re certainly still writing this chapter. It was more of an example of there’s so much that you can do to move the needle. And we’ve learned good and bad through all of these challenges, like, you know, the Abandoned Housing Act. I’m sure we’ll learn the same lessons through the Nuisance Act. So the Abandoned Housing Act, we learned the lesson that, and the group that does this high, I’m just a cheerleader for them.

I’m not a part of their organization. Most of them are on my board and they’re on our task force. But they learned the lesson that when they purchased, they went through all of the process to get the home, it abandons all of the liens that you have in the state, but it doesn’t forgive a federal lien. And they learned that lesson the hard way on their first home. And so you do learn lessons through these processes, but it’s been, it’s

It’s been a lot of fun and it’s really exciting. When we get to do the ribbon cutting on their first home, was probably the first ribbon cutting I’ve cried at. Because it’s just, we’re all kind of, we’ve identified this as a need in our community and we’re tackling it together. Business, community and community, it’s really cool.

Brandon Burton (25:14.001)
It changes lives and it can change lives for generations. So that is, that’s awesome. That is really cool.

Natalie Hawn (25:19.52)
Yeah, it’s been really cool.

Brandon Burton (25:21.973)
Yeah, so I love having these conversations about workforce housing because every chamber who has these difficult issues in their community to try to attack and try to find solutions to, they all come up with different answers. And to be able to share some of these ideas on the podcast, you know, the next chamber out there is going to have an amalgamation of what a few different chambers did to be able to come to certain answers. So being able to put these ideas out there and help other chambers

to really get their head wrapped around what is possible, what a chamber can do, and rallying the troops in the community, so to speak, be that convener. And you guys are moving the needle on making a huge impact in St. Joseph. So that’s awesome.

Natalie Hawn (26:08.664)
Yeah, thank you. I always say that the Chamber’s role, every community, I always say you’ve seen one Chamber, you’ve seen one Chamber, because the role of a Chamber is to be what their community needs them to be. And we tend to step in and serve the role to kind of facilitate solving that problem or being that convener, because Chambers are so positioned to be a convener.

So it doesn’t mean that we’ll always be the one leading the housing initiative or the task force. Once that problem starts to get some legs and really starts to head down a path that it’s gonna solve itself, then we’ll move on to the next challenge. But we find ourselves in the spaces that nobody else is at. If somebody else is already solving the problem, that’s awesome.

But it was one of those things that nobody was talking about housing, nobody was solving the problem. It was a true need for the business community. And I’ve had people, including our city manager say, why are you, he was branding, it was like, why are you doing the housing and stuff? And then he realized nobody else was. And I think that’s the role that Chambers, and it matters to this. And I think that’s the role that Chambers play. Like you can be such a convener to any issue that’s affecting your committee.

Brandon Burton (27:14.503)
And it matters to business. Yeah.

Natalie Hawn (27:25.112)
community if no one else is doing it. And you don’t have to do it forever. Be the champion, start the task force, create the conversation, create the data for the community, then start to watch it kind of evolve and then step out of the table and move on to the next issue. That’s the cool thing to me about Chambers.

Brandon Burton (27:45.473)
and see some of your board members spin up their own nonprofit to help solve the solution, right? Solve the answer, yeah. It’s awesome.

Natalie Hawn (27:51.758)
Isn’t that amazing? mean, and to me, it’s like, I just think that’s so cool. I mean, that’s what chamber boards should be doing. They shouldn’t be worried about, you know, really those day-to-day tasks about your event or micromanaging or what you are not doing. They should be solving problems like this. You know, I have four board members that have gone down and created a nonprofit to…

change our community and change the culture of their organizations because that creates, you know, just really lifelong champions for their organizations when you help somebody figure out how to buy a house. And they never thought that was going to ever be part of their story. So to me, that’s the role chambers should be doing. And that’s what they should be using their board for is how do you really make that radical change in your community? And you have those people that

the table with your board. So inspire them to do bigger things, not just come to the ribbon cutting. I need them at the ribbon cutting. I’d love them to be there. But when you have those thought leaders at the table, you can really, really make cool change happen.

Brandon Burton (29:01.729)
There’s bigger things to be done. Well, Natalie, as for listeners who are out there wanting to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them, whether it’s related to this topic or something different altogether?

Natalie Hawn (29:19.47)
You know, I would say that never get too overwhelmed. The chamber world can be very overwhelming. I would lie to you if I told you there were days that I was overwhelmed. I tell my staff all the time, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And so I think the cool thing about chambers is we can be the catalyst for change in our community.

So if you’re wanting to take your organization to the next level, of do that practice with either yourself, if you’re a one man chamber, the team, kind of find that space that your community really needs and your chamber really does well. And kind of put yourself through that exercise of how can we next level. And I’ll give you just a simple example. It can even be just in the area of…

kind of how do we make about our membership experience? even running, maybe it’s your board if you’re a one man chamber, or maybe it’s your staff if you have the ability to have staff. And maybe you just take the example of kind of your onboarding or your new member process and take it as simple as kind of running an exercise of your touch points and say, how are we, what is this experience like for our member when they try to join the chamber? Do they have?

Can they do it online? Do they have to come in? How complicated are we making it for them? And kind of put yourself through that whole even just new member experience and kind of talk through the touch points and even look at how can I and our team make these touch points easier. So if we’re requiring them to bring a check into the chamber, okay, do we have an online option? Do we take a credit card over the phone or do we tell them, sorry, I can’t take your credit card over the phone, you have to bring a check in?

You know, take some time, even if it’s just 10 minutes in a staff meeting or 10 minutes of your day to think through a process that your members, for the most part, touch every day and how to make that easier for them. Little things like that can take your chamber to the next level. It doesn’t have to be a huge daunting, how do we solve workforce housing problem? It can simply be as easy as how do we make

Natalie Hawn (31:39.89)
our new member or our bill paying experience for our members as hospitable as possible. How do we make our members feel seen and appreciated even if it’s through the bill paying process? So it can be as simple as that. You just, think if we, in Chamber World, we have to take time to slow down and make sure that we are making it a great experience for our members and our community. So everybody wants to be a part of it.

Brandon Burton (32:08.415)
And I’ll add to it that I think after going, you know, slowing down, thinking through those processes, doing what you can to improve upon them, to invite somebody who doesn’t really know anything about the chamber world to go through the process and see what is the user experience for somebody who doesn’t work at the chamber, who’s not thinking about these things all the time, because that’s where you’re really going to see those gaps that you need to close. So.

Natalie Hawn (32:20.354)
Yeah. Yeah!

Natalie Hawn (32:31.146)
And I think that is the smallest thing that you can do that can have the biggest impact on your organization. If you say, I’m going to quarterly take something that we know touches 99 % of our members, literally can be your dues renewal process. And we’re going to slow that down and look at the touch points and talk about how we can make that a better experience for everybody.

It can have huge change on your organization, doesn’t take a lot of time, and it’s an easy thing to do.

Brandon Burton (33:05.121)
Absolutely. Well, Natalie, I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future. So as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Natalie Hawn (33:17.024)
Okay, so I don’t know that I have the full answer to that obviously. ACCE has done some amazing stuff in their Horizon initiative that kind of outlines what Chambers should be looking at for the future. I will tell you guys, I don’t know, we’re gonna have to figure out from a Chamber perspective like us, how we’re gonna be utilizing.

AI because I think AI is going to be such a huge game changer for Chambers as well as like just society in general. So give me an example. So this is crazy to me. And then if and I was thinking about this, like how this could truly affect the business community because if it ends up affecting insurance, it’s going to affect all of us. But we were doing our health benefits analysis and maybe everybody knows this. This was new to me. I found out about this yesterday and I was blown away.

So we were doing our renewal. So we bid out our renewals every year. And we were bidding out our renewals and our guy brought our stuff in and he was like, okay, great news. We get to stay at this percentage point with your current provider. But I did go ahead and bid it out with other providers. And I bid it out with this new provider that’s on the scene, but they do all of your analysis through AI and the current providers don’t. And he said,

what I have to tell you and they give you like a full scorecard. He’s like, what I have to tell you is they didn’t accept your team. Like they wouldn’t, they won’t insure you guys. And I will tell you it’s because they take your credit card usage and they put it towards your health and wellness. So for example, I for a lot of parties for the chamber. I bought a lot of margaritas. They think I’m an alcoholic.

Brandon Burton (35:05.728)
Hahaha!

Natalie Hawn (35:09.174)
So I was like, this is a problem. So they wouldn’t insure us because they saw the medicines we pay for out of pocket. So it outed anybody on my team that’s on Ozempic. it also, it like, I was like, I felt very seen and heard by AI that I’m like, okay, it thinks that we’re not appropriate here because we’re buying all this alcohol. But they don’t know, but the disconnect with AI is they didn’t look to see, it’s a chamber. They throw a lot of parties.

Brandon Burton (35:30.751)
That’s funny.

Brandon Burton (35:36.521)
It didn’t have the context, yeah.

Natalie Hawn (35:38.146)
They didn’t have the context. And so that’s just one example, though. If you think about how businesses are going to start to use AI, chambers are going to have to play a role in that because that could revolutionize how the bidding processes for benefits come down in the future for insurance. And that could affect your small businesses. That could affect your chambers. I mean, they denied us. And luckily, our current plan doesn’t look at my credit card spending.

But I think it’s a good example of the reality of that in all seriousness is I think that we’re, even if it’s scary, we’re all going to have to figure out the role that the chambers are going to play in AI and technology. And I think the ones that figure it out are going to be a little more successful than the ones who don’t.

Brandon Burton (36:27.697)
And I’ve mentioned this comment, I feel like every episode, the last few episodes, but we need to make sure that chambers are transparent, that they use AI too, because your members are trying to figure out how to implement AI in their own business. And as a chamber, if they can look to you as a thought leader and you’re using AI, and if you’re trying to hide it, they don’t see you as being relevant. They don’t see you as recognizing what the real implementations are in the business environment.

Natalie Hawn (36:57.494)
Right, not to mention that, you know, they, it just makes your life so much easier. So they’re, you know, if you’re not using it and you’re not really trying to be efficient with it, then I think you have to, you know, you have to take a hard look. Cause we don’t do minutes anymore for like board meetings. I mean, it’s just, it has given us so much time back. So I think we have a responsibility then to teach our members how to do it and not be afraid of it. And, you know, think.

creatively about tools like Pacer AI and how can we use Pacer AI for our small businesses that can’t afford marketing research. I I think we have a responsibility as business leaders for Chambers to educate our businesses on how to use it, especially our small businesses that don’t have time to figure out how to use AI. I do think that’s where the future is headed and I think we have a responsibility.

Brandon Burton (37:47.743)
And.

Brandon Burton (37:51.935)
And this is the opportunity for small businesses to really take advantage if they can be guided in the right direction to really make a difference for their business. So, yeah. So I love that insight. Thank you for that. Natalie, before we wrap up, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect or learn more about the approach you guys are taking there in St. Joseph. Where would you point them and how should they reach out and connect with you?

Natalie Hawn (37:58.228)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Natalie Hawn (38:17.623)
Yeah. You can find us at stjoseph.com. You have to spell that out. I say I-N-T, joseph.com. And all of my contact information is on our website.

Brandon Burton (38:28.747)
Perfect. We’ll have that in our show notes to make it nice and easy to find. this has been a great conversation, Natalie. Thank you for spending time with us today on Chamber Chat podcast and diving into some of these difficult problems that you guys are striving to solve and making some great headway with. I appreciate it.

Natalie Hawn (38:32.854)
Awesome!

Natalie Hawn (38:46.54)
Yeah. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Creating a Chamber Flywheel with Dave Moravec

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

Brandon Burton (00:01.57)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is a dynamic leader and author.

Since 2020, Dave Moravec has served as a president of the Colerain Chamber of Commerce, bringing with him over four decades of experience in business ownership and leadership across diverse industries.

From owning a printing company to leading chambers in both Illinois and Ohio, and even working in educational technology, Dave’s career is a testament to versatility and vision. Under his leadership, the Colerain Chamber earned the prestigious title of Ohio’s Chamber of the Year for Small Chambers in 2021, reflecting his commitment to foster business growth, connection, and collaboration.

Dave is all about meaningful work and creating strategic opportunities for local businesses to thrive. Outside of his professional achievements, Dave is a published author and avid traveler and still hits the field for competitive baseball. His latest ventures include releasing Echoes Across the Tracks in 2024 and two more books in 2025.

Dave, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (01:41.15)
appreciate that, Brandon. Again, after a long career in for-profit work, I landed myself in the Chamber of Commerce field, not really thinking that this was gonna be a late in life career shift, but it’s turned out really well, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that. Something somebody would not know about me would be that I was on the Jay Leno Tonight Show in 2011.

I have a bar trick where I can balance coins on my elbow and catch them in a snatch form. And they had a segment where they gave out a meal or no meal if you did your trick on stage, so on screen. So they flew me out to California, got to meet Jay, got lots of notoriety at that time, literally 15 seconds of fame.

Brandon Burton (02:23.212)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (02:37.542)
That’s awesome. So how many coins could you stack on your elbow to snatch in that action?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (02:44.362)
Well, not only did I stack them on my elbow, but I also was blindfolded while doing it. So I’ve logged to my LinkedIn page. If anybody is interested, there’s a blog post from back then blindfolded by Jay Leno. Ultimately, I caught 25 coins, 25 half dollars because the studio was so cold. My hand was freezing up. They have the hot lights on the stage.

Brandon Burton (02:51.093)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (03:13.517)
Yeah.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (03:13.822)
So they keep the foodie-o really cold. Well, your hand freezes up and so the producer said, we don’t care how many you catch, it’s just the fact that you’re getting blindfolded by Jay and you’re gonna catch some coins. It’s a silly thing. we just had some fun with it and I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.

Brandon Burton (03:35.215)
That’s awesome. I’m sure there’s a whole story on how you got onto the radar to get on the Tonight Show, but that’s a great fact and I love finding out these little tidbits about people. That’s awesome. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Colerain Chamber. Give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with, budget, to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (03:55.614)
Sure.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (03:59.624)
Yeah, our chamber’s only 11 years old and I came in five and a half years ago to take over as the first executive director, president, CEO. And we had a previous president that was part-time, had laid the foundation for the logo, the website, chamber master, all sorts of foundational pieces. And my role was to take it to the next level.

I started February 10th of 2020 just as COVID was about to happen. And we kind of threw out the 2020 plan and went a different direction. At the time we pared down our membership because people hadn’t come off of the roles that should have come off the roles. We determined there were about 150 active members at that time. We currently have about 275.

So we’ve not quite doubled in the five plus years that I’ve been here. We manage about a $250,000 budget and our community is 60,000 residents. So the second largest township in all of Ohio. myself, part-time marketing and events coordinator. She does some of the admin work. And then I have a part-time person who manages our green initiative.

We’ve got the largest waste facility in greater Cincinnati in our community and litter and recycling and composting is really important to us. So we’ve made an investment from a staff perspective to have a part-time person that does that. myself and two part-time people.

Brandon Burton (05:40.537)
Wow. Well, that definitely helps to get us that perspective. And it seems like there’s been a lot of chamber professionals who were hired in that first quarter of 2020, right before, you know, everything kind of fell apart. So you’re in good company with a lot of others who got thrown into the fire and had to learn, you know, with a lot of stress going on. we’ve…

Dave Moravec – Colerain (06:04.392)
Well, it worked. It worked actually in my favor because of my background in corporate work. You always have to be ready for a challenge. You have to be ready for a paradigm shift. And so when COVID was announced as, you know, closing down the state and it was March 17th, it actually was the day we moved physically to Ohio from Illinois as well. So I’m in a new community, a new situation.

And we just sat down and brainstormed what we could do, what would be allowable under the situation. And we just made it work. And it was just a natural fit. And I’ve told people for the last five years, it was the best decision I made.

Brandon Burton (06:48.064)
Yeah, you know, my family actually moved that same week too. And it gave us a lot of time to hang pictures and unpack boxes and all that with the, you know, being quarantined, but work goes on.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (06:57.33)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (07:02.444)
But so you have another interesting fact about you that was shared in the the bio, but you’re an author. So Echoes Across the Tracks. Before we get into our topic for today, I wanted to have you tell us a little bit about Echoes Across the Tracks and how it came to be, where the idea came from and what you tap into as you as you write the series. I mean, there’s there’s three books now.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (07:20.67)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (07:30.53)
But give us that high level synopsis of it and the idea for it.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (07:31.07)
rooms.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (07:34.825)
Yeah. Yeah. And Thanksgiving of 2023. So not quite two years ago. I just had an idea to sit down and tell a story. And the more I wrote, the more it turned into a book. I’ve done a lot of travel as most of us have. We’ve had crazy travel and I had a really crazy travel experience, planes, trains and automobiles type experience over the summer coming back from Colorado.

And so I started writing one, it was the Friday after Thanksgiving. And I just kept typing and typing and by the end of the weekend, I had 10 chapters done. And by the end of the week, the following week, I was done with the book with 17 chapters. Echoes Across the Tracks takes place on the Amtrak train from New Orleans to Chicago.

Main characters heading to the airport as much of us do, we get a flight cancellation notice and we have to react to it. I guess kind of like the chamber reaction in March of 2020. Something had to happen and my cab driver in the story suggests that the main character Charlie take the train instead. And that starts a 30 hour journey from New Orleans to Chicago on the Amtrak train.

The subtitle is Life Lessons Through Unexpected Connections, because you never know where you’re gonna meet somebody. And the train was a good vehicle to be able to talk about networking and meeting people in a professional way and looking others in the eye and shaking hands. The story is told from my perspective. Charlie is an aging business consultant who’s promoting a book in New Orleans. And the story…

takes place over that 30 hour period and it really is just that short a period that the story is told.

Brandon Burton (09:33.241)
So there’s even some chamber connection through the book. As I’ve started reading it, the main character, Charlie, had a profession as a chamber leader. So I love that connection and the tie-in and trying to make, I know if it was your intent, but I like the efforts in trying to make chambers of commerce more mainstream and more front of mind, if we can, to the average person in the community.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (10:01.256)
Yeah, absolutely. We become ambassadors and I’m sure we’ll talk about it as we go through the conversation here, Brandon, but I feel like we can all be ambassadors for Chamber of Commerce, just like we are for a restaurant or for a hotel or for a particular business. And so the last two pages of the book, I actually devote to describing what I call the Chamber of Commerce.

value proposition. And I spell it out really simple in four paragraphs. And somebody who picks up the book, who’s a business professional, may have not thought about Chamber of Commerce as a way to network or to provide marketing support for their business, to get involved in their community or look for ways to compete with larger businesses, you know, in their market space. And so there’s a purpose for, you know, for putting that

piece in at the end. I did so in the sequel that I just recently produced as well. I kept the exact same value proposition in the back of the book to keep it consistent. But Charlie, the main character, has to head back to New Orleans for reasons that I won’t share here because we don’t have enough time. yeah, I don’t want to do that. But the second story is

Brandon Burton (11:20.824)
Can’t spoil the story either, so.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (11:28.242)
think just as interesting and compelling, but doesn’t focus on networking, focuses on customer service. And customer service today in many industries has been taken down a notch because of a variety of different things that business owners aren’t really thinking about. And so I felt that it was important to do so and wrote that into the second book.

Brandon Burton (11:52.183)
Yeah, that’s great. I’ve been enjoying it and I would encourage anybody else listening to check it out. Great story and you’ve got a great creative mind to put it together.

So maybe as a little bit of a segue in the book that goes across the tracks, the main character Charlie, he’s learning and sharing business practices that he’s learned throughout his career and in a large way, that’s what the podcast is for, having different chamber leaders on and talking about business lessons and things that they’ve learned through their career. So today we have Dave on the show to talk about creating a

Dave Moravec – Colerain (12:05.544)
Thank you, Brenda.

Brandon Burton (12:35.472)
chamber flywheel. And it’s a term that I’ve heard before, but I haven’t heard in the term of chambers using a flywheel or creating a flywheel at their chamber. So we’ll dive into that and what all that means as soon as I get back from this quick break.

All right, Dave, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about creating a chamber flywheel today.

What does that term mean to you? Where did this come from and how have you guys worked to implement this at the Colerain Chamber?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (13:09.032)
Sure, we actually have two flywheels. The concept is easy to find if you go to Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great. It’s got a red cover and it has a ring to it. Just like my wife, her name is Patty. So we go by Dave and Patty from Cincinnati. Well, you can find the flywheel in Good to Great in chapter eight. And if you find Jim Collins’ purpose behind it,

He talks about the four to six things that make a business go faster or grow faster or to become stronger But you have to sit down and think about those things and once you come up with those four to six unique Ideas processes Whatever that looks like for your organization and in our case the Chamber of Commerce Then you have to put them in order

and do them in the proper order. So as an example, we might invite people to the chamber and do that really well. And we might do marketing really well. But if we do them in backwards order, we may not get the same result. And so we as a Chamber of Commerce in 2020, I took the Board of Directors through this flywheel process because I didn’t know the community. I was new here.

certainly knew the process of creating a flywheel and using it, but I wasn’t sure what that meant for our Chamber of Commerce. So we did that, we created that flywheel, and then I incorporated a second flywheel. And that’s really what I’ve been teaching on for the last five years, Brandon, to other Chamber leaders. It really has three components. One at the top, where you’re attracting businesses to your Chamber of Commerce.

And if you’re attractive to those chambers of, to the businesses in your community, meaning if you’ve got an outward way about you, your marketing, et cetera, is strong, you’re gonna be attractive and attract others. Well, once you do, you bring them to an event or you show them the value proposition of being involved in a chamber of commerce, you have to engage them. So the second component is engagement.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (15:29.738)
That means coming out to an event, talking to other people, doing something besides sitting in your office and going, well, yeah, maybe I’ll send a check to the Chamber of Commerce. They got to get up and do something. So you have to find a way to engage them. And once you do, hopefully the enthusiasm of your Chamber of Commerce is going to be so compelling that they’re going to become a member or in our case, we use the word investor. So we’re investing in our community. We’re investing in our Chamber of Commerce. We’re investing

in our business community. And once they do and they see that that’s an investment, not a spend, at the end of the month when the monthly dues come around for your chamber, or if you’re on a quarterly or as we are in an annual basis, you’re not thinking that the business isn’t thinking about cutting a check to cover expenses. They’re doing it because they’re investing in the community. And if they are,

and they’re so enthusiastic. The third component is delight. They’re so delighted in what is being offered by the Chamber of Commerce and what you’re doing and what you’re giving back to the community. They’re so delighted, they’re gonna come full circle and attract others that you don’t know. These might be neighbors, these might be business associates, they could be outside of your geography, but see the value of being involved in your community because you have a series of

customers in the community that would be a fit or the business connections or even just the friendships that are developed might be attractive enough that, there you go. There’s the graphic. That’s the perfect graphic. So attract at the top, engage as you come around the lower right-hand corner of the flywheel to the point of delight. And once you’re delighted, you become an ambassador.

just like you would on your fine dining restaurant that you make a suggestion, hey, you got to go to such and such a restaurant when you’re in our community. You’re so delighted you become an ambassador. Many chambers of commerce have ambassador groups. They have a small group of eight or 10 individuals who are charged with wearing a badge on their shirt or their jacket that says ambassador.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (17:52.091)
I want our chamber members to all be ambassadors, because if they’re all working together, that flywheel spins faster and faster and faster than if we just have a handful. And that’s the concept that I’ve been teaching Brandon and that we’ve been promoting as a chamber of commerce for the last five years.

Brandon Burton (18:12.29)
But as you delight the people, it closes that wheel where the delight goes back to attract and just it starts that that whole cycle over again with those new people that are being introduced to what the chamber has to offer.

And when I think of a flywheel, think of it’s a way of applying leverage really. I mean, you have a goal and you’re trying to get there either quicker or more efficiently and the leverage that can be provided as you shared with the attract, engage and delight is going to kind of have that focus all around the growth and applies that leverage to the growth.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (18:50.256)
Absolutely. And there’s two significant additional components to this messaging. First off is that in traditional chambers of commerce, there’s a membership director, somebody who’s going out into the community and I’m just going to use air quotes, selling memberships to the chamber of commerce. And somebody can be sold on the idea of being involved in the chamber of commerce, but if they’re not engaged for the right reason, they’re not going to necessarily be delighted. And so when the

time for their reinvestment comes up, it’s a membership, just like a gym membership. I didn’t really use it, I didn’t really see any value to it, so no, I’m not gonna do that again. So we don’t do that. I don’t go door to door, nor does my team go door to door saying, hey, do wanna be a part of the Chamber of Commerce? We let the flywheel just naturally take place. And so the referrals that come in, or the people that are attracted around the

the side of the wheel by those that are delighted are far more interested in being involved, much like a fraternity or a sorority would be. You’re inviting them and they feel welcome. That’s different than selling them on a membership. Second thing is that it eliminates a sales funnel. A lot of businesses look at a sales funnel and they go, let’s get as many people in the top part of the funnel as we can. And then we’ll do something in the middle.

to try to get them out at the bottom as a new member or as a client. Well, once you get them, so to speak, you gotta go do something else with them. And getting them doesn’t sound like it’s very attractive. I see the look on your face. You don’t sound very sold on that idea, Brandon.

Brandon Burton (20:38.446)
Well, and I’ve heard different business owners, different from a wide array of different types of businesses. But if when they have that focus of the sales funnel, they always have to keep upping the ante of what’s that next level that we can sell? What’s that next? And then you get into the, especially with online business, you see a lot of this where they have their high ticket items. It’s a $20,000 mastermind membership or something.

And something ridiculous that only, you know, one or 2 % of anybody who enters that funnel is going to get there. But as long as they spend money, they keep finding what’s that next level that we can keep extracting money out of them is what it ends up being rather than providing that value and showing them that there’s a reason that you’re here and this is what we’re doing for you and keeping that going as a circle. So yes, that’s resonating with me very well.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (21:37.331)
Yeah, and what ultimately happens is, again, couple things that are hugely beneficial. Number one, your rate of retention is significantly higher because they see it as an investment and a continuation of a relationship. You also decrease the amount of chasing that you’re doing to phone calls. Hey, are you interested in joining the change? Hey, did you get my email?

Hey, you know, it sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s far more professional if you’re inviting a friend to a business networking event or to a women’s luncheon or to, you know, to a large fundraiser or awards dinner. If you’re inviting them as opposed to selling them on the idea of, you know, you hear the difference there, Brandon? Yeah.

Brandon Burton (22:32.706)
Yeah, yeah, it’s selling versus inviting. Like, what do you want to be involved with, right?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (22:38.472)
Yeah, exactly. And again, it’s something that we’ve actually been tracking is the number one reason, and this goes back to the good to great flywheel. Among the first things we realized was that each chamber member has a different reason for being involved in a chamber of commerce. So somebody who comes for our ancillary benefits and insurance programs or workers comp may not be interested in networking. And somebody who’s interested in networking

may not be interested in giving their time back to the community and engaging with nonprofits or becoming a board member. Each has a different reason for being involved. So we actually track that in our CRM and in Chambermaster. And the second part of our flywheel is actually engaging them and making sure that that component is fulfilled. So if we’re not providing enough networking opportunities for those that are

interested in networking, they’re going to naturally go away. If we’re not providing enough marketing opportunities to sponsor and get people’s logos out in front of the community, they’re not going to see the Chamber of Commerce as having value. So we make sure that we’ve not just identified what it is, but fulfilled the promise that we’ve made to them and we’re going to create that value.

when we add value to it through innovation and through relationship building, all of a sudden there’s more value associated with that membership or that investment. And that value adds to the flywheel. And the last component of our flywheel is actually being able to tell that story through marketing. Because if we’re not attracting others by telling that story of, hey, you can be involved in this networking thing and

We had a chamber member not too long ago, sold her first million dollar account. Well, being able to tell that story to other people and that she could share that on our sales summit, all of a sudden people go, wow, hey, what can I learn from this person? And it just attracts more attention and more people to us.

Brandon Burton (24:58.862)
Yeah. So one thing that comes to mind is with the flywheel and trying to get people engaged. the attract and then engage. I’ve heard it said before that trying to find a quick win for somebody, you somebody comes into the organization, they’re testing out a business, whatever it is. What can you do to provide a quick win for that individual to where they immediately see that there’s value in them being there?

and participating. So as you guys have implemented this and practiced this flywheel concept, have you been able to identify ways to create a quick win? maybe within the first three to six months, maybe six months might even be too long, but maybe within the first three months to be able to provide a quick win for these investors that come in and join the chamber and are engaging or trying to engage.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (25:29.563)
Yeah.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (25:57.683)
Yeah, I’m gonna answer it two ways. First is the traditional way. People are looking for ROI, right? They’re looking for that quick win from a return on investment. They’ve spent $500 on their membership and they need to get $500 back in value, so to speak. And that’s what you’re speaking about from a traditional perspective. That depends on the type of business that you have. If you’re a roofer,

and you get introduced to 10 people in the community or 20 businesses and none of them need a roof, you’re not gonna see a quick return on investment. I just don’t need a roof right now. So we actually talk about three-year investment in the chamber. Our minimum level is $340, so times three, that’s $1,020, just rounded to $1,000.

Brandon Burton (26:36.385)
Right.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (26:52.926)
If you’re not willing to invest $1,000 in your business over a three-year period as a small business, when there are so many other more expensive options, then we actually take it off the table. We suggest that you not get involved and not invest your money at this point in time. And people have actually looked at me and said, what? Well, no, no, no, I want to join the chamber.

I didn’t mean that. And so we’re talking about it as an investment. The second thing is that many chambers of commerce miss an opportunity by welcoming people before they actually join. So we actually encourage people to take a test drive, invite them to multiple events, not turn them away when they come to a second or third event and go, hey,

You gotta pay up if you’re gonna attend our event. No, not that way at all. So our quick wins are engaging them with the right people at the right time and the right place. And if you do that, all of a sudden they feel, yeah, I’m wanted. Nobody wants an email directly to them after an event that they came to and says, thank you for coming to our event. We hope you’ll attend another event.

Brandon Burton (28:16.854)
Yeah

Dave Moravec – Colerain (28:18.814)
Nobody wants that. But if their film number is on their thing, a simple text that said, hey, this is Dave. Thanks for coming to our thing last night. Appreciate it if we can help in any way, give us a holler. That simple. And people go, that’s a person. That’s somebody who’s actually thinking about me. And lastly, this is a good friend of mine, Bob Berg. In fact, I talked to Bob this morning.

He’s written a book called The Go Giver. There are a series of 10 questions that he has that you can ask somebody during your engagement when you’re meeting somebody at a networking event. But the number one question he poses is what would be the ideal referral for your business? And all of a sudden people are now asking themselves,

He’s not telling me about his business. He’s asking me about mine. And so now they can feel engaged by saying, well, a commercial, we’re do 90 % of our work is commercial roofing. And we look for businesses that before they’re actually needing a roof because oftentimes if the roof isn’t repaired properly or taken care of, it leads to damage on the inside of the building. I’m just using an example here.

I go, I’ve got a chamber member who I can introduce you to now, who may be in that situation, maybe not, but all of a sudden they go, well, he’s interested in me because he made that introduction before it was even necessary. At our networking events, people don’t go around the room and tell themselves about, our members don’t stand around and tell about their business. We actually engage the new,

Brandon Burton (30:00.035)
Yeah.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (30:13.766)
attendees to have them tell their story and have them be more attractive before they leave the room. So somebody will come up and say, you got a dog sitting business or you’ve got a craft brewery. We’d love to know more about that. But if they don’t know it because they’re standing in the corner of the room by themselves, shame on us for not allowing that.

Brandon Burton (30:41.9)
Right. Yeah, I think a lot of times these quick wins, don’t need to be that, you know, complete ROI on that, you know, that return of the investment upfront, but being able to get them a feel and a kind of light the path of this is how you will get that return on your investment, you know, by making these connections, by getting to know these people, by getting involved, you know, in a committee of some sort or helping to further the chamber’s mission, you know, in this way.

So there’s, think there’s a variety of different ways that they can feel like there’s a quick win because going back to your, your comment about just being genuine and asking about their business and learning about them, they’re going to realize, okay, Dave’s working for me too. So that’s a, that’s great piece of advice.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (31:31.122)
We also use the individuals in the room to help make that happen. So if there’s somebody that’s new in the room, I might introduce them to somebody who’s just joined the chamber in the last three months and say, hey, Bob, meet Sue. Sue can tell you what her first experiences were better than I can. And then exit stage left.

Brandon Burton (31:53.209)
Yeah.

And I guess, you know, having your whole staff just being aware of anybody who might be new as well. think that would be the worst thing is somebody comes and nobody talks to them. No chamber staff, nobody even addresses them. Chances of them coming back and engaging and getting onto that flywheel is not going to happen. So, very good. Well, Dave, as we start to wrap things up, I wanted to ask for those listening who are trying

to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest with them in trying to accomplish that goal?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (32:34.106)
Well, as I mentioned earlier, a funnel of prospective members and chasing them down is for me the least attractive way to grow your Chamber of Commerce. My understanding, and this is a statistic that I was told and it’s to a certain degree proved to be true, is that if a Chamber member joins and in the first year then

drops their chamber membership, just like a gym membership on January 1st and February 1st, go, I’m not going to do that. My understanding in the chamber world is that it’s five years, five years before they’ll consider joining the chamber again. And if that’s the case, then I can call on them every day for the next five years and say, hey, you want to come back? And they would say, no, had a bad experience.

So we want to have that first experience to be strong so that year over year over year, you create a long-term value. And the value add that I will share and the bonus for me in the long-term value proposition of for-profit businesses is that if somebody is happy with membership initially, eventually they’ll sponsor an event. Eventually they’ll become a sustaining sponsor.

Eventually, they’ll become a board member. Eventually, they’ll become a legacy provider to your chamber of commerce. But if you haven’t done the legwork on the front side to build the relationship, none of those things will happen in the proper order. And again, I think the lessons I’ve learned in the SaaS world, selling software solutions, is that if somebody is really attracted to what you’re offering,

The other things that you offer will just naturally happen. You don’t have to upsell. You don’t have to tag them for the, it’ll just naturally happen. We had five sustaining members when I came in. At this point, we’re approaching 30 sustaining sponsors that invest a significantly higher amount than just dues. And that’s because of relationship building and them seeing value in their logo being

Dave Moravec – Colerain (34:59.696)
everywhere and anywhere through the chamber. So that’s my tip for the day, Brandon.

Brandon Burton (35:05.728)
I like that. But, and to your point where somebody drops their membership, it may take up to five years or more for them to consider rejoining. The other side of that coin is if somebody, if you can, you know, provide that ROI, show the value of the chamber, get them in the flywheel. And I think the stat is three years. If you get them in for three years, then the chance of them being life members, like for the life of their business, drastically

increases to like 80 or 90 percent if you can get past that third year hurdle. I think implementing a flywheel is a perfect way of being able to get past that point and be able to have them be ambassadors for you and be promoting the chamber everywhere they go.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (35:53.151)
I would agree with that. And one other point is that negative talk comes from people that you’re gonna tell a negative story 10 times more than you’re gonna tell a positive story. And if you’ve had a negative experience, you’re not attracting others that you know. And somebody says, hey, do you wanna join, or should I join the Chamber of Commerce? Nah, I didn’t really have a very good experience. Well, you wanna have those ambassadors that you were creating on the delight side.

that are telling your story over and over and over again. And what we’re seeing is that those that provide referrals provide multiple referrals. So they’re telling the story far more times than they would tell otherwise.

Brandon Burton (36:34.072)
Yeah, it’s great marketing. I love it. Right. Yeah.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (36:37.212)
And there’s no cost to it. We can talk about that for another day, but there’s no cost associated with it either. You just have to be genuine.

Brandon Burton (36:46.924)
That’s right. Well, Dave, as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, I always like to ask, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (36:58.578)
Yeah, I think you’ve had Matt Appenzeller on your show and I’ve gotten to know Matt. Okay, you are great. Matt is awesome. And he and I subscribe to the same mindset from this perspective. And what I’ve seen in talking to and I don’t wanna say evaluating, because I’m not an evaluator. I don’t put one here and one there. But as I look at the future of Chambers of Commerce, I think the challenges if…

Brandon Burton (37:02.648)
Coming up, yeah, he’s coming up, yep.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (37:26.738)
you’re not running the Chamber of Commerce like a true business, you’re putting your Chamber of Commerce at risk. And by that I mean if your expenses are more than your revenue, you’re eventually gonna run out of reserve. If you aren’t planning for tomorrow the way a for-profit business does, when they know that the shelf life of their laptops is gonna be five years, five years from now they’ve gotta have the money available to replace those laptops.

And I think those kinds of concepts are missed oftentimes, number one, because the chamber leader doesn’t know any better. They haven’t been mentored or shown that those things are important. But secondarily, they have boards of directors that close their eyes and ears to the fact that their for-profit businesses have to survive that way and forget that their staff, the people that are running the Chamber of Commerce,

have to be that way. If you’re not increasing your dues, you know, over a period of time, eventually it’s going to come up and catch up with you. And I think that that’s the risk that all of us have is not treating the business, treating the Chamber of Commerce as a business and looking at it as a nonprofit.

Brandon Burton (38:47.608)
Yeah, I think that’s a great piece of advice as well. Not too different from running your household finances. You take those lessons of having healthy balance sheets. Well, Dave, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about your books or about the flywheel or anything we talked about today. Where would you point them and what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (38:56.734)
Absolutely.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (39:17.298)
Well, I have put in my resignation for the Colerain Chamber of Commerce. So you can reach me for a period of time at president@colerainchamber.org. But you can otherwise find me at DD, Dusty Dave is my nickname, moravec, M-O-R-A-V-E-C-5@gmail.com (ddmoravec5@gmail.com). My phone number 309-838-1947 will get me 24 seven. And I will pick up the phone 24 seven.

Brandon Burton (39:52.679)
There you go. And the books, Amazon, anywhere in particular you’d point them?

Dave Moravec – Colerain (39:57.82)
Yeah. Yeah. You can find them at salesmanagerforrent.com on our media site. Amazon will have them. Look up Echoes and Moravec and I’m the only guy that M-O-R-A-V-E-C with Echoes associated with it. If you like the books, recommend them to others. Write reviews. First time and new authors.

That’s their biggest challenge is having people to review them so that others see them and are attracted to it. So yes, I appreciate that. And yeah, thanks for the plug. I appreciate that.

Brandon Burton (40:37.842)
Absolutely, you bet. It’s my pleasure. But it’s been fun having you on the podcast today. I appreciate you spending your time with us and your experiences and lessons that you’ve learned at leading the Colerain Chamber and just from your business experiences through your career as well. So thank you.

Dave Moravec – Colerain (40:55.432)
Great to be here.

Importance of Being Proactive in 2025 with Clint Nessmith

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

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.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor for this episode is Bringing Local Back. Remember when your community could turn to a local TV station or newspaper for the latest updates and affordable ads? Those days may be fading, but the need for local connection remains. That’s why we created Bringing Local Back, a game changing platform that restores the local visibility and advertising power to your community. It’s more than just tech. It’s about driving engagement and creating new revenue for your chamber. Ready to see the future visit bringinglocalback.com to schedule your demo today. This is the future of local commerce.

Our guest for this episode is Clint Nesmith. Clint is the CEO of Resource Development Group and brings over 20 years of fundraising expertise to the table. Throughout his career, he has led successful funding campaigns and advise chambers and economic development organizations of all sizes across the country. Clint’s background also includes leadership roles in University Advancement and with the Metro Atlanta Chambers forward Atlanta campaign. Under his leadership, RDG continues to serve as the only firm in the US solely focused on generating revenue for chambers and economic development groups. Clint lives in Statesboro, Georgia with his wife and four children, but Clint, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you the opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Thank you, Brandon. It’s a pleasure to be here today.

Clint Nessmith 2:10
Thank you for the invite, absolutely. Well, so yeah, I would say the the the most interesting thing that is happening in my life right now is I’m now a grandfather. For the first time,

Brandon Burton 2:21
I thought you had an extra big smile. So yeah, and she’s

Clint Nessmith 2:25
a cutie, my overachieving daughter, who has always done everything early in her life, from graduating from high school early to graduating from college in three years to do you know, getting married at 21 has they wasted no time, and we are. We now have a about a two week old granddaughter, so we’re super excited.

Brandon Burton 2:50
That’s very exciting. Very cool, awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about resource development group for those who may not be familiar, just give us a little bit of background about what it is you guys do, who you serve, kind of your areas of expertise, if you will,

Clint Nessmith 3:06
perfect happy to so resource development group, as you highlighted earlier, we’re very niched, and we’re really a boutique firm. We only work with chambers of commerce and economic development organizations to help them raise the money to fund their various programs. We this is actually our 30th year of operating. I’ve been with the company for 22 years, and took over a CEO a little, little over three years ago, and it’s been a, been a great transition. We are continuing to carry forth the service offerings that that we always have, and we’ve added a few new ones, as well, around investor relations support and also turning our campaign management software that we own and built, providing it with a with the capabilities to also be used for Investor Relations tracking, which is something that no CRM does well. And we kept hearing folks talk about that over and over again, and we said, we think we can probably do something along those lines. So we’re we’re excited that that we’ve been able to add that too. But what’s interesting about company, and some of the conversations I have with other chamber executives, is we frequently get the question, hey, we don’t do economic development. Like, do you guys ever work with chambers that don’t do economic development? And resoundingly, yes, we do. And what’s funny is, we code a lot of that as economic development within our own company, even if chambers aren’t specifically thinking of it that way, but we have, over the years, certainly supported chambers in raising money for advocacy, livability, talent development, and more and more housing and homelessness are working their way into the strategies that we. Uh, are working with, yeah.

Brandon Burton 5:01
So do you just, do you do kind of a one on one with these chambers and figure out what their needs are, what it is that they need to raise the funds for, or is there some survey that goes out? Or how do you assess the needs of each community?

Clint Nessmith 5:15
Yeah. So we always start off basically saying, Do you have a plan? Do you have a strategy? Many of our clients will have just gone through a strategic planning process, whether that be internal or using a strategic planning firm like an EY or or an Amy Holloway. And if they don’t have that in hand, then we have to work with them to really develop what their strategic pillars are highlighting, what are we going to be able to do that we can’t do today as we move continue to build on the momentum within the marketplace, and so we will sit down through our feasibility study process with them, work out, what are we going to do, and then who are we going to go and test this in front of? We usually will interview somewhere between 30 and 40 leaders from around the county or the region or the state, depending on the area that our clients cover, and we’ll actually take that, that draft strategy out and test it on and as we test it, we’re not only getting feedback on the strategy, but we’re getting feedback on the organization and their recent their recent successes, and how well they feel engaged in the work. And of course, we’re also getting feedback on a proposed needs based budget, and then that to fully fund that strategy. And then within that budget conversation, we’re testing individual investment amounts, which ultimately allows us to come back and provide a very data driven feasibility report that covers a lot of ground. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 7:04
that’s great. It sounds like you guys are problem solvers. You figure out what those problems are in the community based on their strategic plan, and then see what they’re not able to currently do with the current setup, the current funding, and then find the solutions to overcome that hurdle. So I think that, uh, that transitions really well into our topic for today, where we’re we’re talking about the importance of being proactive here in 2025 and once you have that strategic plan, as you’re looking forward, what kind of things do you need to do to keep that momentum going? So we’ll dive in much deeper on this topic as soon as we get back from this quick break,

Joe Duemig
Hi, I’m Joe and I’m Rose, and we’re the founders of App My Community, a mobile app that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your chamber of commerce.

Rose Duemig
When we started App My Community, we envisioned a tool that would help communities thrive by simplifying communication and enhancing engagement, Chambers of Commerce face unique challenges, and we’re here to help you tackle them.

Joe Duemig
App My Community helps the Evergreen Area Chamber of Commerce to create an app that keeps tourists informed, even when their office is closed, they provide 24/7 access to local business information, which helps support the local economy and community engagement.

Rose Duemig
In Rocky Mountain House, we helped Rocky Chamber create an app with dynamic itineraries and digital resources for tourists, increasing local business engagement. The app has become an essential tool for the community, promoting events and boosting visibility for local merchants.

Joe Duemig
Today, we empower more than 200 Chambers of Commerce campgrounds and RV resorts to streamline communication, informing members about events, sharing business updates and providing a digital hub for the community all in one convenient

Rose Duemig
app. When you partner with App My Community, our team works closely with you to create an app that meets your Chamber’s unique needs. As your community grows, our app evolves with you. We are here to ensure you engage effectively with your members and streamline your operations.

Joe Duemig
Schedule a demo today AppMyCommunity.com. We can’t wait to meet you.

Brandon Burton
Chamber leaders, I know each of you works daily to boost your local economy and take your Chamber of Commerce to the next level. But let’s face it… it takes funding, and lots of it!

You need to know Resource Development Group, for three decades they have been the premier economic development fundraising consulting firm dedicated to helping Chambers of Commerce and economic development organizations like yours thrive across the United States.

Their expert team specializes in crafting customized fundraising strategies that drive tangible results so you will be able to fully implement your community advancement and economic development strategies.

Imagine having a partner who strives to understand your community’s unique needs, brings national best practices to bear, and has the proven experience to secure millions of dollars in funding. Resource Development Group has successfully guided countless Chambers of Commerce in creating vibrant, sustainable economies.

With their comprehensive suite of services, from campaign planning and execution, to investor engagement management, to best practice studies, RDG takes the guesswork out of fundraising. You’ll receive personalized support and innovative solutions that make a real impact.

Don’t just take my word for it! Chambers of Commerce and EDO executives nationwide have praised RDG for their dedication, professionalism, and impressive track record of raising over $2 billion dollars for their clients. Ready to see what Resource Development Group can do for your Chamber? Visit them online at RDGFundraising.com to learn more.

Elevate your community, strengthen your Chamber, and unlock new possibilities with Resource Development Group by your side. They build organizations that build communities!

All right, Clint, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break today, we’re talking about being proactive, especially here in 2025 from your perspective, as you work with chambers and economic development organizations, what does that mean to you to help them be proactive and and forward thinking as they manage their organization?

Clint Nessmith 11:18
It’s, it’s, it’s always important to be proactive. Clearly, and the reason the business community and public sector and foundation community tend to sort of gravitate to chambers and economic development organizations is they do tend to be proactive. They do tend to get things done in a very in a way that can be measured. So you always have to be proactive. But whenever there are economic challenges, you have to that, that that the importance of being proactive really becomes even more of a priority for chambers and Ed is I’ve, you know, you highlighted earlier. I’ve been doing this over 20 years. I have lived through a number of in my career where there was economic uncertainty, whether that be post September 11, whether that be 2008 and the great recession. We all, most of us, I would imagine most of your listeners have lived through COVID and worked through COVID, every one of those economic shock that that led to economic uncertainty, much like what we’re seeing in 2005 with the tariff talks and the changes and the potential impacts that that’s having some positive some negative on our in perspective communities, and able to be what we’ve seen is being able to be really proactive, be seen as a resource anytime you’re in the sort of economic uncertainty that’s that’s incredibly important, because All of your members, all of your investors are looking to someone to sort of help them work through the challenge, someone that can provide them with the most up to date information, someone that can assist them when they have questions. So yes, being proactive is always important, but when there is economic uncertainty, that’s really where Chamber of EDOs can really shine. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 13:25
So it can be really hard to predict when the next, you know, COVID, you know, shutdowns would be, or the next big terrorist attack, or major economic disruptor, right? But as I see it, as a as a chamber leader, as economic development organization leader, you’re, you’re kind of that Captain guiding the ship, right? You need to be able to to look ahead, have some foresight, and be able to see what are those potential threats to our community. How can we be prepared? And maybe, you know, we hear about rainy day funds and things like that, to be able to prepare for the future, for those unexpected things. So what does being proactive? How does that translate into these organizations, chambers and EDOs, to be able to sure, take those action action steps?

Clint Nessmith 14:13
Yeah, so I’ve had this conversation a lot lately. I think everybody knows that there is a lot of uncertainty for the first half of the year that we’ve been here in 2025 I can, I can assure you that every as you look back in those those previous sort of economic shock events, that if a chamber or Edo is proactive and seen as a resource, anytime you’re in a situation like this, you are ultimately going to be rewarded. You need to it’s important to not sort of hide from the challenges. That your members are are facing the we need to we need to acknowledge that there are stresses and that there is uncertainty. I’ve, I’ve had conversations with clients that were trying not to talk about the potential impact of tear up tariffs in their community, which I think is a mistake. I think your members are dealing with that every single day and are trying to work through it. And so acknowledging it is is important, and you can do that without being political. I mean, some folks are concerned that, you know, they sort of weigh in on this. It’s going to be seen as political. It doesn’t have to be viewed that way. You can simply talk about, here’s what, here’s what the impact is going to be on our local employers, and based off the information that we have right now, here’s the research that we have, here’s what we are doing to try to be proactive, to assist you all. And as we go through this, through this process, and and, you know, I kind of, I like to say, you know, pull that COVID playbook back out. It’s very relevant today. Over communicate. Invite the media to reach out to you for comment. Find opportunities to pull your members and investors together to give those updates. Create a create a toolkit. We’ve got a call. We’ve got clients that have created tariff toolkits that is really just loaded with information about the latest and greatest. You know, whatever is coming out of DC, here’s what we know. Supply chain assistance. There’s a lot of companies trying to figure out. Maybe you know new supply chains, what can you do, from a research standpoint, to help your your members figure that out? So you know, there’s a lot there that be valuable. And as I said before, chambers and EDOs that are able to be great partners in times like this are going to be rewarded.

Brandon Burton 17:16
Yeah, as you talk about the current situation with tariffs and like, Man, this really does rhyme with the whole COVID problems, with the supply chains and all the disruption. And how many people remember the whole Suez Canal incident, you know, that disrupted supply chains and being able to figure out these, these solutions. But also what stood out to me in that explanation was being able to look for potential obstacles that can stand in the way of your community, you know, progress in your community and the business progress, and also the possible solutions, and be proactive in moving forward, in having those solutions and not scrambling once those obstacles, you know, rear their ugly heads. But I already have a plan in place of, yep, we prepared for this. Let’s move forward and and those communities are going to be much more healthier. On the other end of whatever that challenge is, are you seeing some examples, as you’d mentioned, the the tariff toolkits? It’d be kind of neat to see what’s all included in a tariff toolkit. But what are, what are some other examples you’ve seen of of organizations that are being proactive?

Clint Nessmith 18:28
Yeah, it’s, you know, we’re, it’s funny. We are currently working with the Detroit Regional Chamber and their mission auto initiative. And mission is really an association for the automotive mobility industry. We actually did our feasibility study back in the fall. Before you know the all the tariff conversation really got got going, but we’ve been raising money to fund elevated program, programs for Michelle around advocacy and workforce development for the industry throughout this entire year. And, you know, there, we kind of gut check ourselves all along to say, you know, let’s make sure that we’re we’re still doing the right thing, and we’re being appropriately, appropriately, appropriately acknowledging the challenges that the industry is going through right now, and the industry adjacent folks you know, to the to the to the mobility industry, but where we’ve really consistently leaned in on is we’re able To show how Miss Auto is going to bat for the automotive mobility industry, how they’re playing offense and defense, and we’re having meetings with folks that in some cases, they’ve laid off employees, they’ve closed plants in response to. Uh, some, some tariff, but some just continued automotive sort of realignment. But who will also say we’re going to elevate our funding support provision because we see it as such an ally the automotive industry that we’re operating in that without them being there, we know we would not, as an industry, be as well off as we are today. And you look at great it’s been a slower campaign because of the impact that the tariffs are having, particularly on the automotive mobility space, but for the commitments that have come in the door. Worse, we’ve seen a 33% increase in funding. Think about all of your listeners out there, what they would do with 33% more revenue? Excitement, yeah,

Brandon Burton 20:55
yeah.

Clint Nessmith 20:58
And but it just goes to show that even in a challenging time or an uncertain time, you can be successful in raising money if you’re seen as a solution. Yeah, absolutely.

Brandon Burton 21:10
And I think it’s important to mention just whatever every community is so different, whatever industries are in the community, the layout of the community. And when you think of these potential obstacles that can affect the businesses within your business community as a chamber and Edo, some of those, maybe those global type things, like tariffs that we’re talking about, or a worldwide, you know, virus and other things can be very localized. You know, maybe your community is in a flood zone, and, you know, you just it rains hard and it really hurts businesses. So what can you do to be proactive in these different scenarios that affect you, either on a very localized and a much more wider scene, and I don’t know if there’s, you know, the best exercises or approach to really flesh out what those potential threats might be. What have you seen to as chambers and EDOs take that step to be proactive? How do they assess what those possible threats might be? Yeah,

Clint Nessmith 22:14
well, it’s, it’s, you’re doing a strategic plan every three to five years. There should always be. There should always want

Brandon Burton 22:22
analysis, and, yeah, always

Clint Nessmith 22:26
and, and if it if possible, you know, setting aside dollars to either proactively address what you think that challenge is going to be, or setting aside dollars in a special sometimes they’re called opportunity fund that is kind of there waiting to be pulled upon if something unplanned happens. I live in I live in Statesboro, Georgia. We were hit really hard by Hurricane last year like nothing I’ve ever lived through before, as many in the south work and and those you know, you think you know, kind of thinking ahead of, okay, this is, this may not be a one off thing, even if we weren’t playing planning for for some sort of response before for something like that. Let’s make sure that, as we think ahead, that we were our plan is taking into into consideration having to maybe live through something like that again. And what would we do mean? You look back at, I’m going to go way back, remember the unfortunate bombing in Oklahoma City. Yeah, we worked with the greater Oklahoma City Chamber for a very long time. And Roy Williams, who, of course, is retired now, can tell you how the chamber responded after that bombing. And they, you know, there, there’s definitely playbooks out there. I mean, they’ll, he’ll tell you that they immediately turned the chamber, into a place where the media could gather and report from and were welcoming questions and talking about, well, here’s what our local community is doing to work through this, this unplanned for unprecedented challenge that we’re now facing. And what’s interesting is, you know, Oklahoma City was really struggling kind of in the early, kind of late 80s, early 90s. And while that was a horrific event, the Chamber figured out a way to use that to actually be one of the things that sort of elevated that community over the next 25 years, and and and so need to be proactive. You need to be thinking for the future. I will always love Opportunity Fund, our client, the greater Wichita partnership, right now is setting up an opportunity. Opportunity Fund, that’s an economic development organization in Wichita, that’s the 10 county region, and they’re doing it for different reasons. They’re doing it because they’re one of the fastest growing communities in the country. Right now. Their economy is on fire, and they are tired of having to take an unplanned the have the first step be we’ve got to go raise money so we can address this, which, of course, just slows down your response time. So instead, they’re going to set up an opportunity fund so they can immediately take action. Because we all know, in this world, the quicker you can respond, the more likely it is you’re going to end up with a successful conclusion, yeah,

Brandon Burton 25:42
I love that. The whole idea of the Opportunity Fund, I mean, any any household, it’s good to have that, that savings, you know, for So, right? Why don’t we do that as a business, as an organization? Why don’t we have that opportunity fund and and teach it and practice it and have it be a normal thing,

Clint Nessmith 26:00
right? You got it. And

Brandon Burton 26:03
I think there’s even opportunities within the opportunity fund where you can invest, you can do other things with it, where you can you can see it grow, and doesn’t just sit there. But when that opportunity really comes, you really are

Clint Nessmith 26:15
prepared exactly, you know, I know many of our chambers do have sort of that rainy day fund, or, you know, just the reserves that they’ve built up. You know, you look at the Greater Philadelphia chamber, which is another client of ours, and they had some real, you know, Philadelphia had some real challenges over the last couple of years. Well, they used some of their rainy day fund to really beef up their their local advocacy work. And if they hadn’t had that available, it would have been really hard to do what they did. And ultimately, it was a heavy lift, but they were able to do it. And they they’ve had theirs knowing that, you know they were going to need it at some point. And

Brandon Burton 27:01
yeah, it’s great to see. I mean, you hate to have to tap into it and use it, but it’s great to see a real example where they had it. They were prepared. They’re able to put it to work and and solve problems. So that’s what it’s all about. Well, Clint, I wanted to ask you, for those listening who would like to take their organization up to the next level? What kind of tip or action item might you suggest for them and trying to accomplish that goal?

Clint Nessmith 27:30
Great question. It’s, it’s, I’m going to repeat myself at first, if we move as I answer this, it’s important to have a strategy, even if even if it’s an internal strategy, you have to have a strategy, and you need to, you need to make sure that it is a it has been, it’s refreshed every three to five years, and in every single one of those strategies, it shouldn’t be, how do we keep doing what we’re doing one of it should be, how do we do what We’re doing better? And how do we the new opportunities and challenges that we think we’re going to be facing over the next three to five years, you’ve got to be constantly looking to get better and and then ultimately, that allows you to go out to your funders, community governments, foundations, to make a case for increased funding support, or to join your organization, potentially for the first time, and support you financially, but but the key is to communicate. Here’s what we’re going to do. We need to do that we can’t do today. And oh, by the way, we’re the only ones doing it in our service area. I we frequently will do organizational roles charts to very clearly map out what key organizations are doing within an ecosystem, because it gets noisy and your funders get confused and but being able to show here’s what we are doing uniquely, but also here’s how that dovetails into what other key organizations are doing, so that we aren’t working in silos. Both of those are incredibly important. But my, my, my number one sort of caution this year is if you are thinking about raising revenue, get on it, because what we’ve seen the first half of this year is fundraising across the board has become more challenging. A lot of across not not not just in economic development space, but just any nonprofit, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of grants that were out there that have been paused, and a lot of folks are kind of taking it on the chin. Well, I mentioned earlier about a six to nine month sort of delay whenever you have an economic shock before everybody kind of really gets moving again. Well, this. Fall and in the summer, we are seeing and predicting everybody that has ever needed to raise money being raised raising money in a very aggressive way, because they’re trying to make up for what they didn’t pick up in the first half of the year. So thinking about raising money and take the steps now to try to get out in front of that wave, stake your claim, your unique value, and begin making some of those, those major ask, even if, even if they’re not official, you need to at least see them with those funders that have the likelihood of giving you the most money. And you know, that’s, that’s what I would suggest.

Brandon Burton 30:44
And to your point, with the when these challenging times come, we’re, we’re in the middle of one right now with the tariffs, certain organizations may feel hesitant to go and ask people to invest, ask for for more money, but these are the times where they really see the value of what your organization does. It’s really time to be able to showcase and say, here’s how we support your business, to help you grow and help you thrive. Help our community be strong. Now this is what we need from you, right? And as they can see that happening, yes, it may be a strain, it might it might be hard to have some of those conversations, but if you don’t capitalize on that opportunity of showing what you’re doing in your community, you’re missing a huge opportunity. And it’s your point earlier, when you talked about at the beginning of our recording, some chambers listening might think, well, I don’t do economic development. Yes, you do, and like Clint said, they would code, you know, certain programs of work that you do as economic development. Just because you don’t have that economic development contract formally, doesn’t mean that you’re not involved with economic development and own that sector of it, as Clint talked about, having that, you know, that diagram showing the areas of responsibility, show what you own, and go after the funding for it,

Clint Nessmith 32:07
you know. And you made it something you just said there keyed off another thought, if you are worried that you’re going to and somebody by asking them to do more than they’re doing now with your organization because of perceived challenges that they may be facing. We always like to remove as many barriers as possible to getting to yes, and one of those is, listen, we’ve got this great we’ve got this great we’ve got the strategy. We’re being very proactive. Our goal is to see you this level within the next couple of years. You know, we recognize you may not be able to do anything else beyond what you’re doing this calendar year, but let’s map out a stair step plan to get you there in one to two years. And you know, you start to get people thinking about, okay, how am I going to do that? That’s a great way, though, to grow revenue. And of course, you want to tie it back to that strategy, but it’s a great, great way to recognize, we know you may be facing challenges, but here’s a way that you can still support us in an elevated way, and people will appreciate that,

Brandon Burton 33:27
and it builds ownership for these companies within the community. Does That’s awesome? Well, Clinton, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, I always like to ask all the guests I have on the show, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Clint Nessmith 33:44
I That’s a that’s that’s a great question. You think about how chambers have evolved just since I’ve been in this industry over 2223 years, chambers today are not what chambers were in 1999 when I worked or 2000 I guess when I worked for the Metro Atlanta chamber, there are so many more areas that we’re having to get involved in as an industry. I mentioned homelessness and housing. Earlier chambers used to never be involved in homeless, child

Brandon Burton 34:23
care, too.

Clint Nessmith 34:24
Child care, talent development. I mean, you know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot there, and we’re just going to continue to see that. And the reason is, is that when leaders of your community see these challenges, they’re looking for a partner that has proven themselves to get results in the past, and usually where they point back to is a chamber of commerce or an economic development organization. And so that’s what’s really driving this constant change. And. I, you know, you think about sea of chambers in the in the future, I think they’re going to continue to be just as relevant as they are today, as long as we are helping to solve community problems. You know, unless you’re, I think you’re all of your listeners would recognize that the value of networking, just for networking sake, is getting weaker and weaker. You have to be part of the solution for driving your community forward, and as long as you’re doing that, you’re going to be relevant.

Brandon Burton 35:36
I agree. Amen. Preach on. So I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you. Talk more about how they can be proactive. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect

Clint Nessmith 35:53
right? Yeah. Our website is RDGFundraising.com and my email address is clint@rdgfundraising.com, feel free to reach out.

Brandon Burton 36:09
That’s perfect. We’ll get it in our show notes and make it nice and easy for people to reach out and connect with the Clint. But I appreciate you joining us today, here on chamber chat podcast, sharing your perspective. These are things that, if chambers aren’t already thinking about, they should be. I think a lot of them are, but they need that, that motivate of talk, to be able to get them back in gear, get them focused, get them, you know, driving towards that destination. So I appreciate you, you know, coming and stirring the pot a little bit and making them think worthwhile conversation. Yeah,

Clint Nessmith 36:43
thank you. Really appreciate it. Brandon,

Brandon Burton 36:46
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Community Strategy with Jason Mock

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Join the Facebook Group

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.

Our guest for this episode is Jason Mock. Jason is a dynamic and visionary leader committed to fostering strong connections between businesses and communities. As President and CEO of The Greater Dalton Chamber, he works to drive economic growth, advocate for businesses and create a thriving future for the region. His leadership extends beyond Georgia. With a proven track record in chamber and community development before leading the greater Dalton chamber, Jason served as president and CEO of the San Marcos Area Chamber of Commerce in Texas, and as the director of Small Business Services for the foresight Chamber of Commerce in Georgia. Jason is deeply engaged in regional and state leadership. He serves on the board of Thrive regional partnership and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the hub chamber Council, a key policy group of Metropolitan Chamber leaders across Georgia, and serves on the ALI Alumni Advisory Committee for the Appalachian Regional chain, Regional Commission. His career began in politics, studying political science at the University of West Georgia and working with former congressman Lynn Westmoreland, and later served as political director at former Georgia Secretary of State, Karen Handel, and played a role in the 2008 Republican National Convention and John McCain’s presidential campaign. Committed to professional excellence. Jason earned his IOM certificate in non profit management from the US Chamber of Commerce Institute in 2016 Jason, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Jason Mock 2:53
Brandon, thank you so much for having me today. You know, I don’t know what’s most interesting about me, but I will say that at one time, I got to drive around Lee Greenwood at an event. And for those that may not recognize Lee Greenwood, you know, God bless America, very powerful guy that loves to sing about our country, but got to drive him and his son around back in the day for some political events when I was working for on the presidential campaign for McCain. So, so,

Brandon Burton 3:26
which is pretty cool. Yeah, he’s still on the circuit too. It seems like I just saw him, you know, a few months ago on stage. So that’s that’s great, very interesting. I like asking that question because we learn these, these fun tidbits about people, but tell us a little bit about the Greater Dalton Chamber. Give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with and budget just kind of set that perspective.

Jason Mock 3:52
Greater Dalton Chamber. For those that may not be familiar, we’re up in northwest Georgia. We’re home to a lot of people know us as the carpet capital of the world. Now we like to say we’re the flooring capital of the world, just because we’re carpet and hard services, as well as astro turf. In fact, if you watch the national championship football game that was hosted in Atlanta, Georgia this year, that turf was made right here in Dalton, Georgia. So kind of unique and special about that. But our community is a, you know, manufacturing community, but it is one of entrepreneurs. Our chamber is about 800 members. Our staff is about we have 10 folks on staff, and we always are looking to grow and and find different ways. But you know, we’re engaged in a lot of different things, mainly in the connecting side of things that networking most chambers are, but developing talent, workforce development is key for us, as well as the advocacy standpoint. So those three. Standpoint, or our focus as an organization. And I know today we’ll talk a little bit about more about the community side of things that we’re working on. We really dive into making sure that, you know, not only with the voice of our business community, but we’re also looking at how we’re growing greater Dalton community as a whole, for for families, residents, and anybody that’s coming to visit our community as a throughout the time,

Brandon Burton 5:27
That’s great. That gives a great snapshot and and a great you know item to pinpoint, you know, the manufacturing to the national championship. So yeah, that turf, and that turf is becoming more and more popular everywhere.

Jason Mock 5:42
It seems like you see it, not just at the National you know, in sports from a major league to the NFL, but you’re seeing it down to the Parks and Rec and in fact, Shaw sports turf, that’s the one that made the national championship. They’re making it where they’re putting these coconut shells in them, and it’s supposed to keep the temperature really cool on the ground and during the turf. So for those that are in the the South, in the summer times that you know that that turf can get a little hot, and they’re finding ways to keep it safe from a temperature standpoint, as well as a safety on the knees and the ankle. So it was kind of cool.

Brandon Burton 6:22
Yeah, one of our neighbors just put it in their backyard turf, and got me envious. And I’m like, shoot, how much does that cost? Gotta figure this out. He told that lawn mower very quickly. That’s right, that’s right. Well, you had mentioned it a minute ago that our focus for our conversation today will be around the strategy you guys have for building community there in the Dalton area. And look forward to diving in deeper on this as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Joe Duemig
Hi, I’m Joe and I’m Rose, and we’re the founders of App My Community, a mobile app that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your chamber of commerce.

Joe Duemig
Schedule a demo today AppMyCommunity.com. We can’t wait to meet you.

Elevate your community, strengthen your Chamber, and unlock new possibilities with Resource Development Group by your side. They build organizations that build communities!

All right, Jason, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking your community strategy today. Chambers across the country, throughout the world, need to have some kind of strategy right to build their community and and I always like getting the perspective from different chambers to see what is it that’s working for you guys, what? Where’s your areas of focus? And maybe it lights a spark for somebody listening to see ideas that they can maybe implement in their community. But tell us what I believe. It’s called, Believe Greater Dalton.

Jason Mock 10:40
Believe Greater Dalton is our community strategy led by the Chamber of Commerce. It was something my predecessor and board chair at the time had many conversations about, because we were constantly doing a strategy, year in and year out, and some were working and some were were not. Some of our community leaders were feeling like that. Those strategies were being in silos, and the only people that can make a decision with those that were at the table versus being a community strategy for for the greater good. And so over time, believe greater Dalton came to life in 2018 and it is a it became a five year strategy to look at our community, and we really dove deep into what our community needs, what our community is needs to focus on for the for the future. We brought in a consultant to help us with this process. We interviewed community leaders, chamber businesses, elected officials, we held focus groups, we did surveys, we did it all to kind of figure out what are the top issues that are facing our community. And we came up with six areas of focus that we wanted to focus on in those first five years. And then we went out and raised those dollars once we knew those focus points. First year, we raised a little over a million dollars in that process to focus on six areas like I talked about. And those areas were education, housing, downtown, entrepreneurship, community, pride and economic development. And each of those had we broke them down into more of like objectives inside the education model. A lot of folks right now across the country are talking about third grade reading, and from a business community standpoint, it is very important that we look at third grade reading. And so from a chamber, I know a lot of folks, colleagues around will be like and listening to this going well, is the chamber out there in the school system teaching third grade reading? No, we’re not. We’re but we are working with our our educators. We’re working with our school districts to figure out ways that we can improve third grade reading so that that our third graders are reading at, you know, at grade level throughout the year, and so really, the focus of that is, how do we solve some of these problems? You know, when it comes to housing, you know, we’re not out there building housing, but we knew and know that housing is an issue for our community in I’ll back us up a little bit. No eight, no nine. When the housing crisis took place, it really hit greater Dalton because of our industry, we were pretty much a one horse town at the time, and so developers backed away. And so we really knew that we needed to have a focus to look at housing, at all aspects, from the workforce housing all the way up to the executive housing. And so when we launched this in 2018 we we did a housing study, which we produced with with a group. But that housing study allowed for developers in our community to have almost a road map that they could go to business or go to the banks, they could go to developers and go to investors and find a pathway to build housing. And we’ve started to see our housing stock to change in the sense of, we started to see additional workforce housing. We started to see more mid level executive housing. We’re we haven’t solved the problem, but we are working to fill those gaps, and we’ll continue to do that. So really, the true focus was how first six years, we’re flying the plane and building the plane at the same time. And so a lot of studies were done, a lot of looks at how we can improve our community. And so we were putting dollars into those areas that we felt would move the needle. And then fast forward, we said, You know what? This is something that we really, truly need for generations to come. We don’t need this to be a one year plan. And so believe greater Dalton 2.0 came about. And so we have additional five years where we went out and did the same process again. And but came up with some new strategies to look at.

Brandon Burton 15:03
So after that, the five years, what, what kind of strategies did you see in the second evolution of it?

Jason Mock 15:11
Yeah, some were the same. Housing still stayed at the top. I mean, when we talked to our investors, when we talked to community leaders, they still talked about, hey, we’re making progress, but we still haven’t. You know, we still are not at the finish line from a housing standpoint, so housing and education stayed at the top of the of those two lists. But what changed a little bit was we weren’t focusing on just on downtown. We said we gotta focus on our community as a whole. We got to focus on revitalization as a as a whole, greater Dalton ecosystem. And so we started to tackle different projects and different things, and a lot of this is public, private partnerships. I’ll give you example of one where the city came to us and they wanted to do, and this was in the first year, but they wanted to do some downtown improvements, of some streetscapes. They were able to get a grant to help with this, but they needed some additional dollars to cover the streetscapes, and so they came to us, and they asked for some for some funding. And so between the city, the grant, believe, greater Dalton, as well as our downtown development authority, we all chipped in some money into this to allow for this project to happen. It’s being constructed right now. It’s a little bit of a mess, but we know it by by the end of this year, that streetscape is going to be tied in to allow those businesses along that that corridor to be more successful, to have better parking for their interest, to have better walkability for their customers. At the end of the day, it’s going to be a game changer for that area, but it’s going to be a game changer for our community, because hopefully it’s attracting more businesses to that corridor so that more can grow and more can be successful, right?

Brandon Burton 17:01
So as you talked about education, housing, still stayed on that list, or still, you guys are moving the needle, but the problem’s not solved yet. And makes me picture, you know, a world where all the community problems are solved, and then what purpose does the chamber have, right? That’s right. You gotta have some job security there, right?

Jason Mock 17:19
Hopefully. So I’ll say we, we got a lot of work. I mean, we’re blessed to live in a great community. We got a great industries that call greater Dalton home. But, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of things that we want to improve on. We’re always trying to cross that finish line. I always say that the in our world, the finish line is always moving. That goal post is always is always moving. When we think we’ve accomplished and got a good product, we go, ooh, we need to tweak it here, or something else comes about. So there’s always job security and making sure that our communities are successful Absolutely.

Brandon Burton 17:59
And that was my point, that goal line keeps moving, and there’s always going to be, you know, things to focus on, and some of the things will stay on that list for some time, until you can really find a positive solution. But seeing that these are issues in almost every community, it seems like I don’t think anybody’s found that silver bullet just yet, but they’re all working towards good things and innovative ideas that’ll come out of it too. Yeah,

Jason Mock 18:26
and one thing I’ll say that has made this successful for us, and it may not make it successful for another community, but what’s made it successful for us is the folks that we’re engaging with. We have a big tent kind of philosophy, everybody’s invited to the room, everybody’s opinion is listened to and allowed to give comment about what’s going on. So we meet regularly with community leaders that are not businesses. They may not even be a chamber member. We’re meeting with folks to make sure that they understand the value of believe greater Dalton and what’s going on, but we’re also there to listen to what they they their input. Because we know this is a community strategy. It’s led by the chamber, but it’s a community strategy that we want our community to buy into. And so if it’s, you know, somebody that is retired and but lives in our community, is invested in our community. We want to hear from them. It’s a single mom trying to raise two kids. We want to hear from them. If it’s that business owner that has two employees, or that business owner that may have, you know, 1000s of employees, we want to hear from them, because this is their community just as much as it’s our community.

Brandon Burton 19:38
Yeah. So that leads right into the next question I had for you. So you had mentioned, with the in 2018 when the strategy was first being built out, there was a lot of surveys and things going on. How has that evolved? You mentioned you wanted to hear from all these people. I imagine surveys are going out to members the community at large. How is that being communicated? How are you gathered? Bring that information. We

Jason Mock 20:01
actually do a survey every year to our community. It goes out we we blast it out as best we can. We get it on social media. We make videos about it. You know, I’ll say this, our community, our city limits, is about inside city limits of Dalton, 52 53% are Hispanic. So we we put the survey in English and in Spanish. We have our marketing materials in both English and Spanish. We have folks that are speaking about it at different events and Rotary Clubs and civic groups. So we’re out there, you know, pounding the pavement for about three to four weeks the surveys out there, and the main thing we’re looking at is a net promoter score. Many chambers are starting to look at net promoter scores for their their their membership, from their events. We look at it from our community as well. And so we’re trying to improve our net promoter score throughout the years we’ve we’ve climbed a little bit on some things. We’ve dropped a little bit on some things, so we’re constantly working on that. The other thing we do with our survey is we poll and survey our high school students, our juniors and seniors. Get this survey. We want to hear from them. So we work very closely with our school districts, our superintendents, our principals, to make sure that this survey is getting in the hands of our students so that they can give us feedback. One thing we want to do is, you know, talking about the brain drain, we don’t want that those folks to leave our community. We’re blessed that we have Dalton College, Dalton State College, here in in our community. We have a technical college here in our community. But we also want folks to know, students, to know that there are great jobs in our community. So we want to hear from our students what they think about greater Dalton, because we know that they’re the future of our community.

Brandon Burton 21:56
That idea just alone in asking those high school juniors and seniors for their feedback shows that, hey, the community cares about me, right? There’s a place for me if I want to build a career here, if I want to, you know, grow my family here, there’s a place for me, and I don’t need to look somewhere else necessarily. And

Jason Mock 22:14
what’s amazing about this is going back to that net promoter score, usually, the net promoter scores of our students is higher than our net promoters of our adults, of the community. So that’s a great thing. I mean, I mean, when you look at it, the future is bright for us, but the that they really believe in the place they live, they love the place they live. And that’s, that’s cool.

Brandon Burton 22:33
Yeah, that is cool. I’ve got a a son that graduated last year, and a daughter, it’s a junior this year, and I’m thinking, would she, would she specifically fill out a survey? And I hope she would, yeah, I hope that would give that, that boost of confidence of, you know, the community cares about me, and they want me to they want my feedback. You know what? My opinion matters, especially as they get into that voting age, and they get more involved civically, like we want them, knowing that their voice matters and

Jason Mock 23:01
going still with that same survey, we also we carve it out a little bit. We ask you if you are a mother or father or parent or guardian with a student in our school system that has been in their school system currently or in the last five years. They then fill out a different or same survey, but they’re filling out some additional questions about how they rank our schools. What is it that they like about our schools? What is it they may not like about our schools? We take that data, we meet with our superintendents, we meet with our school board representatives, and we talk to them about the information that they have. Some of the data at the last year, survey came back that are we have two school system. We have a city and a county district that our County school system, their career and technical education was being called something in house. Parents were calling it something else, or didn’t recognize that. So that the that change right there had a negative on what they were offering. But what the school says is, we’re calling it a, they’re thinking it’s B. So we gotta work on our language. We gotta look at work on our communications. Fast forward to this year. Those numbers were drastically improved because of the way that they changed how they communicated that with their with their parents, so just little things like that making a bigger difference for how, you know, we can solve problems around here. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 24:29
some minor adjustments that are easy to make and it, you know, it’s night and day difference. Yeah, that’s great. Have there been other examples like that? If the feedback that you get from the surveys, just, I like those, those minor adjustments. Because sometimes you see the feedback, you’re like, Oh, this is gonna be big undertaking. This is another five to 10 years to move this ship, you know. And others are like, we can do that next month, you know? Yeah,

Jason Mock 24:54
most of them, those little ones, are great, like you talked about. A lot of the stuff we get are. Those bigger picture you know, ooh, this part of our community needs to be improved. I would love to see us have this type of retail store or this or that, but that right there just gives us feedback, and really and truly, it gives us our elected officials political cover. A lot of times, elected officials across the country are hesitant to make a decision, hesitant to make a move when it comes to growth or spending some dollars, but when you can come to them and say, the community as a whole has voted, has given their opinion that they want to see this improve, that’s political cover that they can go back at a county commission meeting and a city council meeting and say we’ve heard through our chamber, through this survey that’s given out to the community, that this is an important issue to us, and therefore we’re going to step into that arena and help solve that, because now they have that political cover to do that.

Brandon Burton 26:03
Yeah, having data means everything, right? That’s right. Having that information, I love it. Well. Jason for chamber listening, who’s wanting to take their organization, even argue their community up to the next level? What kind of tips or action plans, maybe you offer them to try to accomplish that goal.

Jason Mock 26:24
First of all, I would say, get a group of leaders together to have that conversation. And this is where you’re going to think big picture. What are the issues we’re facing today, what are the issues we may be facing tomorrow, and then, what are those issues that we may be we’re not sure of that are 20 years, 30 years down the road, if you can get that, if you can get that group together and have that kind of conversation as first but two, you gotta be willing to talk about, I hate to say it this way, the ugly in the room or the ugly in the community, what needs to be improved On. You can’t be as scared to lay it out on the table to say, you know, we are not successful in this area. We need to improve our school systems in this way. We need to improve our streetscapes in this way, or our look in this way. But it’s going to take a lot of push. I’ll say the first time that believe greater Dalton got introduced to the Board of Directors for the chamber. It was not well received. The board did not want to get into this arena. It took some more conversation. It took some more time with business leaders to convince the chamber board, at the time to invest in this project, once we had that investment from the board, we then had to go out and get the investment from our elected officials. We knew we needed both parties. We knew we needed the business leaders and we needed the the elected official side of things invested in it. So we had those two sides. And then we went and found key leaders. And I would suggest you go find key leaders that may not be at the table, may not be at your may not be a board member, may not even be a chamber member, and this is a good way to get them to become a chamber member, but you may have to have those conversations with with key leaders in the community that you may not talk to on a regular basis, and if they can get their buy in, and then I’ll say, dream big, but Start slow. You want to have that big picture of one day our community can look like this. Our community is going to have XYZ, but know that that doesn’t take place overnight, that it takes time. We the first year. You know, lot of people go what you did the first year. We did a lot of studies. We paid for a lot of information, but that data helped us to be ready for year two, or for the believe 2.0 the next five years, where we’ve put some more data. I’ve had invested more data, but at the end of the day, we’re working on more projects than we’re working on on studies this year, and so that will just grow. So just know it takes time. It takes leadership, it takes vision. And you know, Rome wouldn’t see, you know what built in in a day,

Brandon Burton 29:06
right? Yeah. And as you’re giving that explanation, I’m reminded the book 13 ways to kill your community. And you talk about, you know, pointing out the ugly. And you know, people don’t want to live in a community that, whether it’s visibly ugly or just, you know, things are not welcoming, or whatever those those stinky parts are, you know, your community got to recognize it and fix it, that’s right,

Jason Mock 29:29
and just have those open conversations. I think chambers that chamber CEOs and leadership that don’t have those tough conversations with their boards or with their community, or doing a disservice to their Chamber members, because our members are talking about it. Our business community is talking about it at the water cooler, or at the ball games with their with their kids, or, you know, at church, you know, they’re talking about, Oh, would you see the potholes that we came in on throughout, you know, the. This afternoon, or whatever it may be. So we have to be open minded to know that if they’re talking about it, then we should be talking about it. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 30:06
absolutely. Well, Jason, I’d like to ask everybody I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Jason Mock 30:18
They’re changing every day. You know, I think the chamber of the past and the past is last, is yesterday. Chambers are always evolving and always having to think of things. I think if this kind of project, believe greater Dalton community strategy for a greater community would not have been something that would have looked at 2030 years ago, I think chambers would have just said, That’s not our lane. We don’t need to get in it. I think more and more we’re seeing chambers having to get in lanes that we may not have been in last year or 20 years ago. We have to be thinking about how we’re truly growing a community as a whole. We’re helping our members, but we’re helping the bigger ecosystem of our community. And at the end of the day, we may not be serving and helping some members through this process. They may be elevating themselves because we have a better community. That’s okay. That’s okay because we want businesses to succeed, and at the same time, we want to show value what we’re doing. And hopefully they see that value, and we can show that, hey, look, we’re we’re working on your behalf, even though you may not know of us, you may not see us, but there’s a role that we love for you to play within our community, within our chamber. So I think chambers have to think big picture, be very broad in the way that they operate, and not pigeonhole themselves and just those events and networking side, but really look at the whole ecosystem of the community that they they represent.

Brandon Burton 31:47
Yeah, great explanation. Absolutely need to to get outside of just the the networking and so forth. That’s a means to an end. It’s not that. It’s not the main focus. So, right? But I

Jason Mock 31:59
think in the end, you know, we’re going to have to look at, you know, I don’t know this answer, and I know you’ve, you’ve tackled it a little bit on your calls, and love to learn more about it. But the membership side, I mean, that is always changing, and it’s a dynamic stuff. And, you know, I was telling somebody, and you’ve heard this, and our audience has heard this, you know, people were joining the chamber because my grandfather was a chamber member. My daddy was a chamber member, you know? And now it’s getting to a point where the new business owners are going, I don’t, I don’t know that, and there’s really showing value of what that value is and and everybody’s value is different. Everybody’s Chamber’s value is different. Everybody’s community value is different. So you have to find that value that fits for your community and your organization. Yeah, absolutely.

Brandon Burton 32:41
Well, Jason, this has been fun to have you on the podcast. I appreciate you taking time to be with us today and sharing some of your experiences examples you know, going through the your community strategy there in Dalton, wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you? Yeah,

Jason Mock 33:00
I’m happy to my email address is mock@daltonchamber.org, and I’ll be brave enough, I’ll throw my cell phone out there. If anybody wants to call me, please do 770-241-3629, I’m happy to meet with you, talk to you, and help any way I can. I think we’re all in this industry together, all in the boat together, and whatever we can do, I can be learning from you, and hopefully you can learn a little bit from us. That’s perfect,

Brandon Burton 33:27
and we’ll get that in our show notes for this episode to make it easy to find. But again, Jason, it’s been great having you on the show and and appreciate you sharing these examples and and really, you know, shining a spotlight on what what a community can do to really have a strategy and move the needle going forward.

Appreciate it.

If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.