Episode 130 · July 20, 2021

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Jim Boltz explains regional collaboration, farmers market development and community recognition in Pittsburgh North’s 2021 Chamber of the Year finalist episode.
About This Episode
Jim Boltz, then president of the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber, explains the Tri-County Collaborative’s shared messaging, sector expertise and virtual business support. He describes the Cranberry Township Farmers Market partnership, its Holiday Village Market and themed events, sponsorship opportunities, and Community Champions recognition. Board, staff and committee alignment and a blend of digital and physical engagement underpin the work. Attendance and participation figures are historical guest reports.
What You'll Learn
- Coordinate shared messaging with neighboring organizations.
- Let partners lead areas of expertise.
- Build community activities around a market’s core vendors.
- Match sponsorships with community purpose.
- Align board objectives, staff plans and committee work.
- Blend digital outreach with in-person relationships.
- Recognize businesses that help their community.
About Jim Boltz
Jim Boltz is president of the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber, a regional chamber serving northern Pittsburgh across Allegheny and Butler counties. He has led the chamber since 2014 and previously owned a small business in Cranberry and served on the chamber board.
Episode Chapters
00:00 — Podcast intro and episode setup
02:30 — Jim Boltz’s background and path to chambers
04:39 — Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber overview
06:28 — Managing two offices through communication
09:16 — Tri-County Collaborative crisis response
17:06 — Farmers market and holiday market growth
22:21 — Sponsorships, vendors, and community positioning
31:39 — Community Champion recognition program
34:30 — The future of chambers
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Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions
Title sponsor mentioned in the episode intro; chamber membership sales consulting service.
Link not yet available.
Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber
Guest chamber organization discussed throughout the interview.
An Idea Worth Borrowing
Turn crisis response into shared community programs
When members are overwhelmed by information, convene neighboring partners to send one clear message, divide responsibilities by expertise, and create public-facing programs that help businesses recover and stay visible.
• How can we co-author a single message with nearby partners during a crisis?
• What one community program could we turn into a recurring destination event?
• Which partner is best positioned to lead each topic based on their expertise?
Read the Full Transcript
Read the Full Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.
Episode 130 — Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber 2021 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Jim Boltz
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Jim Boltz
Automated QA: Passed
00:00.842 Brandon Burton
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.
00:14.25 Intro Voice
And now your host. He is now recording from his brand new office studio. He's my dad, Brandon.
00:19.886 Brandon Burton
Hello, Chamber Champions. Thank you for joining us for Chamber Chat Podcast. This is another one in our Chamber of the Year finalist series for 2021. Chamber Chat Podcast title sponsor for the podcast is Holman Brothers membership sales solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It's a common problem.
And one that our new title sponsor, Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions, knows a lot about. Doug and Bill Holman aren't just sales consultants, they're real live chamber guys with twenty plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they're ready to put that knowledge to work for you in your chamber. Call the Holman Brothers today at six one nine eight five two one three nine one.
Or check them out at holmanbros.com. That's h-o-l-m-an-b-r-os.com. Our guest for this episode is Jim Boltz. Jim is the he's representing the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber as the president in this Chamber of the Year finalist series interview. And Jim has held the position as president of the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber since 2014.
With a full range of events, programs, and services, the chamber works provide opportunities for business owners and their representatives to engage, influence, and thrive. Before taking his current position, Jim owned a small business in Cranberry, Minuteman Press, and served on the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber's board of directors. His diverse experience also includes positions of buyer and store manager.
at the former Kaufmann's Department Store, a division of May Company and currently Macy's. Jim, welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm glad to have you with me today on the show. If you would take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber champions out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know Jim Boltz a little better.
02:13.857 Jim Boltz
Is that
02:30.206 Jim Boltz
Brandon, thank you very much. It's my pleasure to be on today. I, you know, I think the the thing that I would like to share is just the diversity of my background and coming into the chamber world. I worked for a big corporation. and and was there a number of years for a number of different positions. from that I went into a small business and I owned a small business. You know, again, you just you just said this. but I think, and then from that.
I saw what the chamber had to offer and being on their board, I really saw an opportunity there to really get involved in the community, make an impact in the community. And so that's when I stepped over and from my small business and really got into the chamber world. Thank you for having me.
03:17.716 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. And we talked a little bit before we started the recording about just the the impact that a chamber has and what it does above and beyond what what other networking groups have throughout a community and and a chamber's ability to convene and and make all those connections for small businesses to really thrive as as kind of the backbone in the community.
03:40.782 Jim Boltz
I mean, that's what I learned. Again, when I was with the corporation and with May Company and and Kaufmann's, we were more focused on the corporation and that aspect. And and when I owned my own small business, that's when I realized how important it was to build your network, how to build relationships. People do business with with people they go they know, like and trust. And out in front of people.
Is working with an organization like the Chamber that gives you those contacts, gives you that pipeline to do that.
04:17.306 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So important. well, Jim, share with us about the the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber. I'd like to give some perspective to the listeners about the size of your chamber, maybe the staff and location. I mean, it's kind of in the name of your chamber, but just tell us a little bit more detail about your chamber so we can all gain that perspective.
04:39.374 Jim Boltz
Sure, sure. Well, obviously, geographically, we are in the north part of Pittsburgh, right? We're in the north hills of Pittsburgh. We actually extend through two counties, Allegheny County, which is the county that Pittsburgh sits in, but also Butler County. We merged two chambers about 10 years ago, the Cranberry Chamber and the Northern Allegheny Chamber to form our one chamber. We're one of the biggest chambers in western Pennsylvania.
we have around a thousand members, a little bit less now after the pandemic last year, but we're confident we're gonna build that back up. we are we have two offices, one in Wexford, which is in northern Allegheny County, and we have an office in Cranberry Township too. So we have the two offices. Very active chamber. We have before the pandemic, I mean we had around 200 events a year, if you can believe it.
Most of them free. We had every single week we had four networking events that members could could attend for free, plus some other things. We've cut that back a little bit now because of the pandemic. We're down to around 150. Some virtual now, some in person. We're getting more into the in-person thing. But we've really really focused on connecting members, you know, connecting them either to one another.
or to na numerous resources that we might have.
06:11.848 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. so I always find it fascinating when you have multiple offices and just the logistics of keeping up with that and and you know the staff in the different offices and whatnot. Can you just expand a little bit on that?
06:28.472 Jim Boltz
Be happy to. You know, communication is obviously the key, right? Because you have to keep everybody on the same page. and I had some experience. We when I was a store manager, I actually had in malls, I had in two different locations, I had half my store in one side of the mall and the other half in the other side of the mall. So I I got a little bit of an understanding on how to do that. But you know, we
Mondays are the days that we get together. We have our staff meetings on Mondays and everybody comes into the main office. and that's when that's decision day. So that's when we talk through everything and really make sure that everything's on the same page. but on, we communicate pretty well back and forth, either through texting, through emails, through phone conversations. And with we've always been been able to stay on the same page together. So
07:21.61 Brandon Burton
All right. Well, I'm excited to have you tell everybody about your your programs that were submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. we we talked about them a little bit before we started the recording and and it's some good stuff, but we will hop into that part of our discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break. Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB? Look no further.
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To receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app. As I've mentioned before the break, we wanted to spend some time focusing on the programs that were on your synopsis for your with the Chamber of the Year application. let me I'll just hand the ball over to you and and let you tell us about those programs. I'm sure I'll have some follow-up questions for you and a little bit of back and forth discussion. Sure.
09:16.558 Jim Boltz
Sure, I'd be happy to. Well, the first program I want to talk about is one that we call the Tri-County Collaborative. And you know, last year, whenever we all got hit with the pandemic and the shutdowns, and in Pennsylvania, the shutdowns were pretty dramatic. I mean, it for the first couple months, you couldn't really do anything. We were not deemed an essential business at that point in time. After a few months, things started to open up a little bit, but still there were so many restrictions. Well.
I'm sure that everybody can agree with me. When everything started to happen, organizations didn't know what to do and how to really, chambers didn't know how to serve their members. There was so much information coming out. your inbox was getting inundated. A lot of it was just duplicates of other things or replication of what you've already seen. so we looked and we saw that and we said, you know, we've got to help our members here, and we've got to help our members sort through it. And not only are we doing that, but but
We're looking at other organizations that probably have the same thoughts that we do. So we reached out to two other chambers, the Butler County Chamber and the Beaver County Chamber, which are neighboring to us, along with some other groups, the Butler County Tourism Group, Butler County Economic Development, Butler County Community Development, Job Corps, all these groups and said, Hey, look, would you like to join us in really putting together a strategy to help businesses? And let's
Send out one message instead of all of us repeating the same exact thing. So we did that. And what it and in in doing that, it gave us the ability, first of all, we had one email message that went out. We didn't all replicate. We we drafted it together, sent out one email message. We had one website that the information set on. we then had subgroups that we were broke down.
Again, because of the strength of the organization, we had expertise in areas. hospitality was was what area that was really hit hard. So we reached out, the Butler County Tourism, they championed that group and did webcasts and and podcasts to really help that group. our chamber took the retail group and we reached out.
11:41.41 Jim Boltz
To the retail and did different things in retail. Again, webinars, podcasts, retail events online. the Beaver County Chamber, they they headed the events group. And it was a forum to bring other members into into this and really try to help problem solve. It was open to everybody because we realized that it's not just the the chamber members that are affected by this, and we would all
gain the rewards of helping businesses. So it was open to anybody that wanted to be a part of it. We also opened up our social media accounts and set opened up another special page for anybody who wanted to post who was going through this. So really by bringing everybody together, we we really had strengthened our sources.
and we're able to help in a number of different ways and send out one message. So our our opening restaurant webcast that we did was how everybody, the restaurants had to pivot, right? They had to go to takeout. and some did it very, very well. Others struggled trying to understand how to do it. So we brought in a local restaurant who was very, very good at doing at converting.
And they did the presentation on telling the other restaurants how to do it. That that podcast had over a thousand or had around a thousand views of it. So it really was something that was that that that the community could really, the business community could really get something from. we had a job fair, because that was the next thing, right? The once then all of a sudden there were no employees.
So we had a job fair that we put on, a virtual job fair, and we had over 50 employers and over 275 applicants that that went on to that job fair, that virtual job fair. You know, so it gave us the ability to do a number of things to really help the community, the business community.
13:57.26 Brandon Burton
So what I'm curious on the virtual job fair, what kind of platform did you use for that? I mean, hopefully we're moving past the virtual, you know, point right now, but if a chamber's listening and that's still a viable thing that they need to explore, doing, you know, a job for virtual.
14:12.438 Jim Boltz
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we're all trying to figure it out, right? And this was, you know, at the beginning, and that's one of the things that we brought to the group. We have an employee who's kind of a techie, and she was able to get us up and running in a number of different ways. we just use Zoom, quite frankly. We use Zoom. we had different rooms, they gave their presentations, we gave contact information, that kind of thing. So that was early on.
but yeah, that's and and now we know that there's other software out there that we could possibly use too. We've experimented with different things. And I guess the other part of this tri-county collaborative is it brought us all together as a group because now we help the other chambers, we help tourism, we help the different other organizations do the things that they need to do, you know, that that maybe they didn't have the resources to do in the beginning. So
And we get help obviously from them too. So
15:11.314 Brandon Burton
I like that being able to come together and and combine resources. I mean, you you see that often even with you know chambers merging with economic development and tourism if they're not already combined because they're able to share the resources, or in your case, like this, just to come together and not so much of a formal partnership, but in a way it with an understanding of we're all better as we help each other out and and share some resources. So I think that's that's outstanding.
Do you have some examples of some of the you know success success stories that came out of the the Tri-County collaborative and whether it's the business that you had mentioned about the restaurants, are there other success stories that you can point to?
15:55.96 Jim Boltz
Sure. So the restaurants, we did the same thing for retail, you know, and we had different webinars with retail. And then we had a shopping event that we put together that brought in three retailers that collaborated together, actually made some products. They took what what they were selling and made combined some things and really built relationship, a relationship there that they took it then after this.
And continue to have that relationship and build. So in a number of different ways, we did a ribbon cutting. whenever things opened back up. So we did a virtual ribbon cutting. We had over 30 vendors that actually participated in that ribbon cutting that we were able to get those vendors out in front of the public to say, Hey, look, we're back open for business. Here's what we have to offer, so on and so forth. So and all our
All our podcasts were pretty well received by the by the community, so
16:55.502 Brandon Burton
That's great. well let's shift gears a little bit then to your other program and in your synopsis. if you wanna tell us about that.
17:06.647 Jim Boltz
So also one of the groups, one of the who was part of the Tri-County Collaborative was Cranberry Township. And they've for years have put on a farmers market with limited success market. And they through this came to us and said, Hey, look, would you like to be involved? And we're like, Absolutely, because we were looking for ways to help.
Businesses get in front of the community. We thought the farmer's market would be a great way to do it. Now we didn't know much about a farmer's market. So we had to go out and do a lot of research. And we really didn't have a lot of time. Like when we decided to do it, we put it all together with within about a month. and we started out the beginning of the summer. with about 26 vendors.
I think our first farmers market, we had around 265 or 70 people that attended. And that was really a great success from the past. In the fat past, they had like 10 vendors, maybe 100 people really come. By the end of the summer, we had over 40 vendors. We had attendance, well over 500 continually. And we were able to get a lot of of businesses out in front of the public.
From that, we then the holiday season, we had the same restrictions, right? Retail opened up a little bit, but we said, you know what, can we make the farmers market a holiday event? So we did. We made it a holiday village market, same space, outdoors, but instead of farmers products, we had more gift-giving type products and vendors. There we had over 40 vendors.
We had our attendance there was 1500. We had entertainment. We had a local musician who played. We had activities for kids. We did a number of different things. We had people telling us there, this is like a Hallmark movie. because you had the booths that were all light up and it was dark, and it was, you know, it was, it was kind of a night, nice thing. but it was very, very well received. And then from
19:25.902 Jim Boltz
From that, it's now evolved. We've had a year to plan a farmers market. So this year, where we're at, we have over 60 vendors. We have a waiting list of vendors. We have our opening day was over 1,300 people attended the farmers market that day. We have entertainment every week. We've incorporated special events throughout. So we have actually in a couple of weeks, we have Kidapalooza.
which is a kid themed night there. In August we have a a art fair. so it's gonna be an art show and fair. We've opened it up to local artists and and that. And then on the the last day, October first, we have Barktoberfest. So it is a dog oriented themed
Which we actually did last year. It was a lot of fun. People bring their pets, they get pictures with their pets. A lot of them come in costume because it's also it's Barktoberfest, of course. And it's just a lot of fun. And you know, it's it's something to really again promote business in the in the area. So people
20:42.126 Brandon Burton
Love their dogs. They will come out in grow in droves with the dogs.
20:46.296 Jim Boltz
We do. We started taking pictures when it as soon as we opened at three o'clock. And it's and consistently throughout, we had lines waiting until we ended at seven o'clock that night. And then we published them the next day, you know, on Facebook and that and actually actually gave them copies of us. So it was it was very well received. Yeah, from farmers market, we really see this now as something that's gonna be a community event.
21:06.455 Brandon Burton
That's great.
21:13.154 Jim Boltz
That's what Cranberry Township. They wanted it something that people would mark, put on their calendar and know that on Friday night from three to seven, there's a farmers market going on in the summertime in Cranberry. you know, and it's something a destination for people to go and and be a part of in the evening. So we're attendance continues to build. this year we're averaging where last year total event, we averaged like 350 people for for the year.
per event and this year we're up around eleven hundred people on average for the event. That's growing.
21:46.498 Brandon Burton
That's great. Yeah, I think as I look at farmers markets, I think a lot of people may have in mind, you know, the the organic fruits and vegetables and and things like that. And I'm sure they're there, but anymore, you know, that can spread to different vendors. It could have retail shops that have a booth set up. I mean, when you're limited as to as far as capacity indoors, I
a great solution is take it outdoors, make it a party, you know, make it be something that people want to be at as a destination and you're seeing the success from that.
22:21.166 Jim Boltz
And that's exactly what we did. And obviously the farmer's market, the farmers are the core, right? So we had to have the core there, but then we built on that. And we gave we have soap vendors and we have, you know, candle vendors and we have, you know, other different vendors. We try to limit the amount of pure business, you know, vendors. We have a you know, we have a cap on that because we don't want it to be a business fair type thing. We want it to be, you know, sell commodities.
But here's what we found too. You know, last year, we didn't have a chance to get any sponsorships. This year, our it's it's by far our number one sponsorship as far as desirability of our of our partners. And because it aligns with so much. It aligns with shop local, which is why we wanted to get involved in the first place. But it also aligns with healthy living.
So you have the healthcare providers that wanted to be a part of it. You have, you know, those that wanted to be a part of it. So it's it's really been a a success and something that that the community has really rallied around. So
23:31.074 Brandon Burton
Yeah. In fact, just this last week, we had some friends visiting from out of town and we went to a a local attraction here, which is a little axe throwing business. So you go it it's kind of the new thing, right? Instead of going bowling or whatever, you you go throw axes at targets. And one of the the guys that worked there at this axe throwing place came up to us and said, you know, I want to float an idea past you. He's like, Do you think this would work at the local farmers market?
yeah, if you can like figure out the safety concerns, you know, but throw an ax you know, maybe you do a box trailer or something and and throw axes in there. But I I mean that's kind of business and entertainment all in one, but it it it becomes an attraction that draws people into that farmers market. So you're not limited at all on on the types of businesses. I mean, like you said, you don't want it to be all strictly business at booths, but you got to keep that core.
But it's lots of opportunity for sure.
24:33.74 Jim Boltz
That's right. And you know, if anybody that's listening that's from Charlotte, I I will tell you, I love your city. I have a daughter who lives there. And when when my wife and I go down there, her and her husband feel every time that we go there that they've got to entertain us. And so we go down there and they'll take us uptown to you know to a number of different events. But but she'll go, well, it's Thursday night, this is going on. Let's go here. It's Friday night, this is going on, let's go here.
And that really has has been it it's it's been what I look at and and my motivation to really develop this into one of those types of of events for cranberry. Something that you say, it's Friday night, let's go do this. So
25:20.866 Brandon Burton
Yeah, absolutely. I I it sounds like you're well on your way. And I I think there's been a lot of opportunity through COVID where chambers have had to pivot. I I've seen some chambers pivot into podcasting and doing a podcast themselves. I know you guys do your YouTube channel. you've got the farmers market that was obviously a pivot through COVID. And some of these things are you know, they've they've got longevity to them.
I mean, it's something that you can keep doing for a long time that you might have never explored had COVID not, you know, come and knocked on our door the way it did.
25:58.766 Jim Boltz
That's absolutely right. And that's what I've said, you know, there's going to be a blend, right? But COVID forced us into a world that we knew was there, but we were kind of afraid to go into, right? And all of a sudden we had to. And from that, learning from that, and now using some of that technology and some of our old habits.
Bringing them together and really forming a new, you know, a new chamber and a new way of doing business.
26:32.022 Brandon Burton
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I wanted to ask you, I I enjoy doing these Chamber of the Year finalist episodes because you know the chambers that I get to interview are some of the best of the best. I mean, you guys are selected as a finalist because you guys are doing pretty awesome things there. but I wanted to see from your perspective, and it may not even be anything that's on your chamber of the year application, but what do you feel makes the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber stand out? What
What do you guys do that maybe other chambers don't do?
27:06.956 Jim Boltz
You know, I think before COVID, we were well known for connecting members through the events, through our website, through the different things. And then kind of COVID hit. but we didn't just leave we didn't just say, okay, well, we can't connect anybody anymore. We looked at new ways to do it. So I think that is probably the key to us. And and you know, we're
We didn't get into this, but I mean, we right now we have four employees. So we're a small group. It's not like I have a a a a staff of 10 people or or more than that. We have four right now. We have five before COVID. We one had left our organization right before COVID hit. We were in the process of filling her position and then put it on hold, and it's been on hold since that happened. But anyhow, we couldn't do all the things that we we do unless.
We had a lot of support. And, you know, it really starts with your board of directors. Every year, our when our new board comes on, we sit down and we we chart out what we want to accomplish for the year. So we'll have like three things that sometimes four that we say, okay, this is what we want to do. And and that helps us make the decisions through the year. It also keeps people focused.
So once we do that, then the staff comes back and we put our game plan together on how we're going to achieve those things. Then we go and I present it to the board. And then the board comes through and says, these are the things that we're going to do to meet these objectives. And then the board takes it to their committees and then the committees come back and say, Well, these are the things. What it does is it keeps everybody focused and going in the same direction. And I think that's the key because you know it's.
It's all about the communication. It's all about using the resources you have on hand and really leveraging the tools that you have. And I think that's a big key to our success.
29:13.106 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. no matter the size of the team, they say that teamwork makes the dream work, right? So whether it's your board or committees or whatever is consisting of that team, having that communication and cohesiveness is what's going to make things work. well, Jim, what would be maybe one tip or action item that a listener could take from you and maybe apply to their chamber to help take their organization up to the next level?
29:42.936 Jim Boltz
Well, I think I think what one of the things that I just said is is is pretty key, and that is getting everybody moving in the same direction. You know, I think chambers are involved evolving right now. I think it's more, I think we need to be more a part of the community. A lot of the things that we've done, you see, we are moving moving towards that. Really getting public engagement. you know, we looked and and realized.
the the the millennials and and such look at business a little bit differently than the boomers do, pro kind of a lot differently actually. And so we've got to show value to them and really be a part of of the community in the ways that they want to be a part of the community. So like I said, it's it's it's being a blend, you know, like taking some of the some of the digital stuff that we've done and making that part of what you're doing, taking, but but don't
walk away from the physical stuff because again, it's still important to to build relationships, that kind of thing. So I think I I think doing both and really moving forward is is a big part of you know, of how to move forward for a chamber of commerce.
30:58.67 Brandon Burton
I think that's great advice of doing both. I mean, it can stretch you thin, but some people go all the way to the digital side and you lose people because you're not you don't have the physical aspect. And oftentimes I feel like the digital side, it kind of pops up when you're not really expecting it, whether it's an email or social media thing or you're you're not tuned in for it necessarily, where the physical things you you have to plan for.
You have to schedule it, you gotta be there, you gotta see it, you know. And it makes a difference as far as I guess you can call it enrollment of, you know, people being involved. So
31:39.756 Jim Boltz
Brandon, can I give you an example of a digital event that we did that was very successful that we're going to move forward? Yeah. we call it the community champion. So what happened last year at the beginning of COVID? we had a restaurant that reached out to us, a chain restaurant, and said, Hey, look, we want to supply lunches for our our first responders. Could you guys help us deliver the meals to them? And we're like, absolutely. And so that's what we did. And we went and we delivered them.
And then we had businesses actually reach out to us and say, hey, look, we saw what you did. And we we did it, we you know, did it on Facebook and that we saw what you did. We want to be a part of that. We'll buy lunches. And can you guys deliver them and get people to deliver? And we're like, well, yeah. Okay, now this restaurants, right? Because it gives them business. They're buying lunch. It gives the businesses, you know, some recognition. So so then we started doing that. And then we started looking around and we saw.
My gosh, there's a lot of businesses out there that that, yeah, they're struggling businesses, but there's a lot of businesses are out there trying to help other businesses and help not other nonprofits. So we we need to recognize these businesses. So in December, we decided we're going to ask for nominations for community champions. And we figured in January, we'll recognize these community champions one per day, and we'll just give them a shout-out and tell people what they did.
Because we want the community to know how important small business is. And so, and we were just hoping we would get enough to really make it a difference. Well, not only, and originally we were going to do it every every weekday, we got we needed 22 for that. We got more than that. We opened it up then to the weekend. So every single day in January, we recognized a small business that did something in the community.
To help the community. And really, it was so well received, we decided again to make it an annual event. And we're continuing that. But that's just something it was by far our biggest engagement on social media because you had the businesses that were involved there, social media involved, the community was involved, and it really was a great event for us.
34:02.89 Brandon Burton
I love it. So any any chamber champion out there listening, I mean, Jim's not even collecting royalties for that idea. So take it and run it. That's right. It's awesome. well, Jim, I'd like to ask everyone I have on the show this question is as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
34:30.038 Jim Boltz
Again, we're not your grandfather's chamber anymore. we need to look at the world and and I think that if the last year taught us anything, it was you have to adapt. And you have to look at that everything out there and really change your chamber to make an impact on the community. And so I see chambers, you know, being more of a part of the community. We've we've
Partnered with Cranberry Township, a local township in the area. We've partnered with other organizations. We look at the different things that are going on across the country and stealing ideas from other chambers that are out there. But I think the key is really engaging people in different ways and being a part of their world and figuring out how you can get in front of people.
networking meetings now, shaking hands, giving business cards and moving on. It's there's a lot more to it. It's it's it's certainly a lot deeper than just shaking hands and giving business cards.
35:41.078 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I love that. You have to adapt and you have to make an impact in the community. That's what it's all about. Well, Jim, as we wrap things up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to put any contact information out there that you'd like for listeners to reach out and connect with you if they have any questions about any of these programs you guys are doing or just to to learn more about it. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?
36:07.778 Jim Boltz
I'll give you several ways. First of all, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Jim Boltz on LinkedIn. I'd be I'd love to connect with with everyone that that would like to. you can also email me if you like, J Boltz, B O L T Z at PGH Northchamber.com. And I'd be happy to talk to you. I'd like to hear your ideas. I I again, I I we don't
We don't have all the answers. We like to look at other chambers, see what they're doing, and I'd like to have a sharing of information back and forth. So please connect.
36:45.422 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. And I will get that in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at ChamberChatPodcast.com/episode130. But Jim, I wanted to thank you for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. Congratulations to you and your chamber as being Chamber of the Year finalists. And I wish you guys the best of luck.
37:07.192 Jim Boltz
Brandon, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed today. Thank you.
37:11.724 Brandon Burton
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37:47.694 Brandon Burton
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