Aligning Your Programming & Advocacy Efforts with Mirinda Rothrock

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 48 — Aligning Your Programming & Advocacy Efforts with Mirinda Rothrock
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Mirinda Rothrock
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.
00:14.434 Brandon Burton
And now your host. He has been serving the chamber industry for over 13 years. Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is Brandon Burton, your host, and thank you for joining us here for episode 48 of Chamber Chat Podcast. Today, our guest who's gonna spend some time with us is Mirinda Rothrock, president of the Decatur Regional Chamber in Illinois.
00:41.494 Brandon Burton
Mirinda, her 30 years of leadership experience and covenus manager of community engagement for one of the largest agricultural processors in the world to her current position as president of the Decatur Regional Chamber of Commerce. She oversees key programs, events, and has increased all aspects of chamber membership. She works with the Chamber's Board and Executive Committee to strengthen the organization's focus and planning while continuing to promote Opportunity, growth, and prosperity in local commerce. Mirinda was born and raised in Decatur, Illinois, graduated from Milliken University with a Bachelor of Science in Management and Organizational Leadership. She serves on the board of directors for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Executives, Regional Planning Commission, Workforce Investment Board, Economic Development Corporation of Decatur and Macon County, and the Decatur Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. She volunteers for many community initiatives and is a member of the Mount Zion Christian Church. She is married and has four children. today, as Miranda's here on the show with us, we're gonna be covering topics and ideas around advocacy and programming. And we'll jump right into this as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1. Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchapodcast.com slash CC for credit card. Again, ChamberchapPodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. All right, Mirinda, we are back. Thank you for joining us today here on ChamberThat Podcast. Please
03:01.216 Brandon Burton
Say hello to the audience and if you would, share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:07.87 Mirinda Rothrock
Sure. Hello. So pleased to be here with you, Brandon. Something unique and usual, I guess, about me. you know, this is my second career. in my bio, I was manager of community engagement for Archer Daniels Midland Company, ADM, one of the largest agricultural processing companies. and this is my second career here at the Chamber of Commerce. I've been here now eight full years.
03:35.382 Brandon Burton
All right. That's awesome to be able to be successful in two different areas. Not many people can say that about their careers. So great job. can you share with us a little bit about the Decatur Chamber, size, location, budget, just so listeners can relate to kind of your point of view of where you're coming from in your chamber.
03:55.96 Mirinda Rothrock
Well, I'm super proud of our Decatur Regional Chamber of Commerce. We recently went through a rebranding and renaming. So we just made this launch on November the first. So really excited about taking an a new look about a a regional aspect as well. So we're located here in the Midwest, Decatur, Illinois. We're about three hours south of Chicago. we have about six hundred and eighty members, and our budget is about a little over half a million dollars.
04:26.444 Brandon Burton
Right. Very good. That's very respectable and will help the listeners be able to see kind of where you're coming from as you talk about advocacy and programming with us today. So
04:38.144 Mirinda Rothrock
Right, I feel like we've fallen a really good middle line. We're not super small, but we're certainly not large. We kind of really hit that middle of the road.
04:46.754 Brandon Burton
Which I think is where a large majority of the chambers across the country are at is kind of in that that range where you are maybe four hundred to eight hundred members kind of in that range. So you're right in the middle there. and budget wise, very similar as well. So as we come to the the topic for discussion today of advocacy and programming, what are some of your thoughts around that? Why is that why is this topic so important to you?
05:15.702 Mirinda Rothrock
I really believe that in my short time in the chamber world compared to many others, I believe that advocacy and aligning your programming is just vital for chambers of commerce to help prepare, educate, and really serve as a resource for our membership.
05:33.048 Brandon Burton
Think that's great. I know, I know with the a lot of chambers, advocacy can be kind of a tricky thing as far as showing your value to the community. we we all know being tied in with the the chambers, you know, the the purpose and role of a chamber, why advocacy is so important. But when you try to communicate that importance to your membership in general, I hear chamber members all over the country that maybe they have a different idea of what a chamber should do. And when they come across it, they they don't realize the importance of advoc advocacy and they're just in it for themselves and they want to see what's a chamber done for me. But can you speak to that how maybe there at your chamber you're able to express the value and the the reasoning for advocacy to your general membership?
06:26.926 Mirinda Rothrock
You know, it's it is a tricky subject. So I encourage chambers throughout to be able to look, you know, locally. There's obviously getting involved with, you know, their county board or their city government, perhaps village government, different different alignments there. But I think, you know, they can always survey chamber membership. I think it's important if there's a topic of interest, whether that's a a tax increase, a property tax increase. If that's something local, they're looking to raise their levies. Perhaps, you know, the chamber can survey their members, get some input, get some statistics. Having good data to back up your stance or your position from a chamber is is just crucial. So recently here within the state of Illinois, there was a minimum wage increase. Our chamber here locally surveyed our membership, we asked them, is this something you're in favor of? Is this something you can live with? And we got a really good response. Over 80% of our our survey respondents surveyed that they did not want that increase. We were able to use that data, use the number of members who responded. We were able to join forces with other regional chambers and have a bigger, larger voice. So not only did I have a local voice, I had a regional voice, and we really got the attention of our local legislators. So it was really key and vital. And so we also allowed our members throughout this survey to say, hey, why? What would this mean to your business? Some of them said, Hey, with the with this minimum wage increase, it raises the the cost of me to do business. It may put me out of business. Someone said that it would raise their their ability to do business by thirty thousand dollars and it wasn't feasible for them to be able to to do. We were able to use those comments, the that exact verbiage coming from our members, feed that to our legislators, and then lo and behold on the Senate floor we had our our state senator reading comments from Decatur and Macon County what real business owners were saying about this
08:45.546 Mirinda Rothrock
increase. And so that was really important for our membership to know that we were able to collectively both on just our chamber membership but on a regional voice and we had a larger voice within our state.
09:00.694 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's great. So I I know there's not always a situation such as minimum wage increases going on or things quite as political. do you maybe have any other examples of how advocacy there at your chamber has been a vital element to how you've gone about with your messaging to your chamber members?
09:26.668 Mirinda Rothrock
We've had we've we've done more on a on a state level than than we have local. We did have a utility tax rate that our that our city was looking to increase and you know being an advocate for membership, you know, it it had the city come to us, ask us, some of the their council members called and said, Hey, we we're we're looking to generate more revenue. our pensions with our fire and our police continue to increase. We're looking at different revenue avenues and we know that, you know, we have some of the lowest utility rates in the in the state. So, you know, what what would be the chambers position? And so I think that them coming to us, them kinda asking us about that, it it showed that we we are certainly active and our voice was wanted and needed. And, you know, because of that, we were against an any kind of a a tax increase on our businesses. that didn't come to fruition.
10:33.142 Brandon Burton
Great example. Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that aligning your programming with your advocacy is vital. What makes it so vital in your community to align your programming with your advocacy efforts?
10:49.58 Mirinda Rothrock
So I can I can go ahead and and use the minimum wage example and say that, you know, now we have a graduated increase in our minimum wage. Many of our businesses, our business owners, managers, CEOs, they're so busy in the day to day operations of their business, they really truly don't have the time to monitor when are these increases gonna happen. And and some of them are incremental. Come January one, there's going to be an incremental increase. Come July one, there's going to be another increase. And then the every year after that, there'll be an increase for the next five to seven years. So, you know, how do we help educate? What do we, you know, w how do we help our businesses remember that this is coming their way as they're making their budgets, as they're planning their inventory, as they're looking to hire? providing new services. How do we help our businesses grow and yet keep them knowledgeable about what's heading down down the pathway? So not only was minimum wage increased this past year, but there were other, several other mandates within the state of Illinois that happened. There will have to be some sexual harassment training come for every single employee within the state of Illinois. So We're looking at aligning our programs. We've already brought in a lawyer from the Chicago area, came down and helped educate on the new laws that were recently passed. Recreational marijuana, the minimum wage increase, the sexual harassment training and and varied other laws and and regulations that are gonna be happening. So we kind of brought in an expert to kind of help educate our members. We had over a hundred of our chamber members show up for this program. Because of that, we've aligned what we've advocated for, and maybe the outcome isn't always a win for us or a win for the chamber, but we've certainly brought the issue to the attention of our membership. And now our membership is being educated and we're bringing experts in. And yes, we have to charge for that because we're having to pay for the speaker or if it's a lunch and learn you're paying for for the meal. So you have to kind of cover your cost in that regard.
13:09.612 Mirinda Rothrock
But for the most part, you know, you're educating and you're bringing in members and the questions that they ask, they learn from one another. That becomes a huge, huge value for chamber membership.
13:21.67 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I love with that example to be able to point directly and say, you know, our advocacy efforts around the minimum wage increase were so focused. And then now that there is kind of an outcome from that, you're able to kind of leverage or, you know, go back to the actual programming that you're providing to your members and say, This is how it's going to affect you. And one of the key things you mentioned is that they're able to learn from each other too. Instead of just coming and having, you know, the the chamber or speaker, whoever you have coming in, speak to them. They're able to learn from each other through that networking and ideas and things that are working well for other businesses to see how they can be applied to their own. Are there any of the programming specifically with the minimum wage increase that you guys have already started to roll out, or are those programs still being developed or where are you guys at in that point?
14:16.888 Mirinda Rothrock
Well, we we've kind of feel like we've addressed the minimum wage you know, the outcome we were against and it got passed and so now here we are. So now our goal is to just educate them, you know, in the next thirty days, you know, give give that heads up, that warning, don't forget the minimum wage increase of, you know, seventy five cents starts on January one and come July one, you know, kind of middle of the year. Don't forget we're gonna have a minimum wage increase. So it's it's we're i i we we've sought their opinion, they know we fought on their behalf, they know that we advocated on their behalf. now we're trying to help continue to educate them and be that resource and that reminder that this is coming down, this is this is happening and and we're trying to help you be better prepared. So so that's one issue and as I say, but then we've we're coming up with doing some you know, sexual harassment training. So, you know, with that, if every business and every employee has to prove that they have had some type of sexual harassment training, the chamber can be a great resource in our community to making sure that happens. We can make sure that we bring in the right experts, the right people and get that training right here in town so they don't have to go outside of town.
15:39.282 Brandon Burton
I like that as you align your programming with the advocacy that it's a reminder of how the chamber is standing up for the business community. Every time that there's a new program or those reminders that you're sending out, it's like kind of that subliminal, yeah, the chamber stood up for us on this. It may not have turned out the way that you that they wanted, but you took a stance, on a regional level, taking it to the state. I mean it it's just a a little reminder each time of of what the chamber's doing to work for the businesses. And I think that is important and vital, like you had said, of of making that alignment between the programming and advocacy. Now along along those topics, are there other things that come to mind that you'd wanted to share as far as advocacy and programming are concerned?
16:29.166 Mirinda Rothrock
You know, I think programming is something that I we always know that we need to provide that for our chamber membership, but so many times I find and and as I was new to the industry, the chamber world, I found myself involved in so many events. We, you know, we do this event and we go to this event. And we need to stop and and think a lot of times, and and I'm sure so many of your listeners have heard this, I don't have the time to attend your events. Therefore my my membership value, I'm not getting anything from it. And so I think that really focusing on programming, turning that around, and we all need nondues revenue, that's that's a given, right? Because we can't all survive just on membership alone. So we know we need events and we know we need programming But I think shifting your focus is where we're at here at our chamber, shifting shifting that focus from event driven revenue and value for members to more of that programming and training and creating that kind of revenue stream in and aligning with your advocacy. It just really clicks and it makes good sense and it's something that your chamber membership can really rally around. They're not the only business in town that needs this type of help. They all do.
17:58.516 Brandon Burton
I totally agree. I mean, the chamber should be that go to resource to be able to get information and to learn how to do better business. And it is hard for a business owner or representative of a business to find time to come to just another luncheon, you know, if you're just gonna come and listen to a nice speaker or whatever. I mean, they're they're great, don't get me wrong. But when you can have a direct program that's gonna provide training and information that's critical to the success of that business, they're gonna be able to find time to do that if it means it's gonna have a direct effect. So I think you're you're absolutely right in making that shift. It is so important.
18:40.056 Mirinda Rothrock
W I think too when you when you start the programming and you kinda align with the issues that are happening within your state, within your region, I think when you start, you know, bringing in maybe a broad brush of, you know, new enacted laws or or something new, it's interesting how things kind of morph into the next realm and the next realm and the next program. So as I mentioned, we brought in an expert, a lawyer from Chicago area, brought them in kind of downstate and talked about this broad brush of all of these new laws that were enacted and now how do businesses implement them? And you know, while we talked about so many different new laws and and new regulations and and great questions from our chamber members and they're learning from each other and you know, hey. after this program, you know, after this session, can can I get your business card? I really want to learn more about what you're doing in your business because I think I can learn from you. So we heard a lot of that. But what also morphed out of that was the need for a handbook. It was interesting to know that we hit a spot in, hey, with these new laws, now you need to update your handbook. And it allowed us to hear that And so many of the questions kind of aligned around the handbook. Our next program after the the the law, we brought in an expert from SHERM, our local SHERM chapter, Society for Human Resource Management. And so we brought in an expert there that talked about what are the key elements that you need in a handbook. While we didn't write the the chamber members handbook, we certainly provided them with value. So that they knew what should be in their handbook. So from one program led to a no other program, which now leads us to to doing some sexual harassment training. So all of this morphed out of aligning with our with with state legislature legislature and aligning with what our members said and then bringing in those key pieces and generating that advocacy and alignment with programs. It's just been really key to our our success.
20:58.272 Brandon Burton
I love that. And it goes back to having that good data as you listen to the feedback of your members, it's providing that data to create those future programs. And the members, like you mentioned, are being able to leverage being at these programming events to be able to it used to be we're gonna have a networking event, come and share your business cards and your elevator pitch. Well, now if you come with a def a definitive purpose of coming to learn how you can better your business, and by the way. you're gonna have some other chamber owner or business owners there at this at this function that you can make those connections with. So that no longer becomes that primary focus of coming to network, but you're able to create deeper networks, I believe, with people that are going through similar issues or similar type of businesses that can really help each other out based around these different programs.
21:52.142 Mirinda Rothrock
And the programs really lend themselves to different levels in a business. So, you know, obviously the CEO isn't going to come to the handbook program. However, they're going to send their HR representative or they're going to send their finance person, their operations person to come to that. And if you have a good quality program and they bring back all kinds of information, that CEO now says, Hey, I haven't been to a chamber event, but my finance and operations director went to that handbook and we received so much value from that. Yes, my chamber membership is worth it.
22:33.952 Brandon Burton
Yep. And how many before really diving into that in the past, how many chamber members would not really be able to pinpoint let me let me back up. How many of the chamber members, their employees would even recognize their chamber members until you start implementing these programs where they're they all of a sudden become invited because of their job role? They it's vital for that success of the business for that individual employee to be there.
23:07.298 Mirinda Rothrock
And I think that's where sometimes we as chamber folks we get ourselves where we want to be everything to everybody. And, you know, we certainly are trying to provide that value. And this is a great way your programming and how it fits within that business organization at all different levels. That programming is so key. And now you've got your finance operations director. When they see the invoice come through for chamber membership, it's Again, it's that light bulb going off, going, hey, I went to that handbook program. I went to that, you know, new laws that were enacted. I went to sexual harassment training. Yes, we need to get this paid. CEO, here we go. Initial this invoice. Let's get this processed. Our chamber's providing incredible value to us.
23:57.038 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. They see that value and it doesn't become a question to the CEO of whether or not we renew. It's here it is, sign off because there's definite value.
24:06.222 Mirinda Rothrock
Exactly. I've networked, I've learned more. I learned more what our chamber's doing. something that we do that I'd like to share is we have a a little brochure that we call Save the Dates. It's an eight and a half by eleven sheet of paper. We cut it right down the middle and we call it our Save the Dates. And everything that we've got planned from ribbon cuttings, business after hours, programming, our traditional events. You know, we try to put what's coming up in the next week or two front and back a lot of times and we hand that out as well at all of our programs, all of our events, and so folks know what their chamber is up to. They know what we're what's coming up next, they can get that on their calendars, and they see the the value in the programming, and it's not just about coming to an event, it's about attending and becoming educated on an advocacy issue.
25:01.898 Brandon Burton
Right. So you're doing those save the dates for each month? Is that how that works?
25:07.072 Mirinda Rothrock
We d well, because we are such an active chamber, we have to do it about sometimes two and three times a month because we have so many different events listed.
25:17.644 Brandon Burton
Wow. It's a great idea though. Keeps it in front of them. And I know a a lot of times, you know, the chamber member gets an email and it gets buried with hundreds of other emails. And I I think we lose the value of having just that piece of paper in our hand that reminds us to put something on the calendar or show up somewhere. So that that's great. so Miranda, I know we need to kind of start wrapping things up here a little bit. So I wanted to ask you from
25:22.286 Mirinda Rothrock
It really does.
25:48.162 Brandon Burton
The discussion that we've had today, what is one action item that listeners can do to maybe level up their chamber?
25:59.286 Mirinda Rothrock
On the advocacy side, I would say one easy thing that you can do, show up at your next village or city council meeting. If you haven't been attending and all of a sudden you you're there, it's funny. That all the city council or all your aldermen are going, why is the chamber exec here? Why they got why is somebody from the chamber here? What's going on? What's going on? Yeah, right? And and and I Lightly said nothing. I'm I'm trying to better understand the community in which we all live and operate. And so now I'm pretty regular. Isn't it a little bit of extra work and an extra bit of time? Yes. Do I make every meeting? No. But it certainly shows our interest, a chamber of commerce interest in city government. And city government then looks at you as a resource. How do we partner on making our community and our city better? How do we do that? And if you don't have a a a big city council meeting, go to the counc the county level. Whatever you have in your community, be active in, be a participant of. It really is easy. You don't have to speak. You don't have to have a canned speech. You're just showing up. You're just trying to learn what's going on in our community.
27:24.298 Brandon Burton
I love that. You have to be present. You have to be at the table. That's awesome. Yeah, the this question I asked to every guest that I have on on the podcast is it regarding the future of chambers. And I think there at the Decatur Regional Chamber, you're kind of creating the future for your chamber. But as we look to the future, how do you see Chambers of Commerce and their purpose going forward?
27:52.568 Mirinda Rothrock
I think that the chamber of commerce of old, which I think we all know, is certainly not where we're at today. So I think that chambers of commerce have to continually reinvent themselves, continually be top of mind. This is a changing world. Technology has changed so very much where chambers of commerce used to be the end all be all with business knowledge and business connections, you know, everything's at the you know, the touch of Google. So now we need to become really vital and partners in our chamber members business. We need to show them you're not in it alone. We're here, we're here providing you resources and connections. And I think as we look to the chambers of the future, I think we'll look at ourselves as ever evolving.
28:43.816 Brandon Burton
I love that. Great answer. Ever evolving. You got to keep collecting that data and keep changing. so Mirinda, as people listen to this episode and have questions about how you're doing things there at the Decatur Regional Chamber, how might somebody get in contact with you to maybe bounce some ideas off you or see how you're doing things there?
29:08.12 Mirinda Rothrock
You know, I probably work best with email like most folks, so I I would welcome an email at Merinda spelled M-I-R-I-N-D-A dot Rothrock R O T H R O C K at the Caterchamber dot com. Would welcome any other thoughts and ideas. Maybe someone here thought, well that's kind of good, but I I do something even better. Shoot me your ideas. Let's let's make that connection.
29:36.192 Brandon Burton
I love that idea. Make this interactive. So
29:40.506 Mirinda Rothrock
Absolutely, because n no one knows everything, right?
29:44.366 Brandon Burton
That's right. Absolutely. And we'll get your contact information on the show notes page for this episode, which will be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode forty eight. But Mirinda, I just wanted to thank you so much for spending time with me today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I think you provided a lot of value for those that are listening and hopefully some things that people will start implementing back at their chambers. Thanks a lot.
30:10.712 Mirinda Rothrock
Thank you, Brandon.
30:13.952 Brandon Burton
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