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Brandon Burton (00:01.25)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2026 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalist series. And joining us today is David Jackson.
President and CEO of the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce in North Carolina, and one of the high country’s most influential community advocates. Since taking the helm of the chamber in 2016, David has helped drive initiatives that strengthen economic development, support local businesses, and enhance quality of life throughout the Boone region.
His leadership has helped position the organization as a trusted partner in addressing community opportunities and challenges while earning recognition as the 2025 Carolina’s Outstanding Chamber of the Year. David’s commitment to community service extends well beyond the chamber. He serves on numerous local and regional boards and commissions, contributes to economic development efforts across the high country, and teaches as an adjunct professor at Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business.
His impact has been recognized through several honors, including being named Community Advocate of the Year by the North Carolina Rural Center and receiving both the Town of Boone 1872 Award and the Community Inspiration Award in 2025. Before leading the chamber, David spent 16 years with Appalachian State Athletics, including a decade as Associate Athletic Director.
Many listeners may recognize his familiar voice from behind the microphone, where he built an award-winning broadcast career, earning two North Carolina Sportscasters of the Year honors. Today he continues to be a familiar voice for App State Athletics and the Carolina Panthers. Whether discussing leadership, community growth, economic development, or the future of the high country, David brings a unique perspective shaped by decades of service, storytelling, and engagement. Let’s welcome back David Jackson. David,
Brandon Burton (02:09.218)
Love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you even better.
David Jackson (02:18.063)
Yeah, well it’s it’s great to be back. always good to to see an email pop up from you in the inbox, but and it it’s also great to be in a space where you know you can talk to people that understand the work that we do on a daily basis. So yeah, so in and thinking about the the next fun fact here, I actually got into the broadcast side that you were talking about by growing up in a household where my dad was a local television weatherman.
He he served as meteorologist at WFMY TV in Greensboro for a little over twenty years and had about thirty years in the industry. so we we moved to North Carolina in nineteen eighty-two, right after Michael Jordan hit the shot that gave North Carolina the national championship and made him a little bit famous. And and and that that kind of solidified my love for sports in a new area, but but yeah, so I I used to go back to work with my dad at night and
Brandon Burton (03:00.012)
La vea.
David Jackson (03:11.515)
sneak out of the weather office and go hang out with the sports guys and and that’s kind of where my career interest got started.
Brandon Burton (03:17.294)
Yeah, that’s awesome. So I’m curious, did your dad have to change his name as a weatherman? You see all these, you know
David Jackson (03:23.793)
No, he he had a plain enough name that that was okay. So he d he didn’t have a stage name or anything like that. But but it it’s interesting he he got started in sports as well and was was the radio station director. he went to Southern Illinois in Carbondale and was the the sports director at the radio station and and called games for the Salukies. So when I was working at App State, after he left TV weather
Brandon Burton (03:28.074)
Okay.
David Jackson (03:49.052)
I actually had him join our broadcast crew as our sideline reporter, and we worked together for about a decade in that in that way. So he actually continued on with the network after I left. So he was he was the my inside scoop for for information there for a while. But it it was a fun opportunity to work with a parent and and anything, let alone something like that, was really special.
Brandon Burton (04:00.055)
Okay.
Brandon Burton (04:12.642)
Yeah. Very cool. well I know we just
Recently had you on I say recently, it was I guess December of twenty twenty five that your your previous episode aired on the podcast. But it you’re definitely a familiar voice and face on the on Chamber Chat Podcast. But for those who maybe miss that episode or s tune in especially for these Chamber of the Year final series, tell us about the Boone Area Chamber to give us perspective, the size of your chamber, staff, scope of work, budget you guys work with, just to kind of set the stage for our
Yeah.
David Jackson (04:47.665)
Yeah, sure. So the the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce is located in the mountains of northwest North Carolina in Watauga County. We are on the state line of Tennessee and are real close to the Virginia border. So if you think about the triangle where where North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia come together up there in the northwest, we are located in in that region of the state. About an hour and forty-five minutes northwest of Charlotte, about an hour and forty-five minutes west of Greensboro. So beautiful area of the mountains. We’re at about thirty five hundred feet up here.
and and enjoy the the mountain climate. We’re in rainforest season right now, which is good because we we were also experiencing drought conditions. So rain right now as Chamber of Commerce weather. our organization has about 700 members, give or take on the day. You all understand that. our budget annually for the C6 side of the house is about 850,000 in terms of revenue. and that number has has grown some over the years.
Brandon Burton (05:30.237)
Okay.
David Jackson (05:46.45)
We’ve got a staff of eight full time employees and and a couple of part time employees at this point. And in the last two and a half years or so, we’ve taken on a five one C three foundation, which was very helpful to us in the recovery from Hurricane Helene. I know we talked about that a lot in the last episode. but that that has made for us to to have between a one point seven five and two million dollar organization totally.
Brandon Burton (06:01.326)
Must be a recovery.
I’m sorry. but that no.
David Jackson (06:14.379)
if you if you use Mike Gelman terminology, our our our full full organization runs right around two million and and has a lot of philanthropic tie-in to it as well. So we we’ve evolved in that way in the last three to four years and and really feel like we are a different organization now than we were five years ago.
Brandon Burton (06:34.668)
I’m sure you feel bit just more solid, more strength behind that with having more of that infrastructure built out and we I’m sure we’ll talk more about that throughout this episode as well. that definitely does help to set the stage though.
David Jackson (06:42.759)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (06:49.622)
So, for these Chamber of the Year finalist episodes, what I’d really like to spend the bulk of our time on is the programs of work that were submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. So, as I understand, just from a high level, you guys have a child care program that we’ll address that ties into your economic development initiatives, and also a community resilience fund that, if I’m not mistaken, came out of the Helene recovery efforts. So we’ll dive in deeper on the details of those two programs.
As soon as we get back from this quick break.
All right, David, we’re back. as I mentioned before the break, kind of hitting on the the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if you have a preference on which one you want to address first in our discussion today. yeah, yeah, we can part. All right. Well let’s let’s let’s attack the child care front. I know that
David Jackson (07:36.851)
He yeah, yeah, we can we can start with whichever one you would like to.
Brandon Burton (07:44.994)
That tends to be something nationwide that there’s issues with. So hopefully there’s some good things that listeners can learn from.
David Jackson (07:51.41)
Yeah, so we we touched on this the last time we talked a little bit. you know, most most chambers and economic development organizations, if you haven’t been involved in this space, you’re warming up to it now that that early childhood development and and child care in general is an essential piece of economic development strategy. we have been involved in this conversation in our community for nearly a decade now. we had our our smart start agency got together a group of business
leaders and business owners and and just community influencers a little over nine years ago now and just said, hey, you know, we need to do an asset map. We need to first of all tell you, help you connect the dots why childcare is essential for businesses that that may not even have employees with children, why why this is such an important fabric of our community. So we really took took that that on as a challenge to try to help message that to our business community. just the the essential
workforce that that that industry represents. But then also shining some light on how porous that industry was. you know, you were talking about solid foundations earlier, and I don’t know if there’s a state in the country that can claim that they’ve got a solid foundation underneath their early child care system. Here in North Carolina, there is a state a state subsidy floor that is actually being debated in the General Assembly as we speak.
That has not been reset in about six years. So when you start thinking about the the cost of doing business for the business and getting full cost of care for the children that they are caring for, they are missing the mark by a lot. And that that doesn’t even account for the inflationary increases that we’ve seen, you know, over the last 18 months or so. So this industry is is in a very difficult situation for its own solvency, yet we rely on
these centers and these workers nurturing our children at their most vulnerable time of brain development, trying to get them ready for for pre-K and kindergarten and on into third grade assessments. But we also know that without those businesses, we have no business. We we have so many people in this particular community, dual family career households are the norm. You you cannot afford to live here on one income. So
Brandon Burton (10:02.85)
Really, yeah.
David Jackson (10:15.249)
Families need that security of knowing that they’ve got a place for their children to go, that it’s safe, it’s well maintained, they’re going to get education and not just screen time sitting over in the corner. you know, so we have championed those efforts and and have been, you know, kind of carved out our space as a statewide advocate in connecting the business community to to this work. So we we have used our foundation as as a catapult for this over the last few years.
take it back to Helene for a second and and that the the first fundraising that we did post disaster, we raised about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars in you know the first five or six days after the after the storm. So our foundation board met and and we we tried to figure out what we could do with that kind of money at that time and they said let’s be what we are about and we are about childcare in in our community. So we we were able to take
The majority of those funds and and combine them with another grant that the Spar the Smart Start Agency had and got about two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars out the door within a few days after the storm to pay off the October tuition debt for families that had children and early child care facilities in our community. that not only freed up short-term cash for those families to address emerging hurricane repair needs, but it also helped make sure that the the
Brandon Burton (11:33.998)
Yeah, yes.
David Jackson (11:39.88)
The business model of early childhood was still intact when everybody came back to work in in November. so we’ve made it now an October tradition to fundraise for a unique project within the early childhood landscape. Last year we did a fundraising project for a child care for child care workers initiative. And this year we just recently announced that we’re doing a one-time retention bonus for.
Brandon Burton (11:39.93)
Okay.
Brandon Burton (11:46.67)
Right.
Brandon Burton (11:58.531)
Well.
David Jackson (12:05.995)
childcare staff that have been at six month, one year, and two year plus increments. And so we’re trying to raise somewhere in the neighborhood of $65,000 to do a one-time retention bonus for those staff members to show them, number one, that the community cares about them, that that they see them. This is often a a very overlooked element of our workforce. But that that two, the the centers can use this as a retention bonus. And as we’re we’re looking at the fluctuation of education professionals at this time of year.
Brandon Burton (12:10.926)
Yeah,
Brandon Burton (12:17.166)
Right.
David Jackson (12:34.555)
those that maybe have enough education and background to get into a teaching assistant position in the county, those those child care centers need to keep that staff. And we we hope that this is an enticement that that can keep folks working, put a little bit more money in their pockets right before the holidays and again show, you know, shine a a a bright spotlight on a very critical element of our workforce here in our community.
Brandon Burton (12:58.944)
Yeah. Just this last weekend I was having a conversation with a a friend and he and his wife are just a young couple and they just had their second child. And they both have their own careers and everything, but now they’re debating, you know, do does the wife go back to work or you know, trying to weigh out the child care costs versus what the income levels are and that’s kind of that threshold where it’s like I it’s so then you’re pulling from the workforce and and all that. So child care is so so important to address.
I’m curious with your approach. Like you talked about the one time retention bonus and the the annual fundraising around childcare. w what kind of childcare facilities would qualify? Is it just any licensed facility within the county or is it like the home daycare places and would they qualify? Like what’s the that threshold?
David Jackson (13:48.658)
Yeah, so it’s a great question. And it and it speaks to how every state is aligned a little bit differently too. So in our case, we are are allocating these funds to licensed care facilities, both the the traditional centers that you think about, but also the in home care centers that also have to go through a licensure you know, qualification here in North Carolina. And, you know, we found when we did child care for child care workers, so I’ll I’ll back up and say that we have always picked for for these
now two years and and even take it to Helene, we have we have picked things that have had some sort of a legislative priority or are a priority of the advocates within the industry. So certainly Helene recovery was at the top of the top of the top of the list back in in October of 2024 throughout Western North Carolina. And there are still some centers that have not reopened yet because of the damage that they sustained during that period of time.
When we when we’ve looked at these last two years, we have gone back to that same advocacy group and said, All right, tell us what your your priorities are. Well, Childcare for Childcare Workers was about having a pilot program where we could and this was this is another program that’s being debated in our our state general assembly now, about funding the the slots that are taken by workers from those facilities. So in some cases, you know, a a center.
staff members taking one of their own children into that same center. And rather than them just giving their paycheck right back to their boss essentially for for the reasons that you just articulated, there there is a push in North Carolina to try to create a fund where those funds could at least be partially subsidized, if not fully paid for, for those staff members. Again, in the in the spirit of workforce retention and recruitment, but also
A healthy stabilizer for the child care business because what we found was that a number of those facility owners were writing that cost off anyway. You’re looking at a business model that has about a 1% profit margin to it. They can’t afford to give away too much. So it does those payments went directly to the centers to offset income that would be coming from the family, and everybody kind of won there. And then we we authored a white paper and sent that to our General Assembly members and said, here’s what we learned.
Brandon Burton (15:50.574)
Yeah.
David Jackson (16:08.827)
And one of the things we learned was that the in-home childcare centers could not take advantage of that because they didn’t really have a staff. there was just one person with about five kids and and so we we were able to help them understand that if that was going to be a legislative priority, there had to be some sort of set aside or carve out or or or at least acknowledgement of the fact that not every business within the industry operates the same way. so so that’s been helpful. It it’s kept us in in
Very close contact with legislators as as we’re looking at at the overall systemic issues there. And another thing I’d point out quickly is the regulatory aspect of this. when and when we think regulation, a lot of people’s minds go straight to safety. There is nothing being discussed in our state about changing the safety standards around how children are cared for. As a matter of fact, it’s going in the other direction and and really leaning into ways that that that children can be cared for as as safely as possible.
But what we have noticed in our state, and we have heard this from other states around us, is the duality of some of this regulation and the contradiction that comes from that. And what I mean by that is we we’ve got a very real scenario here in our county where there is a person that comes in and does the license requirement review for one set of standards. They will then leave the facility, go sit in their car, eat their lunch, come back inside the center.
And judge that same business off of a completely different set of standards for another licensure requirement. And oftentimes those things are contradictory. And we’re talking about things like the the food quality of lunches and and you know some of the the fundamental things around building structure, you know, access points, those things all tie to safety and we don’t want to see any of that change. But but some of the the the paperwork chase that is involved in this industry is
Brandon Burton (17:44.621)
Not
David Jackson (18:02.851)
is enough to to take up one if not two staff members. And again, these are businesses that run very lean because the profit margin is is next to nothing. So so we we are involved in this in the in the foundational sense and trying to support this industry and lend some voice to an industry that doesn’t have time for the voice. We’re we’re fortunate that we have a a well placed board member of ours that is in some of the statewide decisions on one of Governor Stein’s task force initiatives for this.
So we’re able to to to be, you know, kind of at the ground level of some of the substantive conversation that’s coming up in the in the legislative pipeline. And then again, you know, to close this, all of this is being being done to support an industry that supports every other industry here in our community. And anytime there’s a center closure or a hiccup in the system, it snows and the centers close. We find out real quick just how valuable that that business line is to our community, especially a rural community like ours.
Brandon Burton (19:02.19)
Yeah. Well it sounds like you guys have definitely done your homework and you know the the industry, you know, very well. I was gonna say inside and out, but I’m sure there’s some thing you know, still room to to learn more about it, but definitely making an impact there. Let’s let’s shift gears a bit to the other program of work that was submitted around your community resilience fund. If you wanna tell us what that is and how that came to be.
David Jackson (19:25.957)
Yeah, so we we submitted some information about our hurricane response. you know, as as all chambers and and no matter what community you’re in, I wanna shout out Sharifa Jones out in Iowa, who has been just a wonderful resource for us here in North Carolina. they were a few months ahead of us on a disaster claim due to a flood and just being being able to benchmark where they are versus where we’re going. you know, she has been just a wonderful resource. So
Brandon Burton (19:47.319)
It flood, yeah.
David Jackson (19:55.4)
So to shout out to Sharifa. But i in that spirit, you know, as we’re thinking about how we responded to that, both from a monetary standpoint, from an advocacy standpoint, we we are involved. I’m I’m a member of Governor Stein’s task force for Western North Carolina recovery. it’s about, you know, fifty people you know across all kinds of of business scopes as you would imagine. So we
We get a chance on a monthly basis to meet and and chart different areas of of Western North Carolina’s recovery. And then my area of focus is with a number of professionals on the long term economic recovery. One of the things that we have learned in this is that as FEMA is being reshaped in front of us nationally, and really that process started as we were getting started with our recovery here in in Western North Carolina. you know, you can play the timing.
Of that. I think I said on the last episode, never have your natural disaster in the middle of a contentious presidential election. That that’s what we found. We could have written our synopsis on that, right? But but what we found in in the process is that that in our state, communities are going to be tasked with the rapid response element, both from a personal side through the LTRGs, and and any kind of business support is gonna have to come as rapid response from the community itself.
Brandon Burton (20:53.998)
That’s right. Plan for that. Yeah.
David Jackson (21:16.615)
We have we have long noted and and have beaten our heads up against the wall about business support. coming from disaster funding, we have yet to see any kind of federal allocation. We’ve received one state allocation through the governor’s office to a nonprofit that was able to to dole out some funds. But but every time that we’ve gone back to say, hey, you know, we we need to get these businesses back on their feet again so they can continue to create the tax revenue that these local rural communities need to survive, we get
Sorry, we can’t give money directly to to to businesses from the state government. There’s an emoluments clause in North Carolina that prevents that. So all of that said, we have have started working on the local answers. So we we raised about $1.4 million and distributed that through disaster grant funding to small businesses from our chamber. We had a lot of philanthropic interest in that, of course. but we had a lot of donors that that they’re in the onset of the storm.
The heartstrings attachment to our area. It was $10, $25, $100 donations that made up a large pot that we were able to distribute disaster grants through four funding rounds. We are now looking at reshaping that program to be a community resilience and stability program where we know that we’ve got dollars that that we can fundraise for throughout the year. It’s not sexy fundraising, we understand that, but but we want to.
have at least a pool of money to where when the next disaster strikes, whatever that happens to be, we’ve got some deployable funds immediately available to us. And then we can fundraise to refill that off of whatever happened. But it’s it’s just about having rapid action cash that a lot of communities don’t have available to them when a business burns down due to a fire or there is an economic disruption of some sort.
So we’re in the process of migrating our disaster grant program into this more you know kind of 365 day a year evergreen community resilience fund. And then thinking out how we can allocate those funds. So we we anticipate and our foundation board’s working through this now of of you know probably having about 80% of those funds attached to the disaster need and defining what disasters are.
David Jackson (23:32.616)
But then thinking that we’ve got 20% of that funding that can be micro loans or micro grants to the business that is still struggling at a time like this. We have not been dealt any favors economically from our hurricane disaster on top of a difficult winter, on top of gas prices raising, on top of, on top of, in a tourism-dependent economy. So we want to create some things that could be, you know, a microgrant to a business that needs a little bit of a boost.
Could be professional development funding for a group that needs to be trained in a certain way to handle new circumstances. We’ve got some flexibility there. And that that’s really given us some opportunity to dream a bit about what, you know, we could work off the interest on something like that. You know, we’re we’re still kind of in the formative stage of all of that. But the the synopsis that we wrote was that, you know, not only did this was this funding necessary in in the immediate, but we also
all need to think about how these funds are deployed in our community outside of the federally declared disaster. And if the federal government’s not going to declare them in the same way, surely our states are not yet understanding of what that looks like for them. So again, we can’t wait on anybody else. We we’ve got to to create the case that that this kind of funding is needed.
It’s separate from the personal lines that that again are handled by the long-term recovery groups, but very much works in concert with those things. And hopefully we can create a scenario where our community feels like we’ve got a little bit of a of a a tool that we can use until larger help arrives. And and something we did not have before the hurricane. you know, that that kept us from getting resources out for weeks.
Brandon Burton (25:06.136)
Yeah.
Yeah.
David Jackson (25:17.605)
Now we’d like to create a situation where, hey, within a couple of days, we’re stroking a check, we’re helping somebody out and getting them a few steps farther down the road to recovery in a way that does not lock them out from any other funding moving forward.
Brandon Burton (25:32.462)
Yeah. I like the the self reliance aspect of taking care of your community, you know, taking care of your own first and not needing to sit around and wait for federal aid to come in and and hopefully it does come, but you’re not gonna sit around and wait for it. you’d mentioned the go ahead. Yeah.
David Jackson (25:37.405)
Mm-hmm.
David Jackson (25:47.974)
Yeah, and yeah, just just to say real quick, you know, to I I think part of of what we’ve learned in the in the last couple of years and where Sharif has been helpful and and several others around the country that have gone through these kinds of things is is to understand the the level of red tape that exists with all of these programs. Certainly and understandably so. We’re we’re all smart enough in this industry to understand why federal funds have the have the extra hoops to jump through, right?
And some of our state funding is like that. And even some of our local funding, depending on where it’s passing through, gets bogged down in in the the quagmire of paperwork. But what we are hopeful in that we can come up with a trustworthy but simple process where we’re not bogging people down with chasing every piece of paper that they’ve ever, you know, had with their business. There needs to be some truthful understanding of where they are and and why they are in the situation that they’re in.
But we’re hopeful to create a scenario where we’re we’re able to we’re we’re able to get funds to people quickly because we’re taking away some of those barriers. and part of that I I think goes back to the nature of our business and that’s the relationships. to sit around a room where grants are being allocated and say, I know that business and I know their last five-year history and I know that their son is just getting ready to take it over or or what have you.
That’s valuable information that I think that we in our industry take for granted sometimes when when we can just have that kind of top of mind. yes, this is my community. I I understand it and I can get to yes faster because I’ve been paying attention. And and I think so many of us are in that that position where we all have this crazy amount of information in our brains, then we don’t know when we’re gonna need it. Well, you need it at a time like that. And I think that’s where our organization could be very helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (27:15.598)
Sure.
Brandon Burton (27:35.311)
CRM doesn’t quite carry all that information that’s in your head, right? Yeah. So you had mentioned that the the fundraising for it is not necessarily sexy. And I know, you know, coming out of the the storm, there was the obvious need you could say, you could, you know, have things to point to and say, this is why we’re fundraising, and you get that support of $10 here, $20 there, $1,000, you know, all over the board. But going forward, when you don’t have that.
That initial emotional moment that pulls on the heartstrings, what does that fundraising look like that that is not sexy?
David Jackson (28:11.505)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a great question. And and and it’s an answer that we don’t really have fully addressed yet. we’re in the relationship building stage of that right now. So we’re just shy of two years out from from our disaster. And and again, as we benchmark against other communities that have been through similar things. you know, we’ve got Gatlinburg not far from here from the the fires that they went through you know, several years back now. And talking to some of these professionals and and the businesses around there.
You know, we find that now is the time to make the deep philanthropic relationships work. So our state is actually being helpful with that. The governor’s task force is trying to bring in some national and even international philanthropic efforts to Western North Carolina recovery, but they are doing a great job of making sure that those folks are meeting local contacts on the ground. And as we all know, in the grant funding world, there’s a bucket over here and a bucket over here, and those two buckets can’t pour into the same thing.
But they can pour into similar things. So you might meet somebody that that is controlling bucket number one. And one day they will say, hey, but bucket number two is now available, and that one’s for you. So I I think the the relationship building piece of it is the work that nobody ever sees. it’s the work that you don’t write the press release on, but it is essential to the next step. So we we have been really working that right now, trying to get out in front of people what.
Brandon Burton (29:30.168)
Yeah.
David Jackson (29:36.232)
the true conditions are on the ground. And I’ve I’ve found that that’s the toughest message to communicate. It’s the, you know, the the the road is fixed, the the ground may be healed over a little bit, and people can’t see necessarily as easily the impacts of that that disaster from two years ago. But we all in this industry know that the economic ramifications from that kind of disruption take years to to get over. And we’re in the middle of that right now.
We we’ve got businesses that that any disruption is a magnified disruption. We had a rainy Memorial Day weekend. That really put a damper on our retail and and and tourism based industries. We had snow on every Friday in January. That that does not work well for the ski industry here because the roads were not accessible for people to get to to the area. you know, so we’ve had to fight some curveballs off and and foul a few pitches off, but we’re we’re hopeful that through relationship equity.
Brandon Burton (30:12.302)
Yeah.
David Jackson (30:30.739)
Through our state continuing to support the region, we can we can make some of the relationships that we’ll then decide to learn more about our communities. And then we get into storytelling mode, which we we all know we can flip that switch on and and we’re all passionate about the things that our community needs. And that that’s what we’re hoping is the next step in in all of this. And and are starting to make some inroads in that direction.
Brandon Burton (30:52.278)
Yeah, very good. But I love how both of these programs show that you guys have day you know, a vision for the future.
You guys are creating that roadmap going forward to make sure that your business community and the local economy there is going to be as sound as possible because of the efforts that the chamber is making. So kudos to you guys for being that you know foresight kind of thinking. as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask you on behalf of those listening, what kind of tip or action item would you leave for the chamber out there listening who wants to take their organization up to the next level?
David Jackson (31:29.821)
Yeah, that’s a great question too. We, you know, we’re going back to the the chamber of the year finalist piece, you know, we we set into that process to learn. we we had just gone through a a program here in North Carolina called Family Forward, which is a certification that you can get if you have some HR principles for the most part that are in alignment with Family Forward practices and policies. Everything from making sure that you’re offering maternity and paternity leave, to to how your your
Dealing with all kinds of staff retention initiatives and things along those lines. So when we went through that process, we got certified, but we saw some things that we wanted to change. And that led us down a road with policies and procedures. And then that led us down a road of membership retention and recruitment and some of our internal chamber strategies. So when it got to time for the for the ACCE submissions, we thought, well, we’ve done a lot of work. Let’s just see where we are. Let’s see how we benchmark against some other peer organizations.
And and we were we’re gonna rely on that feedback. And you know, little did we know that that we got to this stage, but we are as excited to get to New Orleans to learn as much as anything. And I think that’s my my advice is to go into it hoping to get better through the process, whether you get selected, whether you whether you and that this could be your state organizations or or any type of way that you can say, are we on the right path?
And can we judge that against organizations that do something similarly? Because there really are no organizations like ours. It’s not like you can look down the street and say, hey, you know, there’s a building business in the building next door. Let’s see how our sales match up. That’s not what the chambers are. So I I think it’s one of the the most helpful things with with ACCE has been to do that with like peer sets. And and you know, whether that’s budget,
type of community, size of population, all those types of things, to be able to go in and look under the hood and say, hey, yeah, we do these things really well. But here’s some areas that we can learn from some others on on how we can just get better as an organization. And as I mentioned, we’ve had a lot of change here in the last four years. added staff, new building, new foundation, hurricane recovery. It’s time for us to take that look and say, where are we? And and how can we become the chamber of the future, knowing that that
David Jackson (33:48.988)
some of the the the methods and and methodology of the past is no longer no longer gonna be something that we can count on. you know, so that that’s part of the process. I think if you enter into it with that that constant mindset of nothing is nothing is sacred, everything deserves to look under the hood every once in a while and you can get better for that. I think that’s what we’re most excited about being involved in this process.
Brandon Burton (34:12.27)
I think that’s great advice and it’s a great perspective to take, you know, going into this this kind of process. I know I’ve asked you before when you were on the show, but I like asking, you know, whenever I have somebody on the show, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
David Jackson (34:28.007)
You know, I think my answer has changed in the last six months. you know, we are in a very odd economic time around the country, and and I think everybody’s got their version of this right now. we are in a tourism dependent area though we are trying to diversify our economy. And I think I touched on that last time that we’ve had two major disruptions in the last six years that have shown us what major pieces of our com are are or what our community looks like when major pieces are turned off.
We are a in a university town with Appalachian State. When the university goes away and tourism goes away, we become very quiet and and very, very isolated. so we have been thinking about that economic diversification at a time where everything costs more. So while we’re championing the business startup and the entrepreneurial effort and and trying to get some of that intellectual property off of campus and into businesses, we know that we’re encouraging people to do this at a time that it costs more than ever to do these things.
Brandon Burton (34:55.788)
Yeah.
David Jackson (35:24.941)
And I think that that the the future version of the chamber world has to be one where you’re getting the real time information and reacting off of that real time look. I I don’t think that we can sit here and say today, I I know I can’t, from from R C what our community’s going to look like three hundred and sixty five days from now. There are a lot of ifs that come into that, more so than ever that I’ve experienced in the ten years of being in this job.
We have to be really good at anticipating the if scenarios and helping people see, all right, here’s option A or here’s what could happen if these things fall into place and here’s option B and so on and so forth. And not do that as a scare tactic by any stretch, but but helping people, taking that that helpful nurturing nature of ourselves and and being just a little bit more detailed with that. And being able to go to a business and say, all right, if we
If we have a strong summer, this is what you’re looking at in terms of size of events or whatever your thing might be. And if we take a step back, here are some tools and resources that we can go ahead and get introduced to you. It’s so much more personal and people are tired. In a community that’s gone through COVID and a natural disaster, people are short, they are frustrated, they’re tired of being in this same place of kind of spinning wheels. And we have to be kind of the psychologists.
To say it’s okay. Everybody else is dealing with this and we can help you. But we’ve got to be able to match the help that the moment needs, not what a book 10 years ago told us about, because that that book is no longer valid. I think there’s been some some great conversation within the industry on your podcast and and other other sources that are encouraging us to think about how we evolve. And I I think that conversation is
Brandon Burton (36:51.672)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (37:03.0)
Right.
David Jackson (37:14.619)
As relevant as it’s ever been. And I’m looking forward to getting to New Orleans and hearing where other people are with that. Because that I think this is a real critical time, once again, for us to prove our worth, like we did back during COVID. Whatever the next six months looks like or the next year looks like, you know, as we we head closer to the midterms, we have an opportunity to be the industry that helps people make sense of it all. And I think if we’re committed to that, we’re we’re gonna come out on the other side even stronger than we’ve
Brandon Burton (37:21.528)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (37:40.758)
I love that response. Very, very good. well, David, before I let you go, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Boone. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to come?
David Jackson (37:54.161)
Yeah, sure. So Boonechamber.com is our address. Don’t confuse us with Boone, Iowa. we we get calls for each other all the time and we we have a good relationship there. we’re all named after the same guy. So, you know, celebrate Daniel Boone in whatever part of the country that you would like to. but we are Boone, North Carolina. Boonechamber.com is our address. You can learn more about what we’re doing with our foundation. and anybody that that would like to to have a a quick chat and
Brandon Burton (38:01.998)
Yeah, better.
David Jackson (38:21.543)
Talk a little bit about initiatives. And if you’ve got advice for us, we’re we’re all ears for it. But we we love talking with people in the profession. Again, we all know that that this is a small world, a small universe. I’ve got my IOM shirt on here. Shout out Tucson class four getting ready to to head out there to finish things up this year. But w we know that the more we talk and communicate, you know, the stronger that we all are. And I I’m so thankful for our Western North Carolina Chamber.
Brandon Burton (38:34.881)
Yeah, yeah.
David Jackson (38:49.531)
brethren that have have helped shepherd us through this time and and for all of the people that have poured into us over the last couple of years, we’re here today because of that. And we want to be that resource to anybody else that that we can ever help. So just reach out anytime. And Brandon, always great to talk to you and and continued best of luck with the podcast and know that we’re out there listening every week.
Brandon Burton (39:10.784)
I appreciate that so much. And best of luck to you and your team and again congratulations being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. yeah, good luck in New Orleans.
David Jackson (39:18.781)
Thank you very much.
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