Skip to content

Tag: Chamber of Commerce

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Greater Fort Wayne Inc. with John Urbahns

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is John or bonds. John is the CEO of Greater Fort Wayne Inc, and of course, he’s representing a Greater Fort Wayne Inc as a chamber of the year finalist. But he joined the organization in 2014 and at the time, was serving as executive vice president economic development, before taking on the CEO role in 2019 under his leadership, Greater Fort Wayne Inc has assisted with over 200 business expansions and relocations, resulting in more than 13,500 new jobs and $600 million in new payroll. Previously, John was the Director of Community Development for the City of Fort Wayne, managing strategic planning, redevelopment and economic development initiatives. John has led key community projects such as the landing electric works and the Bradley hotel, while also engaging with residents and leaders to shape Allen County’s future. He holds a degree in urban planning and environmental design from Ball State University, and is an AICP certified urban planner, John, I want to welcome you back to chamber chat podcast. Congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a chamber of the year finalists. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

John Urbahns 2:41
Hello, Brandon, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be back. Love talking about our team. Our team is excited about this opportunity. We think we’ve done a great job in transforming our community, and really all of northeast Indiana, so excited about it. You know, I’m a I’m just a proud Hoosier. I’m a proud father of three great kids here that are all making choices to stay in our community at the end of the day. That’s that’s the biggest job in the world that I have, is making sure that every kid has the opportunity to have a great opportunity in Fort Wayne, in Allen County, and just continue to thrive. So excited to be here. That’s

Brandon Burton 3:22
right. You’re you’re living the work that you do, right, keeping your kids into the community. That’s great. That’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about Greater Fort Wayne Inc, to kind of set the perspective for us as we start our discussion today. Give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget, that sort of things Greater

John Urbahns 3:42
Fort Wayne ink, you know, a lot of people think, Oh, you’ve been around forever. I joined the organization in 2014 January, 2014 when we formed the organization, Oh, right. We merged our chamber of commerce, which was 100 years old, our Economic Development Alliance, which was a public private partnership doing economic development, which was about 20 years old, and then our leadership Fort Wayne program, which is at the time, was about little over 30 years old, and merged those together, the business community really said, we need to pull these assets together to do economic development, to do chamber activities, to do leadership programming, so that we can take on bigger and bolder projects in the community. So we’re about 1111, and a half years old as an organization, but you know, really serving as the economic development entity and the chamber for all of Allen County. So not just Fort Wayne, but New Haven Hunter town, some of the smaller communities, 660 square miles, is our is our jurisdiction, but we work very closely with those regional counties in northeast Indiana.

Brandon Burton 4:46
All right, very good. But how many Chamber members and staff? Yeah,

John Urbahns 4:51
so we have, we have 14. We just passed the 1400 mark on membership in the community. We’ve got 20 staff members. But. Budget of about $3.4 million that that is made up of, you know, membership revenue, dues, a non dues revenue, just lot of great things going on. A lot of great support from our community. In what we’re doing as a community, we’re seeing a lot of growth, which is what you want to see as a chambers and an economic development agency, and really feel that the work we’re doing is helping drive that.

Brandon Burton 5:23
Yeah, very cool. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time really diving into the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So we’ll take a quick break, and when we get back, we’ll dive in deep on those two programs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Brandon Burton 8:28
All right, John, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re diving in on the two programs from your your chamber of the year application. I know one of them has, you know, obviously, a focus on economic development and another one on talent attraction. Do you have a preference on which one you’d like to cover first?

John Urbahns 8:47
I’m good with either one. You know, our role, our mission, is about building nationally recognized economy, but our Why is really about people and capital. So we always talk to people about it. It’s about people setting the environment where people want to be, where people want to move to, and where capital wants to be deployed, whether that’s locally, nationally or internationally. So both these programs tie very, very much into our why on the people and capital side. So people are probably the most important. So let’s just jump in on the people side.

Brandon Burton 9:17
All right, so let’s do that so your your onboard program, tell us what that’s about. And kind of, I always like to know what the need was, it was addressed, and how you guys went about answering

John Urbahns 9:27
that need. Yeah. So one of the one of the areas that we started working was onboard Fort Wayne. We’ve seen a lot of growth in our community. We We had a lot of years of, kind of dying, the slow death, of negative domestic migration and population decrease with some of the work that we’ve done to drive investment in the community, we’ve now seen eight straight years of positive domestic migration. If you go back 1990 when they started tracking this every year was negative until eight years ago, and that’s because we chose to invest in ourselves. Started to make progress in that environment, and as we started to see that increased domestic migration, we started seeing a lot of influx from people from throughout the nation coming in to Fort Wayne and Allen County. How are we going to welcome them? How are we going to really come alongside them and help them get connected within the community? So we created the onboard program about five years ago, and have slowly built out different segments of it. And over the last couple of years, we built, we built in the intern experience and best in class, which are two of the two of the pieces that we submitted for the chamber of the year application. So the intern experience, really diving in with interns and companies. They’re going to come here to work and hopefully have a great experience at their company. How do they fall in love with the community? And that’s what we stepped in to help do. So each summer, we do between five and one year nine, nine weeks straight of just social activities for the interns, to get them connected to each other, to get them connected to the community. One of the keys is we, you know, we survey them early on. You know, what’s the chances of you seeing yourself living in Fort Wayne post graduation in both years, it’s been a little right around 60% of the kids see themselves living here. And these are kids that are coming from all over the US, right? We part of the survey. We look at where they coming from one year, 25 states. One year, 23 states, multiple countries, of kids coming in from across the US to do internships here. So these college interns? Is that college intern? Yep. So if only 60% can see themselves, living here, that’s a challenge for us. By the end of the summer, both years, it’s increased to well over 80% of the kids we when we do the post program survey, 80% over 80% say they could see themselves living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And there’s a lot, and we ask them why we you know, it comes down to cost of living, opportunities, connectedness, not just within the in Fort Wayne, but to outline, you know, larger metros. So we feel the program has been very successful. Our companies feel great about it. It lets them focus on the day to day, you know, like, let’s make sure they have a great work environment that they like our company, but we help them fall in love with the community. And maybe there’s some connections that are made while they’re here over the summer, and they and they fall in love in general, and have those strong connections as well. So it’s it’s creating that connection to the community. We parlayed that last year into the best in class program and said, All right, we’re getting great results from these college interns, but how do we get to kids before they go off to college? How do we build that pipeline? Just like a company builds a pipeline, we need to build a pipeline. So last year, we worked with all 17 high schools in Allen County and really sat down with your principals, your guidance counselors, and said, Give us your top kids, your 10 to 15 kids, not necessarily one through 10, one through 15 in the grades, but who are the leaders? Who are the kids that are going to go off and maybe never come back? And we pulled them together and said, give them to us for a night. So we had about 250 kids come together last year, and we had this best in class event where we talked about what’s going to happen over the next four years in our community, right? How is it going to change? We had some young entrepreneurs come in and talk to them about how they’ve chosen to make their best life here in Fort Wayne and Allen County. We talked about the business environment, right? So many kids, they don’t. They know about what’s going on the community, but they don’t know about industry. So we highlighted the key industry sectors and the great job opportunities that they can have here in the community. And then at the end, we wrapped it up with a cost of living index, right? We had, we had kids at tables, and we gave every kid a different at the table, a different city, and we started to help them understand, or they, I guess they under they figured out themselves. Hey, if I move off to some of these bigger cities, am I going to be able to afford to live the way I would like to live? Can I have? Can I own a car? Can I own a home? How much am I going to be able to go out? How many times can I go to Starbucks or the local coffee shop? And they started to understand Fort Wayne, Indiana was the best place for them to grow up. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:34
my son is our oldest. He graduated high school last year, so his eyes are being opened right now as he’s looking at cost of living, and what a call to reality. You’ve got these 250 of the greatest leaders in your area, you know, coming out of high school. Then to be able to give them this, this real life metric of this is one of just one of the real positive. Of reasons why you’d want to choose our community to stay, you know,

John Urbahns 15:04
yes. So you always wonder, did I make an impression? What? What’s the results of this? Right? We wanted these kids to not just know themselves, but ultimately go off to college and be our sales people while they’re out at, you know, universities throughout the Midwest, throughout the US, we had calls the next day from parents and said, I don’t know exactly what you said to my kids last night, but they were leaving. They were leaving after high school. They were going off to a couple of cases, Indiana University, Purdue University, pick your new mission. They were going there, and they were never coming back, and after last night, they said they want to come back. And that, to me, says we made a difference. That’s really cool, right? We’re driving change. We’re changing the mindset of the young folks about the community, and they’re starting to see the great opportunities that they can have. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 15:59
and so going backwards a little bit with the intern program, I think that’s a missed opportunity that so many chambers and communities have where interns come in and so much of the focus is on, you know, building the the work experience, and connecting with the company and and we miss that opportunity to connect them with the community and To get them to get them to fall in love with the community, you

John Urbahns 16:23
have to engage them. You have to get them to fall in love. You know, we’ve we’ve done a lot of work in our community about reinventing, reinvesting ourselves, building up our downtown. We do a business survey. Every five years, we hire a polling firm. It’s not just a survey we do. We are a polling firm. We do a statistical analysis of it, and 95% of the businesses believe we’re on the right track with where we’re headed. The number one issue in the community that they think affecting talent, attraction, retention, and these are companies across the community, is downtown and riverfront revitalization. So we know we’re on the right track, that we’re hitting the right points. Now we need to get those kids that out and enjoy those things and see those things while they’re here. So feel really good about it.

Brandon Burton 17:13
That’s great. Well, let’s shift gears to the big economic development program, and the I’ll say economic development. Win that. You guys are going through it at the moment. Tell us about that. Yeah,

John Urbahns 17:28
the, you know, I mentioned people in capital. The other side of our business is the capital side, right? Economic development. How are we creating the environment to attract capital into our market and get locals to invest as well. But last year was was a big year for us. We had $3.66 billion in building permits in Allen County. Put that in perspective, if you go back to 2012 so about 13 years ago, we were averaging about $500 million of building permits a year. So we’ve seen dramatic growth in that we hit a billion in 2017 and we haven’t looked back from that. So capital is a big piece for us. The other thing we had looked at through our economic development strategy was land assembly, and how do we make sure that we have opportunities for companies to grow? We saw the need for land in our community. We had an opportunity with a project that came to us from our electrical provider and said, Hey, we’ve got a company that’s that’s looking at our market. We’ve done a lot of great things to improve our water supply and our access to water and on the electric side as well. So ultimately, we landed a $2 billion Google data center, right? It’s their largest AI data center in the world that’s being built here in Fort Wayne, and we had a challenge to figure out how to get 900 acres of land for that development. Ultimately, this could end up being a 10 plus billion dollar investment as the multiple phases grow out in our community. And these are, these are tech jobs in our most depressed area of the community, right? So we can come back to that, but there’s gonna be a lot of great spin off effects from this that we’re gonna be able to utilize. But we’ve talked a lot as a chamber world about chamber foundations over the last several years. Do you have a chamber if you don’t have a chamber foundation? When you’re asked that question at ACC, I feel like everybody’s like, Well, why don’t you have one yet? You need to look at one. So we have one. We’ve been, you know, using it in different ways. But one of the things we had to respond to this, this about a year and a half ago, when this project started, was we had a partner that was going to work on land assembly, and it wasn’t going well with the company, and the company came to us and said, Hey, can you help us acquire the property? And we said, Yes, we’re going to do that. We’re going to, let’s, let’s figure out how to do that. So we utilized some funding in our chamber foundation to go out and acquire a. The 900 acres of property so that we could move it forward. We acquired that 900 acres of property in under 90 days. Wow, which is amazing as a community, and we couldn’t have done it if we didn’t have the chamber foundation infrastructure in place to go and do that. I think the other thing you have to look at from you know, you think about all the horizon points. You think about catalytic leadership and pulling people together. This property was located not just in the city of Fort Wayne. It was also in the city of New Haven, and it was an unincorporated Allen County. We took the role as a developer to go acquire that property. But then also, you know, petition for the vacation of a county road, we had to get the city of New Haven to dis annex about 60 acres of the site that was in one community, so that the city of Fort Wayne could annex it and annex the rest of the property and have that in their tax base. Now, you go to a mayor and tell him, I need you to dis annex 60 acres so that your neighbor can take it. Yeah, right, that that’s a tough conversation. But he jumped right in and said, Hey, let’s figure out how to do it, because this is a win for our community. It’s a huge win. Yeah? Mindset, right? If you go back 510, years ago, this ends up in a lawsuit, and frankly, the project doesn’t happen, but we had that buy in, and it’s because we’ve got the trusted relationships with all the different partners to pull it together so that it was a win win for each of the communities, because he knows his community is going to grow because of this right he’s right next to it. He’s going to see a lot of great growth, even if the even if that project is not directly within his political jurisdiction, right? Companies don’t care about political lines. They care about getting projects done. We used our foundation, we acted in a way, to speed a business to get this win for the entire community,

Brandon Burton 22:01
yeah. I mean, Moses split the Red Sea. I mean, you guys worked on getting a city into D annex, part of the land. I mean, it’s a miracle, as far as I’m concerned, but being able to be that convener, so like you said, be that trust. You know, have that trust in the community. Be that convener to really lead a project that’s going to benefit all of the surrounding communities as well. It’s, I mean, that’s the perfect position and role that a chamber should be playing. And then you’ve got the added benefit of being able to access your your chamber Foundation to help, you know, get the ball over the line, so to speak. Great testimony on being conveners and having a chamber foundation to see a big project come together that’s super exciting.

John Urbahns 22:48
And this is going to have, you know, I mentioned that, I said I’d come back to it. You know, this isn’t, you know, part of the community that has seen the most disinvestment or the lack of investment over several decades. We now in that, in that part of the community, have our first market rate subdivision being built for the first time in 40 years. Wow, market rate subdivision being built with the with the with the project, and the TIF district and the city being able to work to reinvest dollars within that community, to look at neighborhood commercial corridor projects, and we’re looking at other industrial properties that need to be repurposed in that area. This project now gives us the opportunity to really dive in and make some really big, transformational change in that part of the community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 23:36
that’s awesome. So just a side note or comment on the chamber foundation. For those who don’t have a foundation, may be curious, how do you how do you guys fund your foundation? How did that? How did the funds become available to be able to fund a project like this? Yeah, we,

John Urbahns 23:56
you know, our our foundation, our c3 organization, is all of our fee for service agreements with city, Fort Wayne, City, New Haven, the Airport Authority, the county commissioners, they flow through that as well. But then we’ve used that to assemble dollars. The dollars we used for this project date back 25 years when the business community raised funds to help the city finalize an industrial park, and as part of that, those business funds that went into it as land sold, came back to us, into that entity or that foundation, to reinvest and basically evergreen, so that we could continue to do similar investments about eight years ago, we use that funds, those funds to help the city acquire another 145 acres and turned around and sold that to a large, large facility here in town. Again, we got the money back, and then we used it in this case. And then. Um, when this project closed, the funds came back into that. So those, those funds are recycling and coming back to us to now. Now we’re looking at new opportunities. How are we going to invest that to again position the community for growth from an economic development perspective? So those rate, those funds were initially raised as from the private sector. There’s other funds that you know because of this project, we were able to get several people that were involved in the project to provide some additional funds to it so help grow it because of the success of that project. So we’re just trying to continue to grow it and make sure that we can leverage it multiple times, right? It didn’t, it didn’t help that project, not just that project back in 1999 it helped us with multiple projects along the way, and it’s going to help us continue to move things forward. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 25:56
it’s a great framework of how to utilize a foundation. And for those who are thinking about it, it’s a great exposure to one

John Urbahns 26:05
way we used it. I know that others use it a lot of different ways. We can all learn from each other. I think that’s the key that I like about ACC, that I like about this process. We all learn from each other. We’re all doing great things. We just might be doing different things. Absolutely, we

Brandon Burton 26:21
all have different communities. So John, for those listening who are wanting to take their chamber to the next level working towards that goal, what kind of tip or action item might you leave with them towards trying to accomplish that? I

John Urbahns 26:37
think one of the things that that I would tell all of my my peers, you know, those in this world, and I’ve learned this, you know, again, very recently, that we have to be we’re that we’re the future of the community. We’re looking out ahead. Make sure you’re having those conversations with your key businesses about the future, right? So often, we all get kind of bogged down in the day to day making sure that projects are moving forward, programs are moving forward. We could spend our entire day focused on the here and now and making sure that goes smooth. But we need to make sure that we’re having the conversations about the future, right we are. We are the future of our community. We’re going to drive that. We’re going to be the catalytic leader. We’re going to be the futurist. Make sure that you’re bringing your business, your key business leaders and government leaders along with you. In that regard, don’t lose sight of the future. Make sure that you have those conversations. Is what I would leave with everybody. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 27:39
and said, Don’t lose sight of the future. I always like asking that question, too, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

John Urbahns 27:48
Yeah, you know, I can only speak from for my chamber, but we are. I’ve seen the change in this community. Yeah, I came here almost 30 years ago, and it wasn’t a community that I moved to to spend a career. It was a community I moved to for a job out of college, and we started to make change, and chambers need to be key in that role. If you’re not, if you’re not affecting change in your community, you’re not doing it justice, and you’re not doing yourself justice. So the future, the future of chambers, is bright, but we have to make it bright.

Brandon Burton 28:26
Yeah, I like that. Need to be affecting change in your

John Urbahns 28:30
community. We, we often say, we, we need to, we need to make the change happen, and not let the change happen to us. Yeah, so many times that happens.

Brandon Burton 28:41
And you know, when it comes to change, a lot of people fear it, because so often the change does happen to us, but if you’re being forward thinking and driving the change, you’ve got a lot more you know, direction on what the future looks like when you’re driving it instead of being acted upon. So yeah, great point. Well, John, for those listening who might want to reach out and connect with you about either these programs or how you guys are doing things there. Greater, Fort Wayne Inc, where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

John Urbahns 29:12
I’d point them to our website. GreaterFortWayneInc.com, just just, you know, Google, us make that your That’s right, your browser choice, if you would please. But Greater Fort Wayne inc.com, all of our contact information is there. We are happy to have conversations about any of the programs we’re doing, any of the projects we’re here to help each other, and we definitely, we definitely subscribe to that. You know, I talked about, we talked about the Google project. We’ve coached probably now seven or eight other communities on how to handle these big projects and pull them off some of my peers that are probably listening here, we’ve had some conversations, and it’s been very valuable to them, and it’s valuable to us when we can go and talk about others. So. Go to the website. I will tell you that we are literally in the middle of a of a complete over overhaul of our website. So what you see today is what, not what you will see at the end of July or the first of August, but go to our website. Reach out to us and income back. Come see us.

Brandon Burton 30:19
Yeah, very good. And if you have trouble finding it, go to Google.

John Urbahns 30:24
Go to Google. It’s gonna be easy. I love the plug.

Brandon Burton 30:26
Well, John, this has been great having you back on Chamber Chat Podcast. I appreciate you spending time with us. I wish you and your team best of luck with chamber of the year. And you know, keep making those big swings and big movements in your community. You guys are doing awesome.

John Urbahns 30:40
Thank you. I appreciate it. Brandon.

Brandon Burton 30:43
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Sarasota Chamber with Heather Kasten

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is Heather Kasten. Heather is the president and CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce in Florida, with more than 14 years of experience in the Sarasota region, Heather previously served as a President CEO of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance. She has a diverse background, having worked for Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals and six flag theme parks in various regional management roles. Heather is deeply engaged in the community, serving on the board of career source, Suncoast United Way Suncoast and the Education Foundation of Sarasota County. She is also active in several local advisory councils, including those for the USF Muma College of Business and the 26th West Entrepreneurship Center. Heather holds an MBA from Webster University and a business administration degree from the University of Iowa. Outside of her professional duties, she enjoys reading, boating, traveling and spending time with her family, but Heather, it’s great to have you back on chamber chat podcast. Welcome and congratulations for being selected. For those who may be familiar, they were chamber the year finalists in 2024 so this is two years in a row being selected as a finalist. So huge congratulations to you and your team. But wanted to give you a chance to say hello and to share something interesting about yourself so everyone listening can get to know you a little better.

Heather Kasten 2:42
Yeah, well, Brandon, thank you so much. It’s we’re so grateful to you for hosting this podcast, which is so informative. I really enjoy listening, and we are truly excited. Our team and board of directors are over the moon about us being a finalist again for ACCE, the Metro Chamber division this year. So we’re excited to go to Philly. We’ve got a good, good sized group of us traveling out there to attend the conference and the convention, and hopefully you’re going to bring something, bring that big trophy home. We’ll see that.

Brandon Burton 3:19
Yeah, yeah, there’s some. There’s something to be said about coming in numbers to the conference. I remember a few years ago in the Conway, Arkansas chamber one, and they had, like, I want to say, like, two full tables full, just packed full of people from Conway. And it was, it was pretty cool. So I’m glad you’re bringing a great representation. That’s awesome.

Heather Kasten 3:41
Yeah. And you know, as far as something unique about me, I feel like I’m, you know, a cat with nine lives in that I really have worked in many different industries, from theme parks, which we talked about last year, some of the funny duties work as a regional sales manager for six likes theme parks, and then in the pharmaceutical realm, through Lily and women’s health and the neuroscience division, and then landing in chamber work. And have been doing this, this work, for about 16 years now. And absolutely love it. Love just being able to serve and support the businesses in our community, which, let’s face it, they’re the engine that power any local economy, or the the local businesses,

Brandon Burton 4:26
absolutely. Well, give us some perspective with the greater Sarasota chamber. You mentioned being more regional, but give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget. That’ll kind of set the stage as we get into the programs that we talk about today.

Heather Kasten 4:43
Sure, we are 104 year old organization here in Sarasota, Florida. We work with a little over 1500 regional businesses throughout Sarasota and Manatee counties that represent. About 60,000 employees throughout the region. Our team here, I always like to say we’re a small but mighty team of 15 individuals who are just a committed, dedicated, passionate group of people who show up here every day working to support our local businesses. We have a very active Foundation, as well as as the chamber work that we do, and I know we’re going to get into some of those programs later. Those programs are truly funded through our foundation, very

Brandon Burton 5:35
cool. So I’m hopefully, as we go through the conversation today, we can pull more on the foundation. And I know there’s a lot of chambers out there that are trying to learn more about foundations, if they don’t already have one, seeing how they can deploy a foundation, how it can really be beneficial in their community. And so hopefully your experience will will be able to tap into that as we dive in today. So with these chamber of the year finalist episodes. I love to spend the majority of the time talking about the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So when we get back from our quick break, we’ll dive into those programs and learn more about what it is you guys submitted on your application this year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Brandon Burton 9:02
All right, Heather, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re diving into the two programs from your chamber of the year application. I understand one of the programs is around career and workforce development. Do you like to tell us what that is and dive into what the I always like to know what the origins are and how it’s evolved to what it is today.

Heather Kasten 9:23
Yeah. So the exciting thing Career Edge is our workforce and talent initiative that has been around for coming up on 14 years. And this was really formed 14 years ago to address some, some tremendous gaps in our workforce, our local workforce. I always like to say career, just like a three legged stool. It takes funders to be able to fund the work that we do. It takes educational partners and providers to train and then it takes the participant, the individual, who is actually willing to go through the program and come out the other end. End the what we submitted this year for ACCE was just the work and the results of Career Edge. Every year we have a third party evaluator come in and really do a deep dive into, you know, the wage increases that individuals experienced. They validate all of the data that we that we provide. And so it’s not the Sarasota chamber beating our chests saying, Oh, look at the work we’ve done. This is, again, an independent evaluator looking at this work. Last year, we deployed over $330,000 in workforce grants and training and upskilling grants, and we train just shy of 500 local individuals. So, you know the So, what of that is you, if you think of someone working a job that really doesn’t have a career pathway, a minimum wage job, it could be at a fast food restaurant, and they, we put them through one of our trainings, which is in five industry segments. So the trades, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, transportation and logistics, automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, those are all the the industry segments that we serve. So think about someone working a fast food job. We fully fund putting them through the CNA training. They get their certification, and then we place them with a health care member of our chamber. So it’s a win for these employers too, because as a member of the Sarasota chamber, they’re getting first dibs at this talent. As far as the individual, you think about just the change in the trajectory of their income earning potential over the course of their lifetime, and the the economic impact, both to to their own family and to the community as a whole. It really does put them on a pathway, whether it be it healthcare or think of an electrician that has many different certifications and levels. Same thing with plumbing and HVAC, it really does provide a career pathway for these folks to make some really good money and and, you know, be able to live a wonderful life here in Sarasota.

Brandon Burton 12:16
Yeah, so I like how you talked about the three parts that go into a program like this, between the funding, the educational partners, or who’s going to teach what we’re trying to preach here, and then the participants. So could you speak to a little bit about how you pulled like, how did you gather the participants? How did you reach out to them? How did you recruit those who would be the educational partners and talk about the funding for it as

Heather Kasten 12:41
well, sure. And you know, the exciting part, and the Chamber’s role is really kind of the unifier and the convener of those three pieces, but for the chamber, you know that that convening would not be happening, and so we, we play such a key role in that. But let’s start with the funding, we go out every year and sing for our supper. We work with many local foundations, some national foundations, some bank foundations to apply for these grants, and that’s the money that we have to work with each year we’ve been really fortunate. We have two local foundations that absolutely believe in the impact. They’ve seen it directly in this community, and they are substantial funders to the program. The participants through our chamber, you know, we work with, we probably have 200 nonprofits that are members of our chamber, where, when we’re putting up one of these. We call them a fast track program, where in like eight to 12 weeks, someone can get trained. When we are about ready to launch a fast track for instance, we have one coming up in automotive, electrical, and we put that out to our nonprofit partners. We have used the press to, you know, put out press releases and and social media posts. We partner with our faith based organizations. We we get the word out pretty well, and then these participants log on to our website, they fill out an application, and then they’re vetted. And then, you know, we take a class, usually of about 15 individuals to put them through this training and the chamber we play a pivotal role in that we really do Shepherd these folks through the program. These are individuals that have, they have more things on their plate than than others. And, you know, car breaks down, childcare issues, things like that, and we, we really are instrumental in in helping them to get to class and to have child care so that they can participate in the program.

Brandon Burton 14:53
That’s awesome. So for the those that are participating, sounds like there’s an application for. Process you selected in this example, 15 for the the automotive certification. Is there any fee or anything for those participants, or is it fully funded through the foundation and the grants? Or how does that structured?

Heather Kasten 15:13
It is fully funded so they, you know, they’re they do have some skin in the game in that there are some fees. For instance, in healthcare, there’s some vaccinations and things that they have to get on their own. But for the most part, you know, 98% of this training is fully funded, and so we do it. That is a big job, is to really bet the people who are serious this can’t be, you know, Grandma Jones wanting her grandson to go through this program, you know, we we have to make sure that, you know, that these participants are committed. We have to be a good steward of this money that we’ve been granted.

Brandon Burton 15:53
Yeah, so you mentioned that having that third party evaluation and seeing the the wage increases. Can you share maybe just a couple success stories you’ve seen out of that third party evaluation.

Heather Kasten 16:05
Absolutely, you know, on average, last last year, we saw the average wage increase of folks coming through the program was over $9 an hour. And you start doing the math on that, you know, times eight hours a day. You know, just to make it round numbers, that’s $100 more a day that they’re making. You think of, you know, 2020, working days in a month. That’s 2000 more dollars. You just start doing the math, and it is absolutely exponential, the money that someone is earning because of these programs. And again, this is, you know, for a lot of people, this is their first generation of being trained. And when we host these graduations, Brandon, it’s, it’s just heartwarming. Their whole family comes. They might as well be graduating, you know, from an Ivy League school. It’s that meaningful for their family. That

Brandon Burton 17:03
is really cool. I love hearing that. I love hearing the life changing impact that programs like this can make. So programs like this, like Career Edge, obviously help employers in the community find that talent where they’re able to continue performing their you know, their mission as a business, whatever it may be, but that’s only one aspect of it. I know in certain communities, housing can be an issue too, where you may have people that want to work there, but they live too far away, that it doesn’t justify, you know, the commute coming in, but housing is makes it difficult to attract that talent as well. So let’s shift gears into your second program that you guys submitted on your application around affordable housing and how that plays into this big picture.

Heather Kasten 17:52
Yeah, you know, like many communities, Brandon throughout the United States, our community is no different. Starting back, you know, when COVID we had 1000 people a day moving to the state of Florida. It has softened a little bit to, you know, around 700 people a day. But when you have that big of an influx of people, it just the the laws of supply and demand. It made it really hard. People were moving to the state, you know, cashing out in California, you know, one bedroom house for a million dollars, coming to Florida, paying cash and really pricing out all of our young professionals. And you know what I call our community heroes, the teachers, the firefighters, the policemen not being able to to find affordable housing here in our community. And so in 2022 our chairman of the board, you know, we really, he really had made it, you know, laid down the gauntlet that we are going to take a very proactive approach to affordable housing. And what we did was we hosted our first affordable housing Summit, and that would have been back in 2023 we partnered with our largest employer, Sarasota Memorial Hospital. We had over 200 business leaders attend. And really that summit was really focused on drilling down on the needs. This is not we’re not talking about folks who are on federal aid. These are working individuals, and so that was from that summit we took, okay, here we know we have a problem. It’s now the business community’s problem. So now what are we going to do about it? The Chamber went about we really wanted to drill down to investigate, like, who are having these struggles, we surveyed our young professionals. We had over 300 responses to a survey, and the results were just really disheartening. We had numerous over 30% of our young professionals saying they were contemplating leaving the area because they weren’t able to find affordable housing. We had over. 40% driving 40 miles a day to come to work, and as you know, that clogs up our roads and causes transportation issues when people can’t live by where they work. So we went about putting together a second summit, again, hosted back at Sarasota Memorial, where we brought in some experts. We brought in someone from the Florida Housing Coalition to assess what are some best practices. We brought down someone from Pinellas County, Florida, who is probably about five to 10 years ahead of us in the proactive nature of of tackling affordable housing. We hosted a second summit, and then we also took a very intentional approach with our city government and fought very hard hundreds of hours into attending City Commission meetings to back some zoning text, amendments, change, changes that would allow for greater density those after Many, many, many, many hours of meetings. The City Commission did vote to allow for greater density. And what that means is that a developer on one acre of ground, instead of being limited to building five units, of which he needs to charge $5 million a unit, when you increase the density, you could have 100 units at 200,000 and so we’ve already seen over 202,000 units, just because we fought for those zoning text amendments of affordable units that’ll be coming online here in the next two to three years. They’re going through, you know, that permitting process, they’re starting to come out of the ground. So again, if not for the Sarasota chamber, would these zoning text amendments have have gotten over the goal line. We also

Brandon Burton 21:48
go ahead. Go ahead.

Heather Kasten 21:50
I didn’t wrap up with we also partnered with four local foundations who commissioned a study to look at what is our current need, like, how many units do we really need? You know, you can’t, if you’re not keeping score, you’re really not playing the game. And so we had this study commission to look at how many units do we currently need, and how many will we need in 10 years, so that we can start planning, you know, for that. And then also took a look at the type of units needed? Do we need studio apartments? Do we need one bedroom, two bedroom? Or these families that are struggling? And so we just got those findings back, we have a program coming up in two weeks where they’re going to really go through the findings very descriptively, so that policy makers and developers so that we know what we need here in the future.

Brandon Burton 22:44
Yeah. So I guess that was going to be my question as to the type of housing. I would assume, something like condos or, like you said, the studios or the, you know, one or two bedrooms would depending on what those needs are. But also those young professionals today that are having those needs, you know, in 10 years. I’m glad that that’s that vision is being extended out to, what is that going to what’s that need? How’s that going to shift? You know, in the next several years? I know one of the other obstacles cities is communities look at solutions like this is the NIMBYs in the in the community, right? Those that don’t want it in their backyard. Has there been land identified for the more high density housing, and has that been approved, and has there been pushback from the community? How do you guys address that and overcome that?

Heather Kasten 23:34
Yeah, well, it’s fascinating. Nobody that you talk to is against affordable housing, just not in their backyard. Yeah, just not in my backyard, right? And so the uniqueness of the zoning text changes that that we worked on is that they’re along our major corridors. So these are very well traveled, you know, you’re not going to build a million dollar house on, you know, next to a four lane highway. And so the city was able to identify ground along these major corridors, along major, you know, retail, mixed use projects and and the exciting thing too is now, as developers are going before our planning board and our City Commission to get their projects approved, many of them are coming with an affordable housing component, and so they might be building, you know, they still might be building, you know, $2 million units, but they’re coming and saying, Okay, well, 15 of these, we’re going to go, going to make affordable, and with that, then they can build more units, so that, that’s Where that density thing comes into play the density bonus. And so we we have seen that is working. We are seeing projects that are coming online with an affordable component. So they’re going to be mixed in with the $2 million units. They might not be as big as the $2 million units, but they’re going to be in the same building and no. Is really going to know, you know, are you the $2 million homeowner? Are you the, you know, $250,000

Brandon Burton 25:07
homeowner? Yeah, I like that. I like when it can be blended in there and and you can’t tell, right? There’s so many interesting dynamics when it comes to housing, when there it comes to, you could maybe argue income inequality in certain communities, and when you get the higher density next to others, it just creates a lot of dynamics, but that chamber is perfectly positioned to be able to help navigate through those dynamics. So sounds like you guys are making a great impact there, and a lot of good headway. Is there anything else on the affordable housing front that you want to touch on before we move on?

Heather Kasten 25:48
Just you know that, you know, we’re still fighting that fight. Of course, there are some market factors. The influx of people moving to Florida has slowed, and certainly the market has cooled a little bit, which that is good for supply and demand and brings us down. It brings the market to more of a steady state. You know, for two and three years, it was on a left to right upward curve of pricing and lack of availability that, you know, lack of things on the market. And so that has cooled a little bit too. So I think it’s all of those things working together that are going to, you know, really help position our community to be, you know, more affordable for especially those key workers, like we talked about,

Brandon Burton 26:34
yeah, I’m in Texas, so we’ve seen a lot of that same, you know, type of growth. A lot of people leaving places like California and coming to places where they can buy a home for cash, and it prices a lot of people out, and then you get the congestion with the, you know, the traffic. And so it’s a continual problem, but we don’t have as many of the nice beaches that Florida has. So I mean, that just really compounds your guys’s problem there. So, but Heather, I wanted to ask, on behalf of those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them towards accomplishing that goal?

Heather Kasten 27:13
I would say one thing that we have done that has really made a difference is really being intentional about taking care of your team. And we have put together the last two years a we call IT staff engagement committee that meets once a month to plan various things for us to do. It can be things like visiting, getting a behind the scenes tour at the airport. It could be touring, you know, an attraction here locally, it could be just going out for a happy hour, being very intentional. And we’ve also made a pretty significant investment into what I call like a team coach, someone who is working with us as a team, helping us to work together. You know, chamber life. It’s, it’s awesome, it is super fun, but it’s also exhausting. It’s always one thing, you know, one event to the next. It is, you know, you’re constantly out there hustling for for members, and it’s a lot on an individual and a lot on a team. And so one of the best things that I feel like I’ve been able to bring to the table as CEO is for us, for me, to really support and and not just put my, you know, it’s more than just, you know, ordering pizza once a month kind of thing, just being very intentional with what we do with our team and our staff. And just for instance, we had a monster event, probably our biggest event of the year last week. It was our Sarasota business awards of 600 person lunch with 10,000 moving parts. And you know, going into this week, I just was like, You know what we’re I’m going to call close the office on Thursday too. So this week, the team is going to have a four day weekend. And I think you can never invest in your staff. You the payback on that is tenfold.

Brandon Burton 29:12
Yeah, I love that. The whole idea of having a staff engagement committee, I think, is very intentional to make sure that their needs are being met, and making sure that burnout doesn’t kick in sooner than it should.

Heather Kasten 29:27
And also just the flexibility, you know, I will say that our chamber, I have someone who likes to get here at 5am every morning. Now he’s out earlier in the afternoon, and then I have people that come in at 830 and go till five. And so just the offering people like true flexibility in how they do their job, and that has also been, I think, really rewarding and really helped to keep people here and engaged. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 29:55
that’s great. I love that, that piece of advice, I like asking. Everyone we have on the show about the future of chambers, and how you see the future and purpose of chambers going forward.

Heather Kasten 30:08
Well, I absolutely believe in the work that we do. I do feel like the model has to constantly be evaluated and tweaked. And so, you know, the days of kind of just doing the rinse and repeat and the networking events. I just don’t know how relevant some of those things are. And I’m constantly challenging our team to look at how we’re doing things and what we’re doing, why we’re doing them. I think you know really going back to, how do you best serve a business? What does that look like? Because it looks different than it looked five years ago, that and looks different than 20 years ago, for sure. And so I think just really being up on the wheel as to what your business community needs, and then being able to provide that, and also looking at some of the things that maybe in the past have just been done, like, oh, that’s just part of your membership. You know, are there ways to monetize some of the work that, that that you’re doing? And in being able to put $1 value to that, and that’s good that, that’s what keeps me up at 3am is, you know, what does that look like? How do we continue to grow and and all of those things?

Brandon Burton 31:24
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, Heather, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information, so that way listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about these programs or how you’re doing things at the Greater Sarasota chamber, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you

Heather Kasten 31:41
sure. Uh, my email. Super easy. Just hkasten@sarasotachamber.com, that’s going to be the best way to get a hold of me. I’d encourage anyone to check out our website, which is just SarasotaChamber.com It lists all of the programs, all of the initiatives that we’re currently working on, but I’d love to hear from you, and would love to learn from you as well. That’s a great thing about chamber business, is that we can all share ideas and best practices and and, you know, all really encourage and help each other to grow and be better.

Brandon Burton 32:18
Yeah, we’ll get that in our show notes, so it’ll make it easy for people to find it and reach out to you. But it’s been great having you back on the podcast again. Big congratulations to you and your team for making those big impacts in your community. I wish you guys the best of luck in Philly, and we’ll see what happens.

Heather Kasten 32:38
All right, thanks so much. Brandon, I really, am truly honored to be on the podcast. Thanks for all you do.

Brandon Burton 32:45
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Jodi Owczarski

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is Jodi Owczarski, representing the Michigan West Coast Chamber. Jodi is the President and CEO of the Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce, a role that she’s held since September of 2022 after joining the chamber in 2017 with a diverse background as a small business owner, nonprofit leader, HR professional and operational Operations Director for an international consulting firm. Jodi brings a wealth of experience to her leadership, known for her passion and community involvement. She currently serves on over 10 boards and committees, including the US Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100 and the ACCE board of directors. Jodi holds a bachelor’s in psychology from Michigan State University. Jodi, I’m excited to have you back with us on chamber chat podcast. Congratulations again to you and your team as being selected as chamber of the year finalists. I’d love for you to say hello to the audience and to share something interesting about yourself. I mentioned before we started recording, you’re one of the few three piece that we’ve had on Chamber Chat Podcast, so we’re getting to know you pretty well, but share something interesting so you can get to know you better.

Jodi Owczarski 2:27
Awesome. Thanks. Brandon, truly such a privilege to be able to be a part of your podcast. I love listening, and it’s a privilege to be able to be a part of it as a guest. I don’t remember what I shared, something interesting. I don’t think it was this, but my kids are all grown now and married, but when they were younger, we started switching up how we would give gifts, and we stopped giving things, and instead worked on giving each other opportunities and experiences. And for me, that turned into a huge love for travel, going to experience different cultures and different communities. And at this point, I think I’ve been to nearly 40 different countries, and I am just getting started. So love traveling across the US and and abroad.

Brandon Burton 3:18
So as a travel expert, what’s, what’s, maybe your top two or three places that you’ve traveled to,

Jodi Owczarski 3:25
you know, from an exotic location, I think Fiji is, is my favorite. The culture there was phenomenal. They love Americans because of the the role that we played in the war. And so they love to welcome us to their country, everyone’s family, but from a I could live here standpoint Spain, that may be a part of my retirement plan. We’ll see what

Brandon Burton 3:49
happens. I love it. It’s awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about the Michigan, West Coast chamber, just to set the stage for our discussion today. It’s always helpful to know the size of chamber, the scope of work. You guys are involved with staff budget, just to prepare us for our conversation today.

Jodi Owczarski 4:09
Sure, so West Coast chamber. We often people think we must be on the West Coast of the United States, but we’re on the third coast. So we’re on the western shores of Lake Michigan. In Holland, Michigan, we’ve got a population in Holland of about 35,000 but we serve a larger community of about 120,000 out $120,000 120,000 people. In our target market, our community is a little bit unique in that we have three major economic drivers. We have a large manufacturing base. We also have a huge focus on agriculture and tourism. I think it’s unique that we serve all three of those economic drivers. Our chamber as an organization, is strictly a Chamber of Commerce in our community. We have a separate. CVB and economic development organization. So we focus strictly on chamber function. As of today, we have 1228 members. We track them down to the exact number, and we serve those members with a team of seven our budget this fiscal year was just under $1.5 million in revenue. Happy to say that with three months to go in our fiscal year, we blew past that number. So I’m hoping that we end up closer to the 16165,

Brandon Burton 5:36
this fiscal year. That’s awesome. You guys are are running strong and awesome. So that’s why you’re here today, right? So with these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time really diving into the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So we’ll take a quick break, and when we get back, we’ll dive into those.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Jamie Beasley
Hey, Chamber Execs, are you juggling ribbon cuttings, grant deadlines, membership renewals and a rogue newsletter that just won’t format? That’s where Econ Dev Ops comes in. We’re a virtual assistant agency built exclusively for chambers and EDOs. From social media to CRM cleanup to event planning to inbox management, we handle the behind the scenes work so you can focus on impact. And here’s the best part, we don’t just assign a random virtual assistant, we match you with someone who fits your workflow, your communication style, even your level of type-A. Visit econdevops.com or email us at hello@econdevops.com and finally, cross “hire help” off your to-do list. Econ Dev Ops helping community champions make a bigger impact!

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

Brandon Burton 9:41
All right, Jodi, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’ll spend some time today focusing on the two programs on your chamber, the year application. I know one of them you’ve kind of expanded on for those who listen to the show regularly, Jodi was on last year as a chamber. Your finalist as well, and you talked about your community impact day. But you guys have have significantly grown that you want to tell us about that program first. Kind of, maybe it helps to start with the origins. And people can always go back to episode two, 286 to listen to that episode again, where you go granular on the you know what it was like last year, but kind of give us the origin and what you guys have done with it this year.

Jodi Owczarski 10:25
Absolutely. So community impact day started as an offshoot for our leadership program. As we wrapped that program up at the end of the year, we were looking for tangible ways for that class to go out and serve and so we started reaching out to local organizations that may need just an extra hand for a few hours. And what we found was that it was a great opportunity for our class, and it provided tremendous support to those nonprofit organizations. And so over time, we started expanding both who we invited to serve, as well as the number of organizations that we were able to serve. And it turned into, literally, my favorite day of the year. You could cancel my birthday and Christmas and every other holiday, and I would be fine as long as I got to continue to have community impact day, being able to drive around our community to see all the sea of volunteers just flooding the community, literally makes me cry every year. Is just the best. The difference, though, for us this year and what we’ve done and what was part of our application is that we wanted to grow it even bigger. We talk all the time about turning ripples of influence into tidal waves of impact, and we wanted to turn our little ripples in our community into two waves that reached out more more broadly. And you know, one of the things Brandon that I love about this industry is that when we find something that’s good, instead of hoarding that and putting a patent on it and saying, This is our proprietary knowledge, we open things up, right? And we say, here’s the recipe, here’s the cookbook. Here are all the details that you need to be able to do, R and D, rip off and duplicate, right? And bring this to your community. And that’s what we did with community impact day. So we created an online toolkit with step by step instructions right down to here are the emails that you send. Here are the spreadsheets that you need. Here are the job forms that you need, every detail that you were going to need as an organization to launch this in your community within this online toolkit. Then we reached out to chambers in Michigan and said, we’d love to have you be a part of it, and we had a number of chambers that decided to join us in that process. And so this year, we were able to have six additional chambers in Michigan join us to grow that impact. We had meetings on a monthly basis to be able to walk alongside them, to support them through this process, so that it was as easy as could be for them to launch this you know, each of the chambers not unique to us. We all feel like we’re strapped thin, right? We’re doing a ton of work, and so adding new things in, especially big things, can be really challenging, and we wanted to take as much of that out of the process for them as possible, so that it could be a seamless, easy process to launch. And we couldn’t be more happy with how that turned out across Michigan this year. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 13:46
so you’re right about you guys finding things that work, and you’re very open to share it with others. A lot of people know the Michigan West Coast chamber, because the EOS system, you guys have been very open and transparent and sharing how that worked and how to implement it with amongst your organization. And now, you know, here’s you know, version, you know, it’s not, it’s not a build upon the EOS system, but here’s a 2.0 of another great system that’s being rolled out and being shared with chambers, you know, nation, statewide, nationwide.

Jodi Owczarski 14:15
Yeah, right. Well, that’s our goal, right? Is to bring it across the nation, because it works so well for us, the impact we’re able to make in our community is so significant that there’s just no reason why it can’t be replicated. You talk about Eos, and part of Eos is documenting your systems or your core processes, and it’s that that allowed us to share this easily, right? We’ve, we’ve got that whole process well documented. And so it was, it was easy for chambers to come alongside us and to follow the recipe and to be able to implement this in their community as well.

Brandon Burton 14:50
So I remember last year, you’re talking about like partnering with nonprofits in the community and driving around town, people wearing the T shirts and doing everything. So you. Give us an idea listeners who maybe are just hearing about community impact day for the first time, what did it look like in your community, and then as these six additional chambers adopted it this year, did it have a similar look and feel? Did they partner with other organizations so it had a different focus? Or, how did that evolve?

Jodi Owczarski 15:19
Great, great question. I think the biggest challenge to putting this on, aside from staff capacity, is finding enough meaningful volunteer opportunities. A lot of times, organizations don’t even understand what all we can come in and do with a group of well intended and dedicated volunteers. So in our community, we were able to serve 125 different locations during the day, with another 111 across the state. So over 235 locations had volunteered this year. What this looked like was that we all did this on the same day, at the same time, and wearing the same blue T shirts all across the state. The only thing that varied was we changed out the logo of the home chamber. And if they had sponsors that kind of bought space on the shirt as a part of the underwriting of the day, then that changed. But to see those blue shirts literally stretched from the west coast to the east coast of the state of Michigan, north to south. Amazing.

Brandon Burton 16:29
So I’m sure you’re entrenched, you know, in that day in your community. Did you get a chance to shoot over to any of the other communities and see in works? Or did you have to rely on pictures and and their feedback.

Jodi Owczarski 16:42
Yeah, you know, we we absolutely had to rely on pictures and their feedback. But the coolest thing Brandon the day wasn’t even done. The volunteers were still serving, and my phone was blowing up from my friends across the state, saying, everybody’s already asking, what’s the date for next year? And are we doing it again? And it’s like, Absolutely, we’re doing it again. So it quickly caught on across across the state. So we had set a goal for having 2025 volunteers for 2025 and we crossed the 3700 volunteer mark in in year one, not only did it impact how many people are involved, it was a great non dues revenue driver for both our chamber and for our chamber friends across the state. We set a goal of like $52,000 in non dues revenue this year, and we had $106,750 in non dues revenue. So this is revenue that would not have come to these chambers had they not participated, right? They were sponsoring this specific day. And so it’s just cool to be able to see that kind of revenue driven to these organizations.

Brandon Burton 17:58
Yeah, well, let’s talk about the non dues revenue for a minute. So is that all coming from sponsorships? What? What are the different aspects involved to generate the revenue?

Jodi Owczarski 18:08
Sure, all sponsorship. This is a sponsorship in our community that sells itself. People want to be involved with this. It’s a feel good thing. It’s high visibility. We get good press coverage, and they want to be associated with positivity like this. And so it’s a it’s a very easy sponsorship opportunity. There’s very little cost involved with doing this day, really the there’s two main costs. One is the T shirts, and those are essentials. Get a good t shirt this year, we helped underwrite the cost of those shirts for those initial chambers to launch. We wanted to remove that barrier, and we had plenty of sponsors that wanted to help us in that process. The other thing is the after party, it’s key to bring together these volunteers afterwards and to celebrate together as a community, the good work that just happened. And so that can be as expensive or inexpensive as you choose it to be, but that’s literally the only expense that’s associated. So those non dues revenue almost go completely to your bottom line.

Brandon Burton 19:16
Yeah, that’s awesome. So for your guys’s after party, do you go to a park or a venue or what? What’s your your place of choice for the party? Yeah. What have you done? Have you experimented?

Jodi Owczarski 19:27
Yeah, we’ve done a couple of different things. The last couple of years we’ve been at our community Civic Center, because it’s right in the core of of downtown. It’s got ample space for us to have hundreds or 1000s of people that come join us. We’ve got everything from food trucks and vendors and yard games and live music to just have effective atmosphere.

Brandon Burton 19:50
That’s awesome, yes. So for other chambers listening who might want to get involved in 2026 please. I guess what? Is the date, and where would you point them to be able to access that toolkit?

Jodi Owczarski 20:04
Yep. So the toolkit is on our website, at West Coast chamber.org and we are going to, we’re going to put a save the date out there for other chambers to be able to get on board. We’d love to do a webinar to dig into more details specifically on what it looks like to execute and to help support them along the way, we did some estimating Brandon this year, when we put together the numbers for year one and realized that if next year, every chamber that participated, if they just invited one chamber, and we just did that year over year for five years. What that would result in is more than $6 million in non dues revenue and saving our communities over $18 million in labor costs in five years. So the impact is just massive, right? And so I think that that is incredibly modest growth goals. I think that we can absolutely grow at a much higher rate than that. So in 2026 this will be happening on Wednesday, May 13. So we’d love to have any of your listeners join us in 2026 we’ll come alongside you. We’ll give you the tools and the resources that you need, and help answer any questions along the line, so that this can be as successful in your community as it has been in ours. That’s

Brandon Burton 21:33
awesome. Yeah, I can see the power, the networking effect of all the chambers that participate. They all know another one or two people in the industry that can benefit right, other communities, exactly, right? And it just continues to roll on. So yeah, you guys are starting a movement that’s awesome.

Jodi Owczarski 21:49
I hope so. Yeah, we need more of this, right, right?

Brandon Burton 21:53
I love it. Well, let’s shift gears to the other program that was submitted on your application around your chamber, Career Center, tell us how that got its start, and what the need was, and how you guys answered that need, sure.

Jodi Owczarski 22:07
So I moved into the CEO role in 2022 and as a part of that process, I went on a listening tour to understand what challenges our members are experiencing, what successes they’re having, what they’re thinking as they look forward and how we as an organization can better serve them to meet the needs that they have. Not surprisingly, the number one issue that came out of those conversations was a talent shortage that they just can’t find the individuals that they need to fill the roles that they have, and they certainly if they’re finding people, they’re not equipped in the way that they need them to be, they’re not upskilled in what they need them to be able to do. And so we knew that we needed to be more focused on this area. You know, we’ve long said that, oh, workforce development, leadership and talent development is a part of the work that we do, but I’ll say that it was not as direct as what we’re looking to do right now. We knew that we needed to lean in in a much more significant way and do more tangible work that could lead to a better outcome for our members. And so just over about two years ago, one of our community leaders approached me and they were doing some big work in the education space, and they asked if we would be willing to come alongside them to bridge the gap for high school and college students and young professionals. They were doing great work in the early ed space, reimagining education and what this looks like. But then there it dropped off, and all of a sudden, students were having to go to a traditional look and didn’t have as much experiential learning opportunities once they hit kind of that high school level. And so we said, Absolutely, this aligns with, I think, where we need to go from a from a workforce development standpoint. Through that process, I was able to find a tool called Youth Science. You science is an online assessment tool that’s a gamified assessment takes about 90 minutes to complete, but it helps identify each individual’s unique aptitude and how that can relate to a number of things, including future career what I loved about this, if you’ve got kids in school, they’ve undoubtedly taken career tests, right that tell them what they could and should be, but those tests in large part are based on your interests, and so it’s super easy to skew those responses to what you think you should be, or to be funny, my daughter thought it was really cute when she was in middle school and she could skew the answer to say she should be a bartender. See, I don’t have to go to college. College, because it’s pretty easy to figure out what they’re asking you and why, right? And I’m happy to report that that is not where she ended in her career search. She’s a nurse today, but with this assessment, it really can show show especially students opportunities that they might not even be familiar with. The data is so compelling Brandon. It shows that across the country, and it’s true in our community as well, that students think they want to be one of three things. They’re going to be a teacher or a police officer or firefighter, something in that realm, or in the medical field that they’re going to be a nurse, it’s what they know, it’s what they’ve experienced. But what the data shows is that aptitude for those three things very low, and where the aptitude is high is in it amongst other areas, that’s where we see the greatest discrepancy. These students have grown up with technology. They have great aptitude to do things in the information, information technology realm, but they have very little interest because they don’t even know what those careers could look like. So for the chamber, excuse me, what we’re doing is, number one, we’re providing this assessment free of charge to whoever wants to take it. Our goal this year was to have 100 students take this assessment. We’ve had over 1000 take this assessment in the first year. It’s but the magic is in the so what now? What you’ve got these results now what the reason why it makes sense for the chamber to lean into this space is that we can be the bridge now from these education realms to the workforce, and so we can take these students and say, okay, you’ve got results that say you’d be you have strong aptitude for logistics. What in the world does that mean? We can take you now into the workforce and show you logistics, careers and in the various ways that those aptitudes might show up in the workforce, and help walk them down that path. So it can be everything from job shadows, hands on, learning experiences, internships, apprenticeships that we’re able to line up for them based not on their interests, but more on their aptitude. I’m a strong believer that you can’t be what you can’t see. And if we can help kids see a path forward, that they have a strong aptitude in that there is a demand for in our community, that there’s employers that have those jobs available right here in West Michigan, all of a sudden, there’s a there’s a path forward for them, and a future that might look significantly different than what it would have looked like otherwise. Yeah, and we’ve

Brandon Burton 27:54
talked about this a lot on the podcast over the years, that when it comes to workforce readiness, a lot of these students at a high school, they, like you, talked about, you know, doctors, teachers, police or fire. Aside from what they see their parents do for a living, those are the other visual things that they see throughout their community. I can see myself doing that. And as far as what their parents do, either they fall in line and say, Yeah, I’ll continue on the family business, or do what my dad did, or or the exact opposite, like, I want nothing to do with what my parents did, because I saw, you know, whatever the side effect was, but leaning into the aptitude, which really it’s a word that I think most high school students don’t even think about. Like, now interests like, yeah, they can all understand what that means, but talk to us a little bit more about the aptitude. So in trying to relate this to high school students, how would you define aptitude for them?

Jodi Owczarski 28:57
Right? It’s how you’re uniquely wired. How does your brain work? This test is not one that you can see what they’re trying to get you to do, and can skew your results. I took the assessment. It was fascinating. The results that came out, and

Brandon Burton 29:14
they making a career change on us

Jodi Owczarski 29:16
to be a CEO. I was like, but it was, it was, it was really interesting to see how that works. What we talk about is that most people go through life related to your dominant hand, right? I’m right handed. I write very easily with my right hand. That’s where my aptitudes lie, right? It’s how my brain is wired. Can I go through life writing with my left hand absolutely but it’s going to be messy. I’m going to have to think a lot harder about it, right, and it’s going to take a lot more effort for me to do writing with my right hand is just so natural for me. Working within a career that aligns with your aptitudes is just like writing with your dominant. Hands. It’s natural.

Brandon Burton 30:02
Yeah, I love that definition. That’s awesome. And for whatever reason, it seems like it hasn’t been until just the last few years that chambers are starting to recognize this need to help bridge the gap with these high school students entering the workforce. It’s like school the school system does well getting them to a certain point, and then it’s like, well, now figure it out. You know, you’re gonna go to college and go to a trade school. Are you gonna enter the workforce? Good luck, you know. And for a chamber to step in and help, you know, guide what that next step could be is so valuable.

Jodi Owczarski 30:35
We can be that natural connector right between those two teachers are taxed with doing so much. And frankly, they’ve been in school their whole life, right? They grew up going to school. They went to school to go to school, and now they go to school every day to teach. And so it’s hard for them to always have full visibility into what’s really needed in the workforce of today. And so if we can help come alongside them to create those opportunities, to curate that and to show those students and the educators, frankly, what that looks like. I think it’s it’s better for all of us. So for the chamber, the the chamber Career Center for us, is both a book of work that we’re doing, but it’s also physical space. We’ve literally sold our building that we’ve called home, and are moving into a brand new space that we can configure in a way that will allow us to have a physical Career Center for students in young professionals, to be able to come to as a resource and an area of support, to walk alongside them through this journey, whether they’re in high school, whether they’re in college, or maybe they went to college for a month and was like, This is not for me. Who’s there to help these people right? Because they no longer have a high school guidance counselor or College Career Center, the chamber is that spot that is available to all within our community, regardless of where you’re at in that process.

Brandon Burton 32:04
Yeah, I love that perspective. Well, Jodi, as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you suggest or offer to them towards accomplishing that goal.

Jodi Owczarski 32:21
Sure you know, I can share Brandon, what helped us. You referenced already that we run on Eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System and and part of that process has us in very regular strategic planning sessions, the first one that we went through when I moved into the CEO seat, the the process was evaluated. Evaluating our core values, and we decided to change one of those core values, from Think Big be great, to be a trailblazer to us. That means that we have an innovative mindset that drives positive impact. We can’t do anything. We can’t continue to do what we’ve always done, if we’re going to be innovative, if we’re going to be impactful, if we’re going to do big things that impact our community, we have to always be looking through that lens of what do we need to do new now to better serve our community? That’s been a big change in that mindset for us, and that’s changed everything. Everything’s on the table for us. Nothing is sacred, because we know we always have to continue to evolve at the speed of business to be able to stay ahead of what our members need.

Brandon Burton 33:34
Yeah, I love that. As we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Jodi Owczarski 33:43
Such a great question. You know, if you haven’t had the opportunity to look at the new horizon initiatives, 2035, that came out, there’s a ton of great information about where we’re going as an industry. There’s a couple of pieces in there that really stick out to me that might be most relevant for this conversation. First is chamber serving as unifiers. It’s it’s not surprising that we’re in a time of incredible political and social fragmentation. The Chamber now is needed more than ever to be the unifier as they leave the community, we’ve got to be collaborative and strategic, no matter what the issue is. If we take that lens, being the unifier, being collaborative, being strategic, that will be critical. The second one is catalytic leadership. You know, our communities are looking to us to be bold and to proactively instigate change that benefits our community. We’ve got to take that lens, be catalytic, be trailblazing in the mindset we bring to this work for our organization, a part of Eos is setting your 10 year target. Where are you going? What do you want to accomplish? And for us, our 10 year target does. Not even use the words Chamber of Commerce. Our industry is changing so quickly that I don’t know if we’ll still even be called a Chamber of Commerce in 10 years. So when we set our 10 year target, we said that we want to be a trailblazing organization that turns ripples of influence into tidal waves of positive impact for our community. I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but if we’re accomplishing that, then I think we’re doing the right things.

Brandon Burton 35:28
Yes, I love that the ripples of influence into tidal waves of positive impact. And I think that could be a tagline that most chambers could pick up and run with and adopt. You know, just like community impact day.

Jodi Owczarski 35:41
Yeah, welcome to it rip off and duplicate. Yeah, that’s right.

Brandon Burton 35:47
I love it. Well. Jodi, for those listening, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information if they wanted to reach out and connect with you and learn more about community impact day or chamber Career Center. Anything else you guys are doing there at the Michigan West Coast chamber, where would you point them to reach out and connect?

Jodi Owczarski 36:06
You know, our website is a great place to start. WestCoastChamber.org, all of our teams contact. Different information is on the website, but please email me directly. I love to chat chat with my chamber peers, and happy to share the secret sauce recipes for anything we have. And I will likely ask you for your secret sauce as well. My email is jodi@westcoastchamber.org.

Brandon Burton 36:37
Very good. Well, be sure to get it in our show notes to make it nice and easy, but this has been a fun conversation. It’s been great to have you back on the show and and feel like we’re good friends. Now. You know, I love it so much so, but I wish you and your team Best of luck this year is chamber of the year and into another great, positive community, community impact day next year as well. So look forward to hearing how that goes

Jodi Owczarski 37:03
wonderful. Brandon, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. If

Brandon Burton 37:07
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber with Scott Harper

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist Series. And our guest for this episode is Scott Harper, representing the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce in Texas as a 2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist. But Scott is currently the president of the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce, bringing over 26 years of non profit experience to the role. He’s worked with various organizations, including the YMCA in Tampa and Houston, where he held positions such as executive director district, Vice President and Vice President of major gifts. A graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in sports management and recreation, Scott is known for his relationship building skills and as a strong community leader, passionate about supporting others outside of work, he’s actively involved in volunteering with non profit boards and community organizations. He’s married to his college sweetheart, Jennifer, and together, they have two children, and when they’re when he’s not working, they run a horse boarding facility rebel ranch in Montgomery, Texas, where they live with their rescue dogs, cats and horses. But Scott, we’re excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. First of all, congratulations to you and your team as being selected as chamber of the year finalists. Love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Scott Harper 2:39
Yeah, thanks, Brandon, thanks for having me. We are excited to be a finalist. We had an amazing year, and we’re excited on the next steps, and excited to go to Philadelphia to see if we can, you know, bring it home to the to the Conroe area. Lot of hard work with the team and the board to make that happen. Interesting fact with me. You know, when we do the two, two truths and a lie, one of them, the truths have been that I was in a bridal magazine back in the day, and I’ve got to play Augusta National nine times. So that’s a pretty, pretty good thing, if you like, if you like golf,

Brandon Burton 3:22
yeah, hopefully people are taking notes, in case they’re in a room with you at the conference, and then you guys end up playing two truths and a lie, they can call you out. That’s awesome. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Conroe Lake Conroe chamber, just to kind of set the stage for our conversation today. It always helps to know, you know, what type of work you guys are involved with, what kind of staff, size and budget, that sort of thing, to set the stage for us?

Scott Harper 3:49
Yeah, sure. So I’ve been with the chamber here going on, just hit my eighth year. I’ve actually done that in two different two different stages. Came to the chamber, you know, for four years, went back to the Y for about six, then came back to the chamber for the next four. You know, we’ve grown substantially. So this finished last year 2024 of $1.6 million budget, which is more than double than what it was in 2021 so we’ve had a great, great surge. We have a staff of eight full time staff. We currently have three part time staff as well. And part of that staff increase was we had a merger last year. We took on the operations of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, which were some neighbors of ours, very close. You had mentioned, I live in Montgomery, and my kids went to Montgomery High School, and so we had a lot of ties. They were very, very close area to Conroe. So that really was a strategic opportunity for us, but we were able to absorb their staff, keep them on staff, realign their. Uh, their responsibilities, and so that’s kind of where we are. We opened a welcome center out there as kind of a pseudo, a chamber presence, but it’s really about Montgomery, and we’re still kind of navigating that opportunity, but that’s been, it’s been a great, a great segue to keep a relationship in that in that area, even though we operate from the Conroe area as their chamber. But do number of events? There 27 board members, and then we have about 10 ex officios that come in that are different representations of the school districts. We serve three different school districts. Count, you know, county seat. So our county judge and their representatives are there as well, along with our elected officials have representation as well. So it’s a, you know, we’ve gone through a lot and lot of change and a lot of growth. Montgomery county is always one of the largest, fastest growing counties, and Conroe has been one of the fastest growing cities. If it’s not the top, it’s in the top 10 each year. So we, our chamber is finally starting to mirror that growth when it comes to our membership, and then that’s able, you know, allows us to do a lot of other things, to really focus on the initiatives that I’m know, we’ll talk about here in a little bit more than being in an event chamber, you know, we do an event called lobster fest, where we’ll see the 1000 people for steak and lobster dinner play a golf tournament. It’s our biggest fundraiser. And when I say, hey, you know about the Conroe chamber, yeah, you do lobster fest, we do a lot more than and that shift really started last year after the merger, and being able to put some of the new staff in some other roles to really start focusing on our initiatives. And that was elevated is, again, while we were redoing our strategic plan. So we’re halfway through the first year of our new three year strategic plan, so a lot of things came together this last year, and I think that’s why it aligned us to have a have a pretty good shot at going to and, you know, getting invited to Philly, I think that’s positioned as well.

Brandon Burton 7:02
Yeah, absolutely, man, as you’re talking about the chamber and they can, you know, we could do probably four or five other, you know, topics of a podcast episode, from, you know, working with the large board to multiple school districts to growth with revenue, to mergers, you know, acquiring other like, we can go down all sorts of rabbit holes. But for the for the sake of our conversation today, we’ll, we’ll stick with the two topics that you the two programs, rather that you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application, and we’ll dive in deep on those as soon as we get bit, as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Brandon Burton 10:26
All right, Scott, we are back, as I mentioned before the break, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes. I’d like to dive in on the programs that you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if you have a preference on which of the two programs you want to address first, and to kind of target first, but I’ll let you make the call on which of those two programs you want to cover first. Yeah, I

Scott Harper 10:49
think, well, I mean, they’re both very, very important and serve two different, two different huge needs in our community. But I think we’ll start with the youth to Career Fair first, and then we’ll shift to the other one that we’re going to actually highlight at the showcase in Philadelphia, a youth to career fair, was actually a model that was done by an area Chamber over in the college, college station Bryan area. And it’s really as we work with different school districts, we have a Workforce Committee, and that was being driven by Dr Rebecca Riley, who was the president of Lone Star College Montgomery, and really got some great, great synergy going. But what with all the data that they do and to get back, we just really identified gaps, soft skills, all the different things that the workforce was not getting through the process, and so our team got together and with the end result of trying to create and improve the relationships we have with our manufacturers and our big distribution centers and different things we have in our area, to get internships and get these kids, when in there in high school, into Some practicum hours that they can, that they can really lean on before they go into college. Well, we also figured that if you’re going to try to fix the the paradigm shift, you have to go earlier. And so we started working on this model, like I said, with another another chamber was doing, and it’s called youth to career fair, and it’s to focus on seventh and eighth graders that are before they have to pick the tracks that they’re going to go into in the high school. And once they pick those tracks, they’re kind of stuck. And we have some communities are very highly economically disadvantaged, and we’re trying to also, you know, one of the terms we used in the why is, how do we break the generational poverty cycle? Some of these kids, they don’t have the resources. They might be seeing grandmother and granddad doing a certain thing, and then their parents did the same thing, and then they figure, well, I have to do that, because that’s what my you know, all my family is doing, and we’re trying to just dangle a different carrot of motivation, that there are different things out there. So we host a job fair every every January, and bring all of our vendors in, and they’re there looking for their employees. And so in the fall, it’s still a job fair, but we call it youth to career fair. And what they do, instead of interviewing, they are actually bringing all their tools and all the different things that they use in their jobs. So the robot, the robotic welding mechanism, the all the EMS, brings out, you know, they bring out the motorcycles, the horses, the SWAT stuff, the firefighters bring out the training gear, and the kids are able to replicate how heavy a hose gets at the further it goes. And so they’re able to do those things, cut locks off of gates, hospitality, How to Fold Napkins, how to set a place, setting, those type of things. And then we partner with our our Chamber members that are either some non profits or our Workforce Solutions, or spherions, our talent development groups, they’re doing soft skills. And so the kids have a passport, and they have to go around and get of the eight tracks. They have to go around and visit one of the those booths that are in those tracks. And then they at the soft skills. They have to look somebody in the eye and talk to them. They have to shake their hand. They have to talk about appropriate dress, where they have little cutouts laying on the table. And you, you build a professional look, if you’re, you know, and like, you put the suit on if you’re going to this type of interview, what you should wear. And they like, they put the suit on them and did different things. And it’s really interactive. It’s really cool. The feedback from the teachers, once the kids get back and what they start talking about was amazing. And just one quick example that changed the first year to the second year was the welding, the robotic welding group that came out, and it was all guys standing there, and that’s who he brought now. Of the girls in the in the class, and we were running about 1300 kids through this in one day. And so none of the girls stopped. And so the next year, he brought two female welders that he has, he it just didn’t work out schedule wise. And that was an amazing shift, because then girls were going to talk to them. And he’s like, she’s she’s my best welder, and so she was out there recruiting these young girls say, Hey, this is what I do. These are the things I made. And it really changed the concept in the field there. And then in the hospitality side, one of our local hotels actually put the list of their names. Of how many graduates from that high school now work there professionally. So we had Willis High School and Conroe High School represented, and they listed those kids names, and some of them were like, I know that guy. I know that person. And it was just a great way to connect. Every year it’s going to get better. We’re trying to figure out transportation is a huge deal, because all the schools, you know, they use the same busses, and they can’t take so many busses out of the sequence. It screws up the entire district. So we’re actually looking for this year transportation sponsors so we don’t have to deal with the school busses, and we can have our own busses and keep the kids there a little bit longer, and bring more kids in with that number of 1300 students, that’s only three junior highs, and that we have multiple more. So we’re looking at ways, how can we replicate that and get it to different parts of our of our county. But that’s it’s been a huge success for us, and it’s really a part of our workforce development pipeline, because these kids, as we relate to ACC ease horizon 2035, plan, these kids are still going to be within that 10 year window after they graduate from college. And so it’s really cool and very impactful. So we’re looking for that to continue to grow, and our job fair participants really enjoy it because they, you know, I told them treat this as an interview for, you know, you know, eight years from now, you know, finding that person and then to and it’s really opening those doors, as I alluded to before, about creating possible internships And practicum hours for these kids later on.

Brandon Burton 17:21
Yeah, did, did you mention where the what you use is a venue for

Scott Harper 17:25
this? Yeah, we use the Montgomery County Convention Center, so we’re able to partner with them. And then really, the only sheer expense we get that donated, which is really nice, but the only really expenses for us to feed the volunteers the CTE group Conroe high school actually designed their the T shirts. They have printing presses within the school. So they made T shirts for all the students that got their passport stamped. And so every kid got their passport stamped, so every kid got a t shirt. So as a way for us. You know, them not asking us, or you’re going through the philanthropic side of, how do we recognize sponsors the right way? So we had, we had all these T shirts with no sponsors on them, because they did it in house and didn’t really tell us that they were doing it. So they now know we’re going to have all the sponsors next year. But that’s a learning, you know, that’s a learning that they’re trying to do a great thing for the students, but they didn’t think through what it could have been. And, you know, to put the sponsors names on it, you know, the kids designed the design themselves. They printed them themselves. So that was, that was cool. But there’s one other level of, you know, execution that could have given that

Brandon Burton 18:41
absolutely, I love the example you shared with the robotic welding and not having any of the girls of the youth, you know, stopping at their booth, and then next year bringing two female employees they have and, you know, dei, depending on the context of when it’s brought in, Sometimes we’ll get, you know, some negative connotation with it, but that’s what I see, is as Dei, you know, if as these students pass by, they’re not giving any attention to the businesses where they can’t picture themselves working at because they don’t see anybody like them working there. So even just, you know, bringing in a couple female employees, you saw that difference of these, you know, young women stopping to learn about that as a career. That’s a great example. It was

Scott Harper 19:26
a game changer. The manager is like, I will never not bring a, you know, a female with me again, because he’s like, that really opened up the entire conversation for everyone in the room versus half the room. Yeah, there’s a learning for all of us. It’s very impactful.

Brandon Burton 19:43
Yeah, well, let’s shift gears to the other program that you highlighted on your application.

Scott Harper 19:49
Yeah, so the other one was called, it’s simply called chamber day, and it was actually brought to the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce prior to the merger. It was. From, from Brenham, from the Brenham area, and the Chamber of Commerce there, and the gentleman through the bank. And so he came on their board. He goes, Hey, I’d like to help lead this and champion this. And so they had it all Rolling and ready to go for the spring of 2024, we went through the merger. And there was some things that we wanted to make sure that we kept on the docket. Of just saying this, even at post merger, we’re still going to do these things. It’s very important. It’s and when she started announcing that, and we do a coalition meeting every quarter with all the chambers in our in our, in our in our county. And so we’re up to we keep everybody up to speed of what we’re doing. We share so many members, you know, and you know, so and so it’s a great time for us to share. And so I was like, that’s, that’s, that’s a great idea. I’m going to just watch this from the peripheral, see how it goes. And unbeknownst to me, when I was thinking that last the year before, then it ended up being one of our programs. And so she cascaded, essentially the Montgomery area. There’s two zip codes out there, and we had about 40 plus volunteers. They saw just around 200 different businesses all in the afternoon, and just really gathered a lot of great data. And it was called chamber day, just to let people know that the chamber was coming, to give you, just to ask you some basic questions of what your pain points were, and those type of things. And the information we came back was amazing. Just, you know, from some of it, we kind of knew of property taxes, different things that are really impacting our small businesses. But we had to, you know, just a lot of topics that came up, and we were able to move some of those topics into different committees that we did as well. And so that’s what we submitted as a part of that. And then during the application process, we actually had the second year rotation of this. And so when this comes up in our interview, I’m going to be able to highlight. This is what we incubated the first year, and then this is what it’s already turned into, and it just happened two months ago last month. So we doubled. We right at 100 went from 40 to 100 volunteers, over 400 different businesses were visited in the in Montgomery, Conroe and Willis. We partnered with the montgomery county Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to work the corridor of Frazier Street, which is predominantly the Hispanic corridor for for business, for the small businesses, and blew it out of the water. And so one of the things, and it’s flexible as we are, you know, we’re really trying to stay ahead of things. And one of our mottos is we lead from the front. We had the gentleman that led the Texas Workforce Commission. He was our monthly speaker right before this event, and he was talking about the soft skills, the skills gaps so quickly before we are Shannon are ready to go, just hadn’t made the copies. We changed a couple of the questions on our survey for for this event, and it really highlighted what those what those issues were. And it was those soft skills, the skills gaps and and, but also, with all the uncertainty in the economic world, everyone that we well, 67% of the businesses felt a positive trend, that they were going to be in a better place this next year than they were this past year. So they have a positive outlook, regardless of all the banter and the political positioning. Each side does that they they felt really good about the economy stabilizing and moving forward versus how they felt pre election. And so that was that was positive. And so we just see that continuing to grow. The gentleman who brought that over from the montgomery area Chamber helped us volunteer again. He’s like, it felt like we were 10 years ahead of this program doing it our first year, versus what the original concept was with the other chamber and the other location, and the fact that we took action with all our findings some chambers, unfortunately, if it’s resources or whatever, they do something in theory, to check a box to say, Yes, we did this to help the community. But if you don’t follow through with it and act on the information that you have, there’s it’s not really impactful. And so we, we don’t check boxes, we get things done. And now this taking this information and putting giving it to another committee we have with our professional business development group, and that we do monthly educational seminars, and so now we’re looking at these skills gaps, and what are the ones leading, the leading ones that we need to bring some more specialized speakers in to talk about. And there are actually, which is, I think one of the biggest takeaways is our workforce development committee is going to create a kind of an. Academy for soft skills. So anyone going through, if they’re already a chamber member and they’ve got new employees, we’re going to develop an academy for soft skills and different things to where, when they come through, that they get some sort of certificate of completion or whatever, that the basics have been covered. And then also, as it as this grows, when they go to our job fair in January, all of the all of the vendors there will know, if they have this on their resume, that they’ve gone through the chambers. We’re going to call it sore. And I totally blanked on the acronym. I’ll get it. I’ll get it to you. But it is just based off of, you know, for them to go through job fairs have something on their resume already that has already tackled one of the biggest issues our businesses are saying it is, is soft skills and communication skills, those type of things, and that they’ve gone through a training shows that they have initiative, but it really shows that the Chamber has responded to a community need. And I think that’s something that we’re going to start seeing in these next couple years, the focus and the power of us listening to some data and then having action on it within a couple of months already, of how we can move forward to try to try to make an impact?

Brandon Burton 26:20
Yeah, I love those examples of being able to take that data and then do something with it, you know, move that trend. So maybe that 67% positive outlook will be 75% next year. And if you don’t do those things, and next time you go back on chamber day, next year, you’re going to hear about, you know, why am I telling you anything, if you’re not doing it

Scott Harper 26:39
right? We didn’t, we didn’t focus on it wasn’t about the chamber, like I said, But we asked, Would you like more information about the chamber? For those that weren’t members and those that were members, those volunteers do it, and thank them for being a member, but we were able to connect with all of them, follow up with our membership staff, and we’ve had a lot of conversions to new members as well, just because this was cool, thank you for doing this. We want to be a part of this more, and this is and so they’re being, they’re being, you know, onboarded as into a chamber relationship in a whole different way than what the traditional ones would be doing, because it’s specific to a need versus an event.

Brandon Burton 27:20
You’re not even talking about steak and lobster with them. Not yet. Yeah, not yet. So my mind just keeps going, you know, spinning around the logistics of this. So if you’ve got 100 volunteers, you know, how are you recruiting them? Where are they coming from? When they’ve got 400 plus businesses that are being visited, are they assign is each volunteer given three or four businesses to see, do they choose them? Like, how? How do the logistics of it all form to be able to make such an impact?

Scott Harper 27:49
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a huge endeavor. And Shannon Reed, who was the executive director of the montgomery area Chamber, is now in that role. And she takes care of that. She breaks it down by, like I said, either zip code, we had it down to shopping centers. We stayed away from the big box shopping centers because, you know, the the local, the local manager of of of a retail store is not going to have the pulse of the community like, you know, a business owner of a small business is, and so, because one corporate won’t let them say anything on anybody’s behalf, and two, so we, we were very strategic. And it was, it was a group of minimum of two people. Some had three, and they were, they were put out in just different geographical areas. We would pull a list she, you know, with, with AI and all this stuff, you can pretty much pinpoint everything she had Google Docs going on. So the app or the document that they were using was real time. So Shannon was back at a restaurant, one of our members, we did a kickoff lunch, and then they covered everything. The teams got together, and then they dispersed. And so as they’re doing each of the interviews, there’s a scribe and an interviewer, and the Scribe is just clicking yes, no, and then getting any of the information that they need to do it, and it’s automatically being embedded into Shannon’s master file. And then they, you know, they gave him a kind of a time limit, and they were able to go through that and get as many as they can during that time limit, somewhat longer, somewhat shorter, because some people like to talk. And a great example or and actually, the same is a great example. But a sad example is our friends for the montgomery county Hispanic Chamber. He’s like Scott, I couldn’t leave in my first I guess I was there. I was there 45 minutes, and he, she, he was telling me that the owner, Conroe PD, had just pulled somebody into the restaurant parking lot and pulled them over just because it was a speeding violation. Had nothing to do with the restaurant. Had. Do, but with this Mexican restaurant not saying they do or do not have undocumented workers for them, when they showed up to work, they thought they were being raided by ICE, yeah, so they didn’t come to work, and she didn’t have any workers, and she had to turn people away. And in the Hispanic community is very family oriented. And Miguel, the president of the montgomery county Hispanic Chambers, like, I had to sit there and talk to her, he goes. So I, you know, I cut, he goes. I said, that’s, that’s, that’s powerful stuff, man, you did the right thing. We’re not just there to sorry about your issue, answer our questions. Like, you really sat down with them. So it was very strategic. One thing that was kind of a funny learning, and like you know, is that we had 100 volunteers that represented their own businesses. We didn’t even survey them. And so that would have been, we’d have been 500 businesses versus the 400 something, if we would have just interviewed and asked the same questions to our volunteers. So we’re going to do that next year. You know, all this learning, right? Yeah, right in front of us. It was right in front of us. And then we didn’t even ask so, and then we had some other ones from the hospitals, doctors are not available. So can we get some? Can we do some subset special events to get their data, their feedback, and then an industrial park in the tech park, you could get past the security guard. So could we get the HR directors in a room prior to this or directly after that, and do that? And then everybody, after they were done by a certain time, they had a 30 minute window to get back to the same restaurant. We had a social hour, we talked about the results, since they were real time. And then she extracted all that, put a report together, and then we have that ready to go to kind of show the before and after, first year, second year. Impact of this event all coming from a merger. And, you know, and in the biggest takeaway too, is the other chambers in our community want to do this as well, and so we’re going to do literally chamber day of montgomery county in the next year or two, and have all that information, and we’ll break it down by precincts for the different commissioners we have. We can break it down by service area, by a chamber, by school district, whatever. But what a powerful tool to give our elected officials and say, Hey, these are the pain points for the entire county, and these are the ones specific to the district that are a little bit different than somebody else’s. And this is what the chambers are doing to combat that issue. And that’s that’s some that’s some synergy there, when you can start doing that. And so having us incubate that first. We’re very proud of that, and that’s why we submitted that. But as it continues to grow, it’s going to be a county wide and hopefully, maybe other chambers would want to get on board as well, because it’s so impactful. It’s part of the cultivation tool for our current members, but also a recruitment tool for future members.

Brandon Burton 32:57
Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s going to be a great presentation at head ACC, as you dive into that even more with the details and, and I imagine at the kickoff lunch, there’s maybe some, you know, base level of training, or some sort of, you know, here’s how the the Google doc works and, and, like you said, the interviewer and recorder and doing all that. So that’s a great program that that drives huge impact. So that’s awesome. As we start to wrap things up. Scott, I wanted to ask on behalf of listeners who are wanting to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you suggest for them as they work towards that goal?

Scott Harper 33:40
Yeah, I had the the opportunity of presenting at TCC this last, last week, and was one of the last presenters on Monday. And, you know, the focus and what I gave the audience there, and they so much positive feedback of people like, oh my gosh, it’s, it’s so easy, you know, it’s right in front of and it just really goes back to the relationships. How are you developing your relationships? How are you nurturing the relationships, and how do you cultivate those and steward those to move forward, to make them stronger? I gave the example of of all the area chambers in our area, in our immediate area, north of us and then also southeast of us, every one of those chambers had leadership changes, and ours didn’t. In the fact that I think there was just a different level of relationship understanding what our priorities are, nothing’s personal. We’re working together to do those things. But you know, our membership growth, the upgrade trend that we have, and just you know, the credibility that we continue to gain when it comes to being a finalist of ACCE, being an accredited chamber, a five star accredited chamber, being going through the IOM program, those things create. Create credibility and and then if you follow up that with the credibility, with just being genuine and talking to people and learning who they are and about them. And you know, we don’t sell memberships anymore. We invite people to be a part of who we are, and we don’t list all of our benefits up front, because I think we can become very heavy on this is how we do it, what we do, but we never ask them, How can we help you? And so that’s our first out of the box, once we get to know a little bit, how can we help you and your business grow? And if you can answer that question and get them passed through that magical first year to second year that third year of chamber membership, the retention goes up to, you know, 90 or something percent, and you’ve got them, and we talk about the investment, and we’ve got a number of people that make investments in our chamber, but we’re never having to talk about their membership anymore, because that’s never in question. It’s what, how, what’s a new program you’d like to be a part of? And, and we’re seeing some of our members shift their sponsorship levels, and we’re not, we’re not, we’re not cannibalizing. We’re aligning. And there’s a huge difference, if you have them, because a lot of people are pulling back, and really, not necessarily sponsoring at the same level. And if we count keeping them at the same level as a win, because I know they’re pulling back in other areas, and if we can maintain that level, and then sometimes they go, hey, I want to be a part of that chamber day. Here’s another $1,500 make sure this or, you know, we’ve got get back to work day for the teachers we do within the school district. So that’s a whole nother laundry list of things, but it’s, it’s relationships. 99% of everything do it goes back to how we do it. And I asked the question, I’ll leave you leave it with this is like anything we do in the chamber, proprietary, and that’s zero, right? How you do it is proprietary, how you treat people. How do you cultivate those relationships? Because I’m doing it better than most people around me, because people are not me my chamber, because that’s the expectation set, and that’s what people are telling us, that we’re a relational chamber, not a transactional chamber. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 37:19
makes a lot of sense. I always like asking, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Scott Harper 37:30
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. You know, prepping for the interview, there’s a lot of emphasis on horizon, 2035 through ACCE, and I really see a lot of different variables here of how people can really interpret it as well. There’s gotta be shift. There’s gotta be more embracement of technology. But at the end of the day, and how our approach is, how we’re gonna answer the questions that we’re not gonna change who we are. It’s maybe how we do it. But it all goes back to knowing your customer, knowing your member, and having that relationship to know what they like and don’t like. So, you know, this big push for AI, you know, and I’ve had my staff turn stuff in. I’m like, I want your words, because I can tell it’s just not, this is not us. We need to humanize that now. It gives you a good, you know, starting point. But how do we get it down to where it doesn’t sound so AI, ish, if you want a robotic Yeah, but you know, there’s got to be a shift and and it really goes back to, what are you going to focus on? And the questions are, one of the questions we’re asked is, you know, with the shift toward non dues revenue, how are you going to make that? You know, how you going to align your chamber for that? And I think we’re not going to change what we’re doing. We’re going to focus on the member and bring things to the table that help the members. And we did that in 2024 and by default, there were more opportunities for non dues revenue. Yeah, but we weren’t just going to focus on non dues revenue, because a lot of people in smaller chambers get stuck and become handcuffed to a special event, yeah. And if that special event doesn’t happen, then your whole budget’s messed up. And so our ultimate goal is never to keep our take our eye off the off the ball, and the ball is membership as a whole, and the membership relationship. So how do you use all these cool tools but not take away the sincerity and the personalization of what we’re doing? Is, I think it’s a balance and keeping, keeping staff, you know, keeping one of my biggest accomplishments, I think, two years ago, on my reviews like, what’s something you’re really proud of? I said, I’ve had my entire team for over a year and a half in one area, right? That’s huge. When you go into the second year of an event person, then they don’t have, you know, they’ve been through our events before. It gets easier. Focus on some other things, but you know which it’s going to evolve. But I also think when you go when you blow everything down, boil everything down, people still like to get handwritten letters, people still like to have conversations versus texts or emails, and it’s just, how do you balance that, and you know, and how do you create the culture throughout your entire organization to make sure everybody has that as a priority? So yes, it’s shifting, it’s changing, but that relationship is still the core, and how do you manage that, and without taking the personal touch off of it,

Brandon Burton 40:39
I like that. Going back to the relationships. Can’t, can’t preach it enough. So, right, yeah, well, Scott, before we let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things there at the Conroe Lake Conroe chamber, specific to the programs, or in general, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you? Yeah, so any of

Scott Harper 41:08
our, all of our information is on our website, and that’s www.conroe.org or they can simply reach out to my my email. I’d be happy to answer any emails and get them any information that they would like, and that’s simply scotth@conroe.org that’s perfect both ways.

Brandon Burton 41:30
Well, we’ll get that in our show notes for this episode as well, to make it easy. But Scott, this has been great having you here on Chamber Chat Podcast with us. I wish you and your great team, the best of luck is chamber of the year, and good luck in Philadelphia.

Scott Harper 41:46
Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thanks for this platform, and thanks for what you do for the chamber community.

Brandon Burton 41:52
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Paducah Area Chamber with Sandra Wilson

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalists Series. And our guest for this episode is Sandra Wilson, the President and CEO of the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, representing them as a Chamber of the Year Finalists. But Sandra, she joined the Paducah Area Chamber as the President & CEO in 2013 after a 26 year tenure at New Page paper mill as a public affairs manager with a strong background in community relations, government affairs and employee relations. She has served on various local and statewide boards, including as the first woman to chair both the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce and the greater Paducah Economic Development Board. Sandra has also contributed to the Kentucky Manufacturers Association and leadership Kentucky, among others, Under her leadership, the Paducah chamber was named chamber of the year in 2017 by ACCE, and was a finalist in 2024 as well. They also hold a five star accreditation from the US Chamber of Commerce. She’s an IOM Certified Professional and continues to advocate for leadership programs in Kentucky. Sandra, I wanted to first congratulate you and your team is being selected as a Chamber of the Year Finalist. Again. What an accomplishment. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the listeners and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Well,

Sandra Wilson 2:38
great. Thank you, Brandon, I appreciate this opportunity to be on the show, and thank you for what you do for chamber professionals by hosting this podcast I am where our chamber is very excited to be a finalist for Chamber of the Year, and we look forward to seeing everyone in Philadelphia, as far as me, I’ve been in The Chamber world for 12 years now with the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, but it’s really been in my blood for a very long time. And did a very the very beginning of my career. I did a short stint at the Chamber in an administrative type role, and then left for a different position in the community and came back to it eventually. But I’ve always been involved with the with the Chamber, the Paducah chamber, very much. So before I was chairman of the board, I served in many Vice Chair roles. And so then when this position came open in 2013 it was just like, Oh my goodness. This is perfect timing, I could see a difference in the way the paper industry was doing. Even though I loved where I was and with the company, I just thought this was a great opportunity. So I’ve loved what a chamber does for many, many years.

Brandon Burton 3:55
Yeah, that’s great. And I think we may have talked about it before, but my background is in chamber publishing, so with paper and and you see those trends kind of moving. But I think unless you have a very specific niche, paper industry is very tough these days. It is. Well, tell us a little bit about the Paducah area Chamber to set the stage for our discussion as a chamber of the year finalist. You know, of course, we want to know about the size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work you’re involved with to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Sandra Wilson 4:28
Okay, great. Well, the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce has been around, I think we’re approaching about 80 years. We have a membership about 950 right now. We’ll have a membership campaign in August and push back up to 1000 but right now we’re around 950 we have six employees. We added a six employee last year to be the executive director of our leadership center. So that is one of the synopsis that we’ll be talking about, I guess, later in the show. But we. We are also mostly known for our advocacy efforts for the region. We we are a Regional Chamber, but we are very local as well. You know, I guess I’d say that by being known as the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, we focus on a lot of what traditional chambers focus on, small business, workforce development pressing issues in the community. We established our leadership center a few years ago and then really amped it up last year to hire the full time Executive Director and rebrand a lot of our programs and begin working with workforce and training. So that is has been a big focus for us. The other big focus for us this year has in the last year and a half has been a grant that we received from the Department of Energy to lead the study of the RE industrialization of our closed now Department of Energy site, the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant. So it really has been very time consuming for both of those programs, but very exciting for new opportunities. Our small business focus has really increased in the last couple of years, when we started a small business cohort and a small business focus at our big chamber breakfast every month, and we have one every month. But in May, we always do small business. So we just this year, I have to share this story, because it’s really very touching. We have a youth lead program, which is for high school juniors. So this year we focused one of our youth lead graduates from he’s about, that’s about three or four years ago. He’s now in college. He had started a business. When he started his business, one of the first things he did, because we had a close relationship with him, and he was in our youth program, is he joined the chamber, yes, and we focused him his business, and him in a panel with three other small business owners of all ages. And I will tell you at the end of that program, people were lined up to talk to him about his business and find out more about it. So, you know, we always talk about with the Chamber, the importance of connecting the dots, so that people that aren’t in the trenches with you every day know the importance and the reason why they should be supporting the Paducah chamber, or a chamber in general. And boy, when you can get someone that’s a high school junior to see the value of the chamber, and he pretend he continues that through his first business, and he has plenty of plans for second, you know, second and third businesses, it just makes it so worthwhile. So those are some examples of the Padilla chamber. We are five star credited by the US Chamber. We have been a chamber of the year, winner and a finalist. And just really look forward to being back in Philadelphia and seeing everyone this fall, that

Brandon Burton 7:55
is mid July. What a great story with the high school student comes back as a college student with the business, and hopefully you guys can capture some shorts, short, short form video, you know, that you can push out there and and really promote that program and tell the story just my mind, my mind’s going as you, you know, shared the snippet of that story, of how that can really be leveraged for that program in the future. But that’s, you know, helping to connect the dots. But what a great story. So we’ll spend the majority of our conversation on today’s episode talking about the two programs synopsis that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. You mentioned the Innovate West Kentucky, which is a kind of the revamping of this, this power plant, and also the Leadership Center, but we’ll dive in deeper on both of these two programs as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Brandon Burton 11:38
All right, Sandra, we’re back. So before the break, we’d mentioned that we’re focusing on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. Do you have a preference on which program you want to cover first?

Sandra Wilson 11:52
Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’d be happy to talk about both of them. They’re both exciting. So I’m gonna, let’s start with the leadership center. That’s perfect. So we saw the need, because we were doing a lot of different programs in leadership training, our lead, our leadership. Paducah, we just graduated class 38 and selected class 39 and they have an active alumni association. We, you know, haven’t had a lot of programs that we were that were connected to some way to leadership with our youth lead, as I mentioned, we administer leadership West Kentucky, which is a regional leadership program. We do educator externships for our teachers intern programs, and have a really active Paducah young professional program. So we wanted to bring all of those under one Brandon, but we also were seeing the need in our community for additional training opportunities, and we are now partnering with our community college, but we have a lot on our own that we’re offering to all of our companies. So we hired an executive director for the Leadership Center last May, and he has been really out working with local companies to find out what type of program that they need. His two most popular ones right now are supervisory excellence to help people that are just going into a supervisor position. Maybe you know you’re a great in one doing your job, so you get promoted to be over everyone doing the same kind of job, but you’ve never had any training in how to be a supervisor. That’s one of his most popular programs, as well as communications excellence, just bringing teams together to help better understand communication skills and communication styles, and that how those really make a difference in being a successful team, which ultimately helps you to be a successful business. So those are his two most popular ones, but we have a whole listing of training programs, and he will said with our community college to work with them on some of the training programs that they have. We hope and really feel like we’re getting close to the point where we’re going to need to either have some contract employees working with him, or possibly even bring in some other maybe another employee. That would be our goal would be to grow it where we would have even more employees. But for now, you know, we’re looking at how we can hire contract employees to assist with him.

Unknown Speaker 14:27
So at

Sandra Wilson 14:28
the scale of all of our leader all of our current programs that are under the branding of the Leadership Center, we really wanted to just see how they need to be improved. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:38
I love that kind of the the full scope of everything you know, leadership that’s under that umbrella. I love these programs that the supervisor excellent, saying the communications excellence. So is there, is there an application process for employees be accepted in this? Is it ongoing all the time? Is it do? It, who facilitates it? These are all questions that are coming to my mind. So what’s that format look like?

Sandra Wilson 15:05
It’s really a mixture. So we have some of the training programs here at our building. We have a large meeting room that we can do that we actually have three different size meeting rooms that we can facilitate that training in. So those are open to anyone, if they’re held here, anyone that the company will help support them to attend. He also goes to the companies and does training there. So that’s been, you know, we really want to do more of that, even if we can, so that, because that helps a team at a company to know better what they’re all learning at the same time. If two employees are coming to one and you know here, and I will tell you that is our best word of mouth training is if two employee one or two employees come from a company here, participate in the training, then we get emails from them about how they’ve gone back and they’ve told their HR professionals about the training and how awesome it was and how they see It would work for their company. Then Frank reaches out to them and has begun scheduling training at those companies. So it’s a mixture of both at on site, at the company and here, open to anyone.

Brandon Burton 16:12
Okay, what about the curriculum for these training programs? Is that something you guys are creating in house at the Chamber, is that something you’re sourcing from somewhere? How does, how does one for those listening, they’re like, hey, we need to do something like this at our chamber. How do you come up with that curriculum that you’re training upon?

Sandra Wilson 16:28
It’s a mixture, really. One thing that made Frank, Frank Bennett, is executive director of our leadership center, such a good fit for that position, is he had a lot of certifications. He had written a book on leadership. It was in the process of writing his second book on leadership. He’s written a lot of articles. He had been the director of a non profit organization here, our National Quilt Museum for many years. So we had all he had all of those credentials if they need something created. He has the resources to reach out, to find more information, to help create that whatever they might need.

Brandon Burton 17:04
Yeah, I love that. It’s great when you’ve got somebody in the community that has all those strengths that you can pull from and and really leverage. You know what the chamber has to offer? Is there anything else around the Leadership Center, the the programs that are offered there that you want to make sure we highlight before we move to the other program,

Sandra Wilson 17:23
I would just say one of the reasons why, also that we formed the Leadership Center, it was based on a study that had been conducted by a professor at a local university about our community was lacking in this area. And so after we started looking at that and reading their research and studying it, it just became really apparent that this was something that was needed in our community, and why wouldn’t we be the ones to be the leader in it? We had the established programs that were already very, very successful, and we were already doing leadership. Paducah already leading leadership, West Kentucky already had our established Youth League program. So those were things that helped us to really build to the next level. Because we had the reputation of delivering great results, we needed to take it to the next level, to expand that to companies that, you know, we leadership. Paduka, for example, you’re probably gonna a company’s gonna send one person every year. This is a much more accelerated type program to help them to get to where they want

Brandon Burton 18:33
to be. Yeah, and I, I would imagine that the companies that participate and send employees for these trainings, if there were a way to extract metrics from it, I would imagine that you would see higher employee satisfaction and even retention over time. By having these people in management trained in how to manage and how to communicate and how to do these things, it would eliminate a lot of the frustration that people have in the workforce,

Sandra Wilson 19:04
and we actually we use it to our advantage with our economic development organization, greater particular economic development we hope that they do that these programs are available, that you locate your company in our community. These are some great programs that can help you to train your employees to be more successful.

Brandon Burton 19:21
Yeah, I love that. Well, let’s shift gears over to innovate West Kentucky. Tell us what that program is all about, where the impetus, where that started, and how it’s progressed to where it is today.

Sandra Wilson 19:34
Well, if you’re in the chamber world, you can appreciate this the week before I started in this position, our largest employer, the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant, which had been here for about 6070, years, announced that they were ceasing production. Now they weren’t leaving the community, because they have this huge department of energy side. It was about 3600 acres, and they. They had been enriching uranium for, you know, all those years, but at that point, the country was making some, you know, decisions, and they were no longer going to be in production. So we had to shift our thinking on how that that would be. So that was, you know, at the very beginning of when this was all happening, they stayed in operation for another year, and then in 2014 changed from being full time production to and part of the Department of Energy Environmental Management, so it was just based on cleanup. So we had to adjust our thinking. And we, you know, started working with the Department of Energy to build a very close relationship. Our role at that time was simply with advocacy. We were going to the Department of Energy, working for more funding for longer term contracts. We got very involved in a national organization called energy communities Alliance. So then we started seeing what other doe sites who had already ceased operation, were doing, and they were re industrialized, having re industrialization at their sides with bringing in new companies and new operations. We weren’t to that point, so we applied for a grant from the Department of Energy to lead the RE industrialization study. It was probably, you know, pretty unique in a way, because we had, we weren’t, we’re not the economic development organization, full time, we have that we’re in the same building and share a lot of the same resources with them and have a great partnership. However, we knew our community was needing that study, and we also knew, based on a University of Kentucky study, that re industrialization is what people in our community wanted. So we took that, we made an application to the Department of Energy, and we were awarded a grant. And so that was in late 2023 and we were able to hire a local firm who partnered with another company out of Knoxville, Tennessee, who had been doing re industrialization studies at the other Department of Energy sites. So we were awarded that grant. We came up with our, you know, well, we had the whole plan what we were going to do. We were going to study, well, first of all, we were going to request land that’s at the site to be transferred back to the ownership of the community so that we could do more economic development with it. It would be like a new economic development park for us around the outside of the active cleanup process going on at the DOE site. And then we needed to determine what the infrastructure needs would be for companies that might want to come here. We’ve looked at the workforce the and that was the one part of our grant that was for now and for the future. We wanted to look at what the workforce needs are at that site, because it is one of our very top three to four employers in our community, and what their workforce needs are going to be, how many employees they’re going to be needing over the years. And then finally, the biggest part was we’ll start strategy. And then finally, economic development. So we’ve been working with our economic development organization. We’re working on them, with them on their website, to add a whole new portion about all of this land that’s available. We are working very closely with the Department of Energy on companies that would be interested in coming to Paducah, and we have a lot of interest, I will tell you, in the last three months, things have really changed at our site. It’s the need for energy in the country now is definitely at the top of mind for everyone, because we’re going to run out of energy if we don’t do something to create more through you know, through new companies that can be located. Artificial Intelligence is another big topic. Department of Energy put out an RFI proposal for AI companies that would be interested in locating in one of the six or locating at a Department of Energy site. We were one of 16 listed in that so all of this has really come together. It’s been exciting. It’s changed since when we started our study to where we are today. And you know, if you’re in the chamber world, you know, you got to pivot all the time. And boy, we have done some big time pivoting in the last couple of months, and it’s just really exciting, and I know it’s going to provide a great future for our community. So that’s the part I think that for us that is so exciting that we know we’re going to be delivering results for our community that’s going to be producing new jobs, new career opportunities, new companies that are coming here. And I firmly believe if we had not started the RE industrialization study, we our community, would not be top of mind for the Department of Energy to help promote I’ve had the opportunity to speak at several national conferences about it and about Paducah. And when you’re sitting there in the audience and you hear the Department of Energy talking. About the growth of Paducah and the focus on Paducah, Kentucky site, you’re like, yes, thank you so much. We are getting our word out that we’re open for business and just have a really exciting future ahead of us. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 25:14
So what are some of the timelines look like? You had mentioned the cleanup phases. I know that the land transfer would be kind of outside of the area that needs to be cleaned up, but that, I think that’s still kind of a factor going on in the community. So what does that timeline look like? And then what would the timeline look like to when you could realistically have, you know, businesses relocating and opening up on this land?

Sandra Wilson 25:37
Well, we already have one global laser enrichment. They have been actually studying the site for many years, but that one was not part of our study, but we have, I guess, connected with them a lot and are helping them now as much as we can to with all the work that they have to do to get ready for locating here, they’ve already bought purchased land and have done some announcement of their intent to locate in Paducah. There are multiple other companies right now, looking at the site, I would love, I hope one announces before we’re in Philadelphia in July. I don’t know that that will happen, because every a lot of this, the work that we’ve done, is very confidential, and if you work in the economic development world, you know that it’s super confidential until the very end and when you make the big final announcement. But things are moving so quickly now in the world, and with energy needs, with AI needs, with all of that that you know there, it’s moving at a fast pace, much quicker than we thought it

Brandon Burton 26:42
would be, which is great to see things coming together and to be ahead of schedule, so to speak. But I can imagine that the acceleration just adds that much more work. And you’d mentioned the pivoting right, the constant pivoting to make sure things are ready and make sure that you’re able to welcome these new businesses to the community so but how exciting, yeah, it is.

Sandra Wilson 27:07
And you know, ACC is horizon initiative 2035, catalytic leader was one of them, and being an instigator of change, and that’s why we really base this on we saw the need, and it wasn’t necessarily something that we knew we had the expertise in, but we had the knowledge to find the right people to help us. And so we really feel like we have been a super instigator of change and the way of the mindset, of our facility here,

Brandon Burton 27:41
yeah, way to take the lead. It’s awesome. Be a chamber being what a chamber is meant to be. I love it. Oh, Sandra, I wanted to ask for those listening who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them towards accomplishing that goal,

Sandra Wilson 28:03
I would say, for the a chamber, the chamber as an organization, really look at the horizon, 2035, initiatives. They can inspire you. And if you just look at those, look at how that they could apply to you and your organization, and beyond that, look around what the needs are in your community, because we all have unique needs, right? We don’t all have the same we have some of the same. I would say we probably all need housing. We probably all need more child care. They’re probably, you know, we’re all gonna need more energy. Those are things that we’re all gonna have. But what is something that’s unique to your community that you feel like you can be passionate about? I had never would have dreamed I’d be speaking about energy. I kind of compare it to I don’t really want to need to know how my car operates. I just want to make sure when I get in it, it starts. And it’s the same with this. I don’t really need to. I don’t have to know how you enrich uranium or how you would do this, but I do know that we have land that’s available that we should be capitalizing on and utilizing it, and we weren’t, and it was time for us to open our doors in our community, for that to be a really active park. And so look for that, and personally, for chamber professionals, you know, it’s really important to find a mentor, and if it may be someone in your own state that’s a chain has a chamber about your size that you can compare notes with, or one that’s larger that you can scale to your own chamber. And you know, you know the saying about ripping R and D for chambers. You know, it’s it’s great. I feel very honored if someone does a program that we’ve done, and we look at what other chambers are doing and scale them to us. So find a mentor that when you’re having a really bad day, that you can call and look to. For support and talk to them about your opportunities and challenges, and then on days that you want to celebrate, you can call them and they know what. They know why you want to celebrate that. And it’s just really important to have those relationships and those mentoring mentoring relationships,

Brandon Burton 30:18
yeah, and that’s why the show exists for that rip off and duplicate R and D research, but also building those relationships. So hopefully somebody’s listening now that’s hearing what Sandra is saying, and says, Yeah, I need to share some struggles with her and some wins, you know, in the future, as those things come together, or anybody else that’s on the show for that matter. So you made an interesting point about not necessarily feeling like you need to know how your car works, right? Do you just get in you want it to work, but understanding what your community can offer. And the kind of a real life example is, as I was thinking, kind of relate, trying to relate, what you were saying, like, I have no idea how the energy grid works, but in just, you know, getting a little exposure to, you know, more and more with, like, you talked about the AI, you know, computer or warehouses, you know, that process all this energy, you know, they’re going through so much energy. You got Bitcoin miners. You’ve got electric cars that are plugging into the grid overnight and and what I found out is it’s these transformers that are meant to, you know, up upscale the energy in a community. They were designed a long time ago, and they were designed to be able to cool at night when energy usage is much less well. Now our energy uses don’t really go down. They might even go up at night when you’re turning on TVs, computers, plugging in the electric cars, you know, all the different things. So there’s things like that that will be reinvented and as chambers can make those connections with businesses and opportunities and land in their communities to connect the dots, that’s where real answers happen, and chambers are perfectly positioned to drive that change

Sandra Wilson 32:09
we should be. I mean, look around. You know, when you turn your lights on, you expect them to work right? And you know when you’re trying, your community is trying to locate new companies there. You want to make sure the power is going to be there for them that they’re going to need. And so it’s just important that you look overall to what’s needed in your community and to address that. And a rural community, community, rural communities are very different from large urban communities, and so I just think it’s an exciting time for chambers, and that it’s important that we do connect those dots so that a local small business owner that owns a retail shop when they get their dues, just like our young gentleman, who’s that our youth league graduate, that’s owned and has his own business, now that he knows that we are making this community the great place to live and work and play, and it takes someone doing that, and your chamber of commerce is where to do that. So thank you for shows like this. Thank you to ACCE for bringing us all together. I can’t wait to be in Philadelphia, because I’m sure I’m going to come back with a lot of information. I always do. I always think, oh, we need to start that. And, you know, one of the ideas that we came back with last year was right before, like a bit, our big membership and total resource campaign. And we, you know, had some rooms in our building that we hadn’t, really didn’t have a sponsor for so we had a couple of sponsors, but we thought, well, let’s see if we can get that. And we did. We found new sponsorships for our building. And so you know, you’re always going to find tidbits of information that will help you, and just look at how you can make it work for your community and for your size chamber.

Brandon Burton 33:59
That’s right, I love it. So hopefully you didn’t already spoil this answer, but I was going to ask the next question is to how do you see the future of chambers going forward?

Sandra Wilson 34:10
I think we have a great future ahead of us. I think you have to be ready to pivot. I mean, you’re going to hear that. I would guess you’re going to hear that. In Philadelphia, every chamber is so different, because every community is so different. We have some of the basic programs that we all do, but just for even housing, it’s going to be different on how we would approach that here than what some other communities would so I think chambers will be more important than ever. But you got to be out there, and you got to be selling your relevance, and you’ve got to be selling the need all the time. You know you can’t. I think as chambers we we’re probably more humble than sometimes we should be, because we throw the credit to everyone else when we’re in the background leading that. And granted, I understand. And. Hear that, you know, it doesn’t matter who gets a credit, as long as their

Brandon Burton 35:04
success. Rising Tide, you know, raises all ships, right? And that’s so

Sandra Wilson 35:08
true if you’re not focusing on it however, you don’t want the chamber to be left out. You know that you were in a row, and a key role in that, in delivering it. And I think there are ways that you can make sure that people and businesses and your government leaders all see that and know that, and a lot of it is just really keeping those important relationships and helping to spark those programs in your community. Yeah, I love that. So

Brandon Burton 35:36
Sandra, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and maybe learn more about either these programs or how you guys are doing things in Paducah overall. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Sandra Wilson 35:52
Really, there are two ways they can reach out to me at swilson@paducahchamber.org, or if you forget that, you can just send it to info@paducahchamber.org and it will get to me as well.

Brandon Burton 36:03
That’s perfect. We’ll get it in the show notes too, so it’ll make it easy for people to find it. But Sandra, I appreciate you spending time with us today on chamber chat podcast and really diving into these two programs on your application. You guys are making big, impactful change and movement in the Paducah area, region, we’ll say. But I wish you and your team Best of luck this year as chamber of the year. Thank you.

Sandra Wilson 36:28
We appreciate it. Look forward to seeing everyone.

Brandon Burton 36:32
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Rowan County Chamber with Elaine Spalding

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist Series. Our guest for this episode is Elaine Spalding. Elaine has served as the President of the Rowan Chamber of Commerce in Salisbury, North Carolina, since May 2013 with over 30 years of chamber management experience across several locations, she’s been instrumental in the Rowan chambers national recognition, earning the title of 2020 chamber Executive of the Year from the Carolina chamber Executives Association. Elaine holds certificate certifications as a CCE or certified chamber executive, and also has her IOM designation. She’s deeply involved in the community leadership, serving on multiple boards, including the Carolina Chamber of Commerce executives and the Salisbury Rotary Club, and is a graduate of leadership Rowan and the Charlotte regional American Leadership Forum program. Elaine holds a Bachelor’s of Science in journalism and speech from Murray State University and and enjoys kayaking, hiking and spending time with her husband, Keith, I believe is how you pronounce it, and their dogs. But Elaine, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. It seems like we just had you on the show, but love to give you the chance to say hello to everyone listening, and congratulations being selected as a chamber of the year finalist, but I couldn’t say hello. And if you would share something interesting so we can all get to know you even better.

Elaine Spalding 2:40
Sure. Thank you, Brandon, I really appreciate you inviting me back. I always enjoy your podcast, and I’m honored to be on here again. And we are so excited to have been named a finalist in our population size category for the ACCE chamber of the year. This is very exciting coming up. And in addition to what you covered in my chamber background and my personal life, fun fact to know is I have 101st

cousins. Wow, that’s quite the family, and I know them all. Yeah, wow.

Brandon Burton 3:24
So we just my wife, and I just had a new nephew born last week. Oh, so we’re, we’re adding up. You know, how many nieces and nephews, so cousins for our kids? And yes, we’re at, we’re at 13 for them, so nowhere near the 100 mark. But that’s, that’s impressive.

Elaine Spalding 3:39
Big Families, big, big farm families, and it’s great. I still keep in touch regularly with a lot of my cousins, and just love that extended family.

Brandon Burton 3:51
That’s awesome. Well, we had you on not too long ago, back in episode 327, but for those who are regular listeners, this next little bit might be a little bit of a recap, but I think it’s important for those who tune in, especially for these chamber of the year episodes, to be able to know a little more context about the Rowan County Chamber. So if you can just give us an idea of size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work you guys are involved with that’ll kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Elaine Spalding 4:20
Sure, this year, the Rowan chamber is celebrating our 100th anniversary, and that’s been a fun project to work on. We are lifting up our long term businesses all year long. We have 824 members as of right now, and growing, and we have a staff of four. It’s a very active business community. We have the headquarters for food line in our community. And if you’re from the southern part of the United States, you will know Cheerwine, very popular soda. So food line and Cheerwine are headquartered here in Salisbury, North. Carillon,

Brandon Burton 5:00
that’s right. And if you spend any time in the south, you know Food Lion, so, yeah, very good. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, what I like to spend the majority of our time discussing is the two programs you submitted on the chamber of the year application. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna take a quick break, and when we get back, we’ll dive in deeper on those two programs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Brandon Burton 8:11
All right, Elaine, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re diving into the two programs on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if you have a specific order of which one you want to address first, but I will. I’ll let you decide which, uh, which of the two programs you want to highlight first.

Elaine Spalding 8:29
Well, of course, they. They are two of our very, very favorite ones that we profiled in the synopsis for the ACCE chamber of the Year award. And the first one is our Dragon Boat Festival. We celebrated our 10th Anniversary of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2024 and really thanked all of the businesses that have been with us for all 10 years. We put big number 10 blow up balloons on every one of the corporate tents, so the people who’d been with us for the entire time and thanked all of our long term volunteers and really celebrated all of those businesses that have helped make this event be so successful.

Brandon Burton 9:15
Okay, so I have to ask dragon boats, what is that? Tell us what that is. And just to make sure people are hearing you right, Dragon Boat what? What is

Elaine Spalding 9:24
it? If you have not participated in a dragon boat race, it’s basically a long canoe. It’s an ancient Chinese water sport. So you have 20 people in a very long canoe, all paddling together, and it is the best team building exercise, because everybody has to be in sync to get the boat to just glide along the water. Our major corporations love it. They tell us after every event that it’s the best opportunity to just hang out on the lake and really enjoy the day. With your coworkers. You’ve got the plant managers there and the frontline workers and everybody working together and just enjoying themselves. So it’s a wonderful community event. It would be kind of like what a lot of chambers have a golf event in the summer. This is our golf event. Okay?

Brandon Burton 10:17
So are these companies fielding their own team. I say Fielding? Are they filling their own boats?

Elaine Spalding 10:25
Yes, yes. We there there, as they’re about four or five vendors that do these Dragon Boat Races actually all over the world, and it’s gotten to be very popular in the southeastern part of the United States. In fact, it’s the fastest growing water sport. And of course, here in North Carolina, everybody loves races. We have NASCAR. And so we thought this is just a great way to highlight we have the second largest lake in North Carolina, right in our community, High Rock Lake. So it was a fantastic way to highlight that part of our community and just have a fun day on the lake and make some money for the chamber and make some new friends.

Brandon Burton 11:06
Yeah, I love that they can, you know, fill their own boat and come out, but it is a great team building exercise. I’m sure there’s practices that have to go into this, like, you can’t just show up and try to compete, right? Yes,

Elaine Spalding 11:18
yes. And there are some club teams in and around the area, groups of people that get together just for fun, and they’ll pick out four or five races they’re going to do in this part of the country and participate with us. So that’s a nice added benefit as well.

Brandon Burton 11:34
So where does somebody acquire a dragon boat? Are there? Is there local manufacturers? Are they importing from China? With being a Chinese tradition, what is the Where does one get

Elaine Spalding 11:45
them out anymore? Okay, we actually have a company out of Tampa that makes the dragon boats here in the United States. And they will bring them up on big, long boat trailers, and they bring all the personnel, the steers, people, the coaches, the race officials. I mean, it’s all very sophisticated, and they run the race. The chamber’s responsibility is to run the festival part. So we get the food trucks and our local breweries all participate, and it’s just a fun, fun day on the

Brandon Burton 12:14
lake. So they’re bringing the boats with them when they come up. So these businesses are not storing their own dragon boats in their workshop, or whatever they’re they’re just using them for the event.

Elaine Spalding 12:24
Yes, we bring everything they need. We tell all of our teams they just need to bring the people power.

Brandon Burton 12:30
Okay, all right. So what other things I mean, most chambers, I think, are pretty well familiar with running a festival. But is there anything unique with the dragon boat races, it needs to be considered where it maybe takes the festival, you know, to a different angle or a different approach,

Elaine Spalding 12:48
right? Well, one of the things that we really wanted to focus on was improving the health in our community, so we thought this kind of a fun outdoor activity would enable us to do that. And one of our top sponsors of the event is our local hospital, and so in conjunction with Novant Health, we award a workplace wellness award every year at the Dragon Boat Festival, and that’s based on companies that encourage their employees to stay active and stay healthy, and, you know, not have any injuries in the workplace, and that has really gotten to be so popular, we have a traveling trophy that goes around, and many of our companies are all vying to say, look, we started this new workplace wellness program. Please recognize our company. So it’s a great added benefit to the program.

Brandon Burton 13:38
Yeah, I love that. There’s so many layers you can just, you know, dive into when it comes to an event like this. So how do the bragging rights look? So whatever team wins the dragon boat races? Is there a trophy with that? Is there, I’m sure social media posts. What’s a recognition like? Is

Elaine Spalding 13:56
it we have the Olympic style medals, and so there are gold, silver and bronze teams, and all, all of the teams are so excited about getting those Olympic style medals at the end of the race. And Team pictures are lots of fun. And the the Bragg and rights every year, it’s like the there’s one bank and the hospital and a couple of others that are very, very competitive. There’s a couple of teams that just come to have a fun day on the lake. They’re not quite so competitive, but it always, always is just a great opportunity for the top business leaders and our entry level employees to really feel appreciated by the business community, and that’s what we want to see happen. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:46
I love it. It’s such a unique event. I’ve never I have not heard of any other chambers doing Dragon Boat Races, so I think that’s a neat thing to be able to hone on, hone in on something that’s unique and kind of special to your community. 30. I love what you guys did with the the 10 years and the balloons, recognizing those people that have sponsored it for the duration. I mean, that that goes a long ways of saying, Hey, we recognize that you’re doing this. And it creates a little bit of a stickiness, I would imagine, for next year they’re going to want to continue that sponsorship.

Elaine Spalding 15:19
Yes, as Chambers of Commerce. You know, we all have to really think about thanking and appreciating those businesses who’ve been with us through thick and thin, all the businesses that stayed with us through the pandemic and have helped us out since then, really get all of the Small Business Programs and Services back out there for our business communities, and so we want to continue to highlight and thank those very, very loyal

Brandon Burton 15:47
businesses. Yeah, very good. Well, let’s shift gears a bit into your second program, which I understand is around your small business grant program. Yeah, tell us about that. What’s what’s involved there, and what role does the chamber have with that? Yes.

Elaine Spalding 16:05
So as you know, there were lots and lots of federal grant and loan opportunities that carried small businesses through the pandemic. But since the pandemic, some of our small businesses had continued to struggle, and I had been lobbying with our city of Salisbury government to continue a small business grant program, and last year, we were finally able to convince them to start a pilot program. So we started with $30,000 to award two small businesses that were within the city of Salisbury, and our chamber serves a county region, but this one was specifically targeted for those within the city, because that’s where the funding was coming from. And so we got a committee of volunteers from our minority business council and put out all of the grant criteria they had to have a business plan, they had to have all their proper documentation. And we had volunteers that developed a rubric, and we went through all of the grant applications and were able to award six small businesses with $5,000 each. And oh my gosh. When we sent out the information about the grant recipients, we received so many positive comments. One email from a small business. She said, I just am sitting here crying because I was struggling to try to figure out my next plan. And she said, this has given me the energy to get everything back on my plan and get going again. So it just was so gratifying to see these small businesses that really have been struggling feel like the local business community and their city government supports them and wants to see them continue to invest in their business. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:04
I’m sure there’s a wealth of data that you collect too from these applications as you go through it. And you see these small businesses that sure really need these loans to be able to survive. They can give you a ton of content for future programming and things like that. But like this example you share to this, this lady, that it just meant the world. It was it allowed the business to keep going. And I think as small business owners, there’s so many instances where you’re just getting beat up left and right, and to get that little win, that encouragement that says, keep going, you got this sometimes that’s all they need to be able to get over that hump that they’re they’re currently facing. So, yeah, I love that. I love hearing the success stories.

Elaine Spalding 18:47
Yeah, yes, me too. And we’ve related all those back to our friends at the city, and we’re able to have the second phase of the small business grant, and got some additional funds, and we, we the chamber actually has a 501, c3, organization devoted to entrepreneurial development, so there’s some additional funds that came through that. And just lifting up our locally owned, locally grown small businesses is so important and continuing to encourage other people to go ahead and launch that entrepreneurial venture?

Brandon Burton 19:27
Yeah, absolutely, so. Is this something that you would anticipate with continued success, continuing to have funding coming from it, or is there a timeframe where you see this ending with the grant programs, or what the

Elaine Spalding 19:45
second phase we’ve already awarded for this year too, and has had $10,000 more so total of 20,000 to give this second year. And I really hope that it continues to grow, because there are so many of those small businesses. That are struggling, I think, particularly in our current climate, lots of uncertainties about new federal policies and so everything that we can do as a local Chamber of Commerce to really try and encourage those who have a good business plan, they’ve got the skill set to get that business off and running, they just need a little bit of support. Our grant program was focused on something, a piece of machinery that they might need for their business, you know? I mean, it had to be something that, then was a really good return on the investment that they would be able to continue to grow their business.

Brandon Burton 20:43
That makes a lot of sense. So just out of curiosity, did you already have the foundation in place, the 501, c3 as you receive these grants in order to be able to apply for them, or is it a newer thing having the foundation?

Elaine Spalding 20:56
Yes, we’ve had the c3 within our organization for the last six

Brandon Burton 21:03
years. Okay, so I know that’s more and more on the the minds of chambers to how can we access, you know, more funds and be eligible for grants and things like this and and having that foundation or that 501, c3, is, is very helpful to be able to attract some of those, those funds. And, of course, having the the purpose for it, right? Like you said, it’s developed for the entrepreneurial development so,

Elaine Spalding 21:29
right, right. And just all of the news about that has brought more members to the chamber. You know, we did not take a grant administration fee for doing this program with the city, and really felt strongly that we wanted all of the funds to go to the small businesses. And as a result of that, I think that has elevated the role of the chamber in the community. And just today, I got another email from a business that wanted to know when’s the next round of small business grant funding. So now we’re able to give them a time frame in the year that they need to get all of their paperwork together. This this particular business was still in the process of getting all of their state and local approvals, and so then they’ve got something to look forward to when they get all of that documentation together. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 22:23
and I love the idea that the criteria is that it needs to go towards a piece of equipment or something. It’s not just, you know, bringing in some part time help for a little bit, but it’s something that’s going to be a game changer for this business. So I love that pouring gas on the fire, as they say,

Elaine Spalding 22:42
it’s been great. And you know, those partnerships that we can do with our local governments, with our local education partners, I mean, those are the things that I see, you know, making the pie bigger for everybody in our communities.

Brandon Burton 22:55
Yeah, absolutely. So I like asking everybody. I asked you when you’re on the show before, I always like having a tip or action item for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level. I think, especially as a chamber of the year finalist, very appropriate to ask what you would suggest for chambers trying to accomplish that goal. What would come to mind for you

Elaine Spalding 23:19
Well being a CCE finalist of the year, I would encourage everyone to attend the ACCE conference. I pick up so many great ideas at every one of the conferences, and just sitting down at lunch or maybe over a beer at the end of the day, you can really help your chamber if you’ve got something you’ve been struggling with, but you haven’t exactly known who to go to, you know, just shout it out in one of those meetings, and you’ll get four or five people that have been there and they have been through the Battle and can tell you how to work your way through any issue or problem that you’ve got going

Brandon Burton 24:06
on. Absolutely I would echo that. I mean, the ACCE conference is great because these are the chambers that really value, you know, those peer connections and the continual education to be able to run a very good chamber and state associations are great too. Regional associations do all those. But there’s something special about the ACCE conference, where you’ve got some of the best of the best chambers that are there, and if you can connect and and make friends, you know, with with other peers that are there in those rooms, that’s where the magic happens. So

Elaine Spalding 24:38
yes, I appreciate that. Brandon, I encourage people to listen to your podcast and to take advantage of all of those professional development opportunities that you can, because you can always pick up at least one good idea from any time that you devote for your own professional development.

Brandon Burton 24:57
Absolutely So the other question. Question I like asking everyone I have on the show is, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Elaine Spalding 25:08
Well, and again, plugging acces horizon initiative, if you read that document, I mean, that is the future of our chambers of commerce all over the world and for chamber execs to be nimble and to be able to deal with whatever issue is going on globally, nationally, locally, you know, we are dealing with housing issues and daycare issues that I never thought our local chambers would be involved in strategies around that for our communities. I mean, we used to be so focused on it’s a business issue. It’s got to do with something that’s going to help the business community. But all Yes, yes, all of these growth issues, particularly in the Carolinas, we’re seeing such growth. We need to help our communities deal with the issues that are also impact impacting our employers, housing issues, daycare issues. I mean, it is huge for our

Brandon Burton 26:10
employers. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been great having you back on the show. I wanted to give you an opportunity to plug any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about these programs or how you guys are approaching things at the Rowan County Chamber. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with

Elaine Spalding 26:31
you? Always happy to help my fellow chamber buddies. It’s Elaine Spaulding. The telephone number at the Rowan chamber is 704-633-4221, or you can email me at espalding@rowanchamber.com,

Brandon Burton 26:47
that’s perfect. We’ll get that in our show notes to make it nice and easy. Bet Elaine, thank you for coming back on the show and sharing the highlights of these two programs. I’m so excited for you guys, and wish you and your team Best of luck, not only with the dragon race festival, but also this chamber of the year.

Elaine Spalding 27:05
Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. I really appreciate you inviting me to be on again.

Brandon Burton 27:10
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Chino Valley Chamber with Zeb Welborn

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist Series. And our guest for this episode is Zeb Welborn. Zeb is the President of the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce in California, and also the founder of well born social media. He’s passionate about empowering local businesses and driving community development through initiatives like upskill Chino Valley, named the 2023 Executive of the Year by W, A, C, E. Zeb brings award winning leadership and strong focus on connection, innovation and service to the chamber world. The Chino Valley Chamber was also a 2024, Chamber of the Year Finalist. So we’re excited to have Zeb back with us today here on chamber chat podcast. But Zeb, I wanted to give you a chance to say hello to everyone listening, and, as usual, share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little

Zeb Welborn 2:03
better. Yeah, hi everybody. My name is Zeb Welborn. I am President and CEO the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce. So thank you for the great introduction. Something interesting about myself recently, because we did this last time. I don’t remember what I said last time, but let’s see. I do play soccer every Sunday, so I play adult League Soccer, so I’m playing against 18 year olds upwards, every Sunday. I do a lot of golfing. So I wrote a book about, it’s called the Social golf course, about how to do social media marketing for golf courses. And I do get a chance to play golf at least once a month or so.

Brandon Burton 2:37
That’s cool. The book is that’s something new, for sure. And even the soccer, it takes a lot to keep up physically, you know, as you get on with with years past that 18 year mark, I mean, you’re only like 21 so, you know, it’s only been a couple of years. So, yeah, yeah. But anyway, first of all, congratulations to you and your team being selected as a chamber of the year finalist again, definitely showing you guys are making an impact in the community. Tell us a little bit about the Chino Valley Chamber, just to give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work, budget, just to set the stage for our conversation.

Zeb Welborn 3:16
Yeah, we have about 400 members here at the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce. So we are a population of about 200,000 so we cover two cities. We cover Chino and Chino Hills, located in Southern California. Our budget is about 1.2 million. We have eight staff members. When I started, our budget was significantly less than that, and we had about, we had three part time people. I was also part time. So we’ve grown a lot. I took over. It’s coming. I’m coming up on my seven year anniversary, so I took up about seven years ago. And yeah, so we’ve grown a lot. It’s been a lot of fun, very rewarding, and we’ve made it a good impact for our local businesses here in the Chino Valley.

Brandon Burton 4:00
Yeah, sounds like it sounds like a lot of growth, going from three part time to eight staff now, and growth in the budget as well. So hopefully we can hear about how some of that happened as we touch on the programs today in our in our discussion. So typically, with these chamber of the year episodes, what I like to do is focus on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application, and, you know, do a deep dive into the details of them and share with us you know what’s been working for you guys there at the Chino Valley Chamber. And we’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint Nessmith
Are you ready to take your organization’s funding to the next level? Hi. I’m Clint Nessmith, CEO of Resource Development Group as a chamber of commerce or economic development organization leader, I know you understand the value of working with experts who understand your world, and that’s exactly what RDG does best. For over 30 years, RDG has specialized in fundraising for EDOs and chambers. We bring cutting edge strategies tailored to your organization, whether you’re just starting out or gearing up for yet another new funding cycle. Importantly, our firm executives are hands on from start to finish, from the feasibility study to the successful conclusion of your fundraising campaign, and our team brings deep industry roots and national expertise to every engagement, no matter the size of your community. RDG delivers data driven, innovative revenue solutions, reinforcing ROI to investors and making sure your vision becomes reality. At RDG, we proudly build organizations that build communities. Visit us today at RDGFundraising.com and let us partner with you building a stronger future for your organization and the community you are working to grow and develop?

Jamie Beasley
Hey, Chamber Execs, are you juggling ribbon cuttings, grant deadlines, membership renewals and a rogue newsletter that just won’t format? That’s where Econ Dev Ops comes in. We’re a virtual assistant agency built exclusively for chambers and EDOs. From social media to CRM cleanup to event planning to inbox management, we handle the behind the scenes work so you can focus on impact. And here’s the best part, we don’t just assign a random virtual assistant, we match you with someone who fits your workflow, your communication style, even your level of type-A. Visit econdevops.com or email us at hello@econdevops.com and finally, cross “hire help” off your to-do list. Econ Dev Ops helping community champions make a bigger impact!

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

Brandon Burton 8:16
All right, then we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re gonna we’re gonna dive into the two programs you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. As I understand I mentioned in the bio, too upscale Chino Valley is one of those programs. Do you want to spend a few minutes telling us what that’s about? You know what the program is, the impact, the need that you guys are feeling in the community, and just kind of go from there. Yeah,

Zeb Welborn 8:44
absolutely. So we’re sorry I cut out for a second there. You’re talking about upskill Chino Valley. Yes, correct, yeah, yeah. So that is one that we did also submit last year. It came about out of COVID. So during COVID, obviously we did a lot to support our local businesses that was kind of recognized by a lot of different folks. And so when COVID hit, and shortly thereafter, what we started to realize was there is help wanted signs everywhere in our community. So every single building had a help wanted sign, and we’re trying to help solve that issue for our local businesses. So we implemented this thing that we called up skilled Chino Valley, which is kind of four different things. So it’s leadership development, it’s entrepreneurship development, it’s economic development, it’s workforce development. So we created an idea these different programs that we would implement in those four categories that would help move the needle for our businesses to try to help solve that workforce shortage, because at the same time that that was going on, where we’re identifying that there’s those issues, we were also attending US Chamber led courses that were just kind of talking about the challenges that workforce would be, that our businesses would be facing when it comes to their workforce for the foreseeable future. And so our thought was, well, let’s try to solve that for our region, and that’s the way. In collaboration with my board members, that we came up with those four different things that we identified, and each one of those four things we identified programs that fit into those categories that we could execute on as a chamber, as long as we had the resources to do so. So that’s what we pitched. We presented it to a bunch of our legislators, our county supervisor Curt Hagman, gave us some funds to help support that effort, and then our state legislators also gave us some funds to help support that effort. And so that really allowed us to start pursuing this work. So we’ve been doing it for about three years now, going on year four of our coming into our end of the three year term. So we’re going into our fourth and we’re we’ve done a lot of really positive things. We’ve checked out the economic impact of like, the work that this has done, and it’s substantial. So it’s something that we’re really excited about and proud of, that we were able to implement here in Chino and Chino Hills.

Brandon Burton 10:52
So is upscale Chino Valley? Is it a program that people apply to be a part of? Or do you guys address a need in the community and you go targeted? Or how does that has the format set up?

Zeb Welborn 11:03
Yeah, so it’s those four things. So really it was like capacity building, right? So we wanted to do a leadership program. Our community never had a leadership program, so we developed and implemented a leadership program. We developed and implemented what we call a round table program. So we were doing two round tables a month. So we’re bringing in businesses from different sectors or different challenges and discussing those needs of those businesses. We were doing entrepreneurial training, so we’re doing at least one a week. So we’re doing an entrepreneurial workshop at least once every other week. And then then the workforce front, we’ve been we’ve placed over 500 people in local jobs over the last couple of years. So that’s and we do that in a variety of different ways, but I’ll say that it’s mostly through job fairs, but there’s a whole bunch of other things that we do on that front, like one on one placements and stuff like that. So that was kind of the gist of what our upscale Chino Valley program was, or is, there? Is

Brandon Burton 12:01
Yeah, yeah. And as Have you seen it evolve at all from when you first started, as you address more of the needs that are, you know, pertinent to the community, obviously, coming out of COVID, things looked a little different than they do today. There’s a lot of similarities, still, but, but it is a different landscape. What? What have you seen as far as where you needed to make some adjustments and evolve the program.

Zeb Welborn 12:24
Yeah, I think when we started, we’re really ambitious about the scope and scale of all of the work that we’re doing. So we were, you know, like I mentioned, one a week for the entrepreneurship stuff, once a month for the round tables, the job fairs we do once every other month. We’d have a lot of different programs and a bunch of different areas. So that created a lot of logistical challenges to execute, also like the amount of time our members or their committee was willing to vote towards those kind of efforts. So we’ve kind of from the start to finish. I guess the thing is, is, how do we pair some of those things together so that we’re not doing more programmatic content than what is needed. So that’s probably the one learning curve, or a thing that’s changed since we first started, is making sure that we’re kind of putting those programs together so that it has more impact for the people that we’re serving.

Brandon Burton 13:13
Yeah. So I’m curious with these leadership roundtables and the entrepreneurship trainings, are these being done in person? Are they virtually? Are they a hybrid of sorts? Or what have you learned as you do these trainings around tables? Yeah,

Zeb Welborn 13:27
we’re kind of flexible on how we operate, because essentially what we’ve been what we’ve been doing, is you’re partnering with different entities and organizations. So a lot of the times it is in person, a lot of times it’s virtual, and a lot of times it’s hybrid. So we do a good, healthy mix of all of those things, we’re just trying to make sure that it’s as accessible as possible for the people that need it. And sometimes you want to have those intimate discussions where they’re kind of private and together here on site, at a chamber, at a different location. And sometimes it’s, it’s, it makes more sense to do it virtually, to actually execute on that work. So it’s a variety of different ways that we go about doing it.

Brandon Burton 14:02
Yeah, I can see people attending, you know, when it’s maybe they prefer in person, or maybe their schedule only allows for the virtual just maybe where they’re located or what their schedule looks like. So being able to have that flexibility, I think, is, is great. It’s great that you guys offer that. Is there anything else about upscale Chino Valley that is worth mentioning or that we need to know about before we move on to your other program?

Zeb Welborn 14:27
Well, I’ll just share that we put together an economic or an impact report every year, so we kind of analyze it. We keep all the data. We keep all the information about all the stuff that we’ve accomplished for it. And so, you know, we basically got a little bit over a million dollars of funds to start and execute these programs, and the economic impact that we provided is substantially larger when you factor in the, you know, the more than 500 people that have gotten jobs with local businesses here locally, the growth of the businesses that we’ve been able to facilitate some of the resources and programs we’ve directly, I. Given or connected our businesses with has been substantial, and so that’s kind of the thing that I like to harp on is, is this was a vision as a plan. We didn’t know exactly where it’s going to go, but as we’ve executed on it, it’s paid off way more than what was invested in us in the first place. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 15:19
So is that funding long term? Is there? Do you redress it each year to go back for the funding? Or how’s that?

Zeb Welborn 15:28
No, it’s kind of a one year allocation. So, I mean, I shouldn’t say that it was, it was given to us with a three year window, actually, when he wrote the proposal, because I had never done this before. We wrote for seven years. So it was supposed to be for seven years, is what we planned it out. And then once we, like, went through the whole process, and I was under the impression that this was, like, good to go and ready, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t until we actually got the the check in the bank account and stuff so and then went to the they’d give us that contract. They said, Oh, it’s not seven years, it’s three years. So we had to expend all of those things in three years. And so that’s what we’ve been working on and doing it, and our goal is to kind of create these sustainable programs. All of the stuff that we’re doing is getting invested by our community or businesses or community leaders to help make these things happen. So that’s what we were that’s what we’re counting on, and I think that that’s we’re well on our way to make that happen.

Brandon Burton 16:21
Awesome. Sounds great. So the other program that you guys submitted, CVCC future ready is, first of all, I’m guessing CV stands for Chino Valley, but tell us what it is and what the whole program is about,

Zeb Welborn 16:36
yeah. So we’re calling this CVCC future ready as a result of that upskilled Chino Valley program. You know, one of our goals is to create sustainability with this. And so we’ve developed lots of partnerships along the way, and one of those partnerships with Chaffey College, so they’re our local community college, but also with our local school districts, some of our private schools that are here locally, and so essentially, these are youth programs, so very similar to the upskilled Chino Valley work, in that we’re connecting local students with businesses and real world opportunities. So the way that this kind of lays out is is we’re doing it with internships. We’re doing it with career days. We’re partnering with Chaffey College to develop round tables so that they have access to experts like business insiders and experts to at their community college. And so basically, I’m kind of relating as anything that we do. A couple other things we do on that front is we do an entrepreneurship fair for junior high and under so these are elementary and junior high school students. We do it twice a year, and we have about 300 kids that participate in this thing. They set up their kids booths. They sell their products and services in our downtown area. Another thing we do is a pitch competition. So we do a high school like Shark Tank like petition for high school students. So they pitch their entrepreneur ideas, and we give out some funds for them to either, you know, pursue college or pursue their idea. And that’s the kind of a culmination of everything they’re doing. So the the short answer is we’re CVCC future ready is connecting our local students with real world opportunities in our business community.

Brandon Burton 18:22
I love that starting early with elementary and middle school, with these entrepreneur affairs, in the creativity that these kids will have with things, you know, to solve problems. I remember when my son was was little, his elementary school age, and he had this vision for creating this cancer curing pill. You know that had robots like Nano robots, that would go and it’s like, it seems far fetched as a kid, and now you see the development of technologies like, man, he wasn’t too far off. So how do you guys get in there with the schools and make this happen with elementary middle school, to get them on board, create the vision is there? How’s that communicated, how’s that developed at the schools?

Zeb Welborn 19:05
So it’s different for each one, and we have different relationships with each one, so it’s kind of like a culmination of relationships. One of the ladies that we brought on board, her name is Nicole Tabitha by so she’s kind of our youth program director, so she does facilitate a lot of those relationships, and that was a challenge when I started. I have a lot of high school students who would come to the chamber say, Hey, I’m looking for an internship, or I’m looking for a thing. And I was like, that’s great. I’m happy to help you. And I was excited about helping them, and I’d connect them with our local businesses. And then what would happen is, is that cycle would kind of get buried every single time there’s a new semester, we’d kind of have to start all over from scratch, and so by having somebody on staff that manages that relationship and making sure that there’s a steady cycle of of interns, but also opportunities connecting businesses with others, that’s kind of what I feel like is needed for. Yeah, especially today, where the world is changing at such a fast pace, with AI and social media and the ability to communicate with each other so quickly, and the world and the world of work is going to change so much more quickly that there needs to be a much stronger tie between businesses and our educational institutions. But the challenge is, our businesses are way too busy as our educational institutions, and so there’s no way, I think the way that the current structure looks, what I’m looking at from the outside in, is that they’re trying to do it on their own, where the educational institutions are like begging the businesses to participate into it, versus coming to us, who can play that kind of middle row and saying, We can speak on behalf of business number one. But we can also connect you with businesses, because we’re trying to solve their issues holistically and not just in that one, one case. So that’s one of the things I’m trying to get more awareness for, I guess, in our chamber industry, building that relationship between education and and local businesses. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 20:58
and I, I’ve often seen that communication going the other way too, from the businesses you know, trying to get the attention of the educators, saying, We need employees that have these skill sets. Please teach them to this. And to your point, with the changing workforce environment, things are developing very quickly with things like AI and when you’ve got a school and education system that has curriculum that has to get approved. And, you know, there’s all these steps for things to happen, and things are moving so quickly that if we can get some of these kids into the workforce as an intern to learn firsthand and see, you know, is this something that I enjoy doing, and then dive in deeper to learn about that profession, I think is the key to be that matchmaker. And sounds like you guys are doing that. Well, is there anything else, as far as the internships, or even just in general, with the CVCC, Future Ready highlights or things that have stood out to you, maybe from the career fairs or or the round tables you guys do,

Zeb Welborn 22:02
well, I think probably the most. We have lots of really good success stories. So you know, hearing from kids about how they gotta sell out of their products at those career fairs when we do those round tables like I think typically when they so, so the colleges or the community colleges will have to do these roundtables in order to approve their curriculum, or to say that they’re taking his advisory advice from these councils. And normally they’ll get a handful of people that were participating, if that so when we ever, whenever we do a roundtable, we have a healthy group of people that are showing up to those roundtables, depending on the industry. So we, we did a manufacturing roundtable not that long ago, where maybe they would get a couple of people that would show up. We had like 30 manufacturers that were present for that. So that’s a success story. We have a lot of the interns that have participated in it that are just talking about how that experience has set them up for their future careers. So that’s been exciting. We had, oh, the last thing is we, because of the work that we’re doing at Chaffey College, and also with the US Chamber, we’ve gone through the talent pipeline management program, through the US Chamber. So I’ve been trying to, like, pitch that to our community, and it hasn’t made it slowly gaining traction, but it’s one of those things you have to do a lot of seed planting and chat with different folks over time. So I think we’re going to get started implementing that this year. So that’s a whole nother level that we’re going to try to take our programming to here at the cheetah Valley Chamber.

Brandon Burton 23:28
Very cool. So I have to ask, with these entrepreneur fairs and the pitch competitions you have, what are maybe a couple of the most creative ideas that you’ve seen these kids present or sell.

Zeb Welborn 23:42
So I’ll just tell you, I mean, so a lot of kids are doing like the printing, yeah, so there’s a lot of 3d printing products and stuff that they’ll share. I did buy, I don’t think I have it anymore, but I did buy like, artwork, you know. So like, a little fourth grader was putting together artwork, and she was displaying all of her artwork, and it was adorable. So I know I’ve got it somewhere, and I used to be right here, but it’s not there anymore. And then what else I think what I see a lot of other folks like, they’re, they’re kind of taking a product that they that they were like, reselling products, basically. But that still requires a lot of ingenuity, just to be able to identify those, to bring them to the space and do it. There was one my son took a video to hold a snake. So they were selling holding onto a snake at the fair, okay, and to have a snake around his neck. And there’s, Oh, there’s one kid who I think has built a pretty successful business already. He sells candles, like homemade candles, so he’s been doing that since the first one that we started, and he’s gotten some recognition here locally. And so I think he’s done really pretty well for himself so far from what I added,

Brandon Burton 24:59
yeah. That’s cool. I love hearing those stories and and even those that are reselling products. I mean, hopefully these kids are learning how to do the market research and see what products sell and what’s worth investing into to resell. And there’s, there’s a lot of value in doing that. That’s really cool, absolutely. So I like to ask, especially as a chamber of the year finalist for listeners who are wanting to take their organization up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item would you share for those listening to try to accomplish that goal?

Zeb Welborn 25:35
I think one of the things just so I’m on the Western Association, Western Association of chamber executives board. So I’ve been doing that for a couple years, and just prior to serving on the board, you know, just like being involved in the industry in general, and I get the sense that there’s a lot of people that I always treat this like as a business, but not just a business, but like the leaders of our business or business community. So So when, when you say that, it means, like, being compensated that way. It means growing in that way. It means thinking in that way. And I think when I have some chats with like, we’re providing a service for a value, and we should receive that value for the services that we’re providing. And I think a lot of chamber executives are uncomfortable doing that, I think, and I don’t know if it’s just kind of like we’re just, we all want to be of service and help support and just do good things for people, but I think treating it like a business is, is the number one thing, and then number two is, is, I feel like setting goals for your organization that kind of hit on those metrics where you’re trying to grow revenue and grow your organization and grow your business. So when I started, I implemented, you know, this goal setting program that I think has worked really well for a chamber to help it move in a positive direction. So if there’s a book called measure what matters, which is the guys at Google how they did their goal setting for their organization, and so I’ve implemented that every year, and we’ve kind of gone through that flow. And it’s, it’s a it’s our chamber has grown every single year since I started, and I, I don’t anticipate it slowing down anytime soon.

Brandon Burton 27:17
Yeah. So aside from winning the title of chamber of the year, what are, what are? What’s a big goal that the Chino Valley Chamber is working towards right now?

Zeb Welborn 27:28
Well, right now we, we got some funding approved by our Congresswoman to build an entrepreneurship center in our community. That was, it was federally funded, so it was going through the whole process. It was good. So when the change of administration happened, that kind of got put on hold. So we’re not sure if that’s coming through or not. We think it will, but we’re still not positive. We had to resubmit everything. So everything’s been resubmitted. It’s going through the process again. They seem likely that it’ll go through, but that is something that we’re working on, is we’re operating out of a space. It’s like an old school house building. So we have eight people in this open air space. There isn’t any room for meetings or that kind of thing on site, anyways, and so that would really be something that I think would level up our chamber, is having the ability to have spaces, space for our team, but then also space to bring in our members in the community to promote their business and promote entrepreneurship and grow our business community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:27
so I like asking, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Zeb Welborn 28:36
Well, I do really like reading like that horizons report, I think is very insightful. I think when, when we went through the process last year and kind of applying, and that was kind of when I was exposed to it for the first time, and it was 10 years it was made 10 years ago for the time that we had last year. And I mean, it was pretty spot on. And I get the sense that it’s pretty spot on. I think the one thing is, is going to be huge for every industry, not just chamber industry. So I would imagine encourage folks to get acclimated and adopted the AI, just because it makes everything so much more efficient and you can accomplish things so much more quickly. But it has a variety of other uses to it, so that’s going to change the world for every industry, I think, in in the chamber space, I do see a lot of opportunities connecting our educational institutions with our businesses, and being the mediator between those two. I think our businesses are so busy, our educational institutions don’t have the resources to do it, and so there needs to be some way to fill that void between the two. And like when, whenever we are asked to do that outreach to business, and we can bring a whole bunch of people, and it’s not it’s because we’re not just serving them for one thing. We’re serving them for everything. And then I think our educational. Institutions or government, or some ways, is being able to support that effort, because it’s going to be critical as we move forward in our in our professional careers.

Brandon Burton 30:14
Yeah, I would agree. I like that, and especially the the focus with with AI, and just recognizing it will affect every industry, and I think as chamber leaders being able to understand some of the applications and know how you can best help the businesses in your community to adapt, to adopt AI and to really lean into it, to help with some of those workforce shortages and to make things more efficient and cost efficient, and you know, all the things that you touched on, but that is a the Chamber’s role, to be that connector with the the education and the employers, to bridge those gaps and be that convener. So I appreciate that. Well, Zeb, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn how you guys are doing things there in Chino Valley, or even learn more about the programs you guys submitted. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Zeb Welborn 31:21
Yeah. So my name is really easy to find. I’m on all the socials at Zeb Welborn, so Z, E, B, it’s my first name. Well born is my last name, W, E, L, B, O, R, N. I am on all the social channels. So you can feel free to reach out to me in one of those spots, if you want to reach out via email. It my chamber email is zwelborn@chinovalleychamber.com and then our website is ChinoValleyChamber.com and you can follow us there and on all of our socials.

Brandon Burton 31:50
All right, I’ll, I’ll get that in our show notes and with your socials. I’ll, at least, you know, tag your your LinkedIn in there, so make it easy to find and connect with you, but Zeb, this has been great having you back on the show and and highlighting these programs you guys submitted, and looks like you guys are making a real difference there in the Chino Valley community. And I wish you and your team best of luck. Is 2025

Zeb Welborn 32:17
chamber of the year. Awesome. Thank you so much. Brandon appreciate

Brandon Burton 32:21
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

The Psychology & Science Behind Events with Cally D’Angelo

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

Today’s topic explores an often overlooked lens. It’s the psychology and science behind events. Emotion. It’s more than just a feeling. It drives action. In this conversation, we’ll reflect on the emotion and memory, how emotion and memory work together to shape the event, experience that truly sticks. We’ll touch on the softer side, this isn’t about sentimentality. It’s about using psychology and science to design chamber events that leave a lasting impression. Our guest for this episode, to help us cover this topic is Cally D’Angelo. Cally is founder and principal of Collective Cdge LLC. And prior to evolving into an entrepreneur, she spent nearly 20 years in the nonprofit organization management industry, working directly for chambers of commerce, a change agent influenced by innovation, she has launched initiatives from solopreneur to C suite that have enhanced engagement and increased revenue by more than 500% she’s a seasoned executive, skilled in professional development, sales and service member recruitment and retention, Benefits and onboarding, coaching and consulting international travel and volunteer engagement. Cally is driven by impact, and being a business owner enables her to pursue passion projects while utilizing her expertise. Her chamber roots run deep long before launching her own business, and just as strongly after deeply engaged in the chamber industry, she has served as the chair of events division board and ambassador for ACCE. She also is a past member of the Georgia chambers diversity and inclusion Council, a proud graduate of the US chambers Institute for organization management. She’s contributed as class advisor Board of Regent and faculty. She was nationally recognized in ACCE’s 40, under 40, and as a business owner, she continues to serve and support chambers across the country, frequently tapped as a speaker and instructor for state and national associations, including the Florida Association of chamber professionals, Indiana chamber executive Association and Tennessee chamber of commerce, industry and more. But Cally, we are excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and often I’ll ask for a unique or interesting fact about you, but today I want to ask you about an experience, whether big or small, that’s helped shape how you show up professionally,

Cally D’Angelo 3:48
Awesome. Thank you so much Brandon for having me. I’m very excited to be featured on today’s Chamber Chat Podcast. And hello chamber champions. If I have not had the opportunity to meet you, I hope that you find this session today valuable, and if there’s anything I can do for you, please feel free to reach out. Look forward to spending some time with everyone today to answer Brandon’s question. You know, I don’t know that I’m super interesting. So we pivoted from that slightly, because I always struggle with telling me something interesting about you, and I don’t find myself very interesting. Frank,

Brandon Burton 4:23
nobody does, but everybody else finds you interesting. So

Cally D’Angelo 4:28
that’s to be determined. We’ll see after the session today, right? But, but I think back on my chamber career, you know, one experience, big or small, that’s, you know, shaped how I show up professionally. There really has been a common theme of women supporting women. When I first started as an intern at the Statesboro chamber and then an executive assistant, it was ran by a full women team, and they really took me under their wing and helped develop me professionally, because I was super young in the space, right? So that was very helpful. You know, their guidance. And then when I went to the Tourism Council on Toby Island, I had a great group of women that got me plugged in. Then I got another opportunity from a professional woman that connected me with the savannah chamber. And then when I was with the Gwinnett chamber, I first was in their programs department, where I learned a lot about executive presence and leadership from Alicia Crow, who is still their SVP of programs and executive engagement. And the organization is also ran by Nick Massino, the president CEO, who is a champion for advancing women in the workplace. And then during my time at the Gwinnett chamber, you know, I was fortunate to be surrounded by female board members and leading ladies who are always so supportive. You know, I started in the chamber industry so young, and a comment, though throughout my career, has been encouraged and supported by women professionals. They instill both knowledge and confidence in me, and their kindness and insights are still things that I carry with me today.

Brandon Burton 5:59
That’s awesome. Yeah, you must have started young. I mean, to be in it nearly 20 years, you probably started when you’re like, nine, right? Well, tell us about collective edge. I think it’ll help to kind of set the stage for our conversation today about what it is that you do and who you serve. Okay,

Cally D’Angelo 6:21
awesome. Thank you. Brandon, so collective edge. We connect to collaboration and creativity and provide innovative approaches that advance organizations. We specifically serve chambers of commerce, associations and nonprofit organizations nationally. So what does that mean? Exactly, here are just some, you know, top four examples. So employee engagement, we empower your internal employees with custom coaching, cultivating a culture where passion, purpose and performance propel progress. We also delve into initiative implementation. This is probably the one that I get the most excited about, because I enjoy getting in the weeds with our chambers of commerce and helping them identify issues and advance initiatives that will combat those issues. So what we do is we essentially blend both consulting and contract work, because what we notice is there’s a gap in the space, bandwidth and capacity is always, you know, an issue for chambers and nonprofits in general. So if a consultant comes in the likeliness of whatever they’re consulting on being implemented or developed and implemented, you know, usually it doesn’t get off the ground 100% so that’s what we do. We blend both of those things. So we’ll help consult you, identify the issue, and then we’ll also do the development implementation of whatever the initiative is. Working in tandem with your team, we also provide staffing support, so we offer on demand services and seamlessly step in to expand your team’s capacity exactly when and where it matters most. So think about it. Let’s say you have your events lead, and perhaps she’s gone on maternity leave, and you have a whole, full season of events, right? And you can always that’s when it would happen, right? And you can’t absorb them staff wise, or maybe you shouldn’t, because you might have other people leave because they’re beyond capacity already, we can seamlessly step in and kind of pick up the ball during those transitionary times. So whether it be you know, more of kind of an events director role or an interim president and CEO, we can help you handle those transitions, especially when you’re hiring, so you can make sure you hire right, not just try to hire quick, okay? We also do organizational audits and assessments through systems and structures and develop the foundational framework that fosters alignment and activates action for your organization.

Brandon Burton 8:47
Very good. That’s a you said the top four, but it’s the kind of full scope of what you do. I know you can go much more granular on it, but it does help give us perspective from kind of where you’re coming from, between your bio and the background on what collective edge does to really set the stage for our conversation today. So I mentioned, kind of, in the intro that today we’re talking about the psychology and science behind events, and we’re going to dive in deep on this. I know you’ve done a lot of research on it. I’m excited to learn what you found out as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All right, Cally, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, our topic today is the psychology and science behind events. So this is a very unique lens. Obviously, chambers of all sizes are doing events all the time, but to really hone in on the psychology and science behind it, and really giving purpose to the events is what intrigues me with this. But what sparked your interest in exploring this topic? Yeah,

Cally D’Angelo 13:04
so Brandon, you know, I was approached by ACCE in 2023 to present at their events and marketing conference, and they asked that I speak to event experience. So I kind of went down a rabbit hole, because I didn’t want to talk about florals and tablecloths, although that is a part of event experience, right? But, you know, I’m like, What does really dictate event experience, and that’s memory making. So then that sent me down another rabbit hole of, how do you create memorable event experiences? So, you know, I’m a bit of a nerd. I love data and research, so I began connecting the dots and uncovering synergies between science and psychology and events, and no one had done a white paper or a TED talk on this. So here we are,

Brandon Burton 13:51
created your own TED Talk. So here it is, rolling it out. So why? Why does the overall event experience matters so much for chambers.

Cally D’Angelo 14:05
Yeah, I always like to start with, why is this even important to help people relate it and understand how and why they should implement these tactics, or, if not specifically, these tactics, at least think intentionally about your events. And the event experience matters so much for chambers, for a few reasons. For one, you know, I think we all know that events are the number one sided benefit of membership with your chamber, so it can be used as a strategic recruitment tool, right? Also, I like to say engagement equals retention. So you can get members plugged in, specifically through events in a variety of ways, and that increase, increase, I’m sorry, increases can’t talk here the likeliness of your member staying engaged and you retaining them also through revenue generation. So you can utilize events as a tool to generate revenue through your specific event. Budget, but also looking through the lens, through recruitment and retention. So even if an event doesn’t highly produce financially within its event scope, if it engages new members, it expands your reach and it helps you, you know, engage a number and variety of members across your membership base, then it’s increasing your membership revenue through recruitment and retention as well. And then lastly, to influence initiatives. You know, when you think back on important moments, whether that be in life or through your chamber, you know a lot of those are activated through gatherings and events, right? So you can use events as a tool to influence initiatives. So a couple of examples of that are, if you’re involved in public policy, then maybe you need to pass some sort of vote. Maybe it’s an education referendum or a splash vote, or transportation you can use events as a tool to do that and activate your community towards those goals. You can also bring the community together to champion and solve a common issue or cause. You can even use events to advance, you know, exposure for small businesses at the end of the day, it depends on what the strategy is for your organization and your chamber specifically, but you definitely can use events as a tool to accomplish your goals

Brandon Burton 16:16
Absolutely. And I can see, I really like how you said engagement equals retention. It leads to retention. And as you’re able to engage and make these events memorable, it kind of eliminates that question of, what does the chamber do? You know, good when they go to write the check next time that retention stays high, because they have these memories, these feelings, of what the chamber did for them. So just a side note of my own perspective of what I’ve seen. But as far as perspectives go, from the attendees perspective, what makes an event truly memorable, and why is that important to have a memorable event?

Cally D’Angelo 16:58
Well, you definitely want to have a memorable event, because memory leads to action and and we all have, you know, different types of action we want our prospective members or members to take, and we kind of unpack that further along. But, you know, I did a social media poll and posed the question, what makes an event memorable to you? Didn’t include any contacts, just general statement out there, and got a lot of responses back, but really the top kind of three were bucketed, and they were all centered around kind of connection and feeling. So the top one was connection, which is a feeling, and they said connection to the event and the people at the event, so that’s what makes it memorable to them, right? So how are you getting the right people in the room. How are you facilitating those connections? Are you doing social engineering when you do your seating assignments and being thoughtful about that, such as connection at the event? The second one was how the event made them feel, and we’ll unpack that further along, about how you can help members feel a specific way through event elements, and then also just tactical elements, you know, the experience? Is it well lit? Can they find parking? You know, all those good kind of logistical types of things that’s very important as well. And you know, I would say, even if it’s an object, right, everything speaks and everything has the ability to influence your event experience?

Brandon Burton 18:22
Yeah, I feel like the creating a memorable event really leverages what you’re doing as a chamber too. So you’re not oftentimes, we will rinse and repeat events over time. But if you’re able to create an event that your members attend and they remember, man, you’re getting a whole lot more leverage out of that one experience. So it’s worth putting in the extra attention from from what I can gather. Can you walk us through the concept of emotional memory and how it relates to events? Yeah, sure.

Cally D’Angelo 18:55
So let’s start connecting the dots here. I know everyone’s heard of flight or fight instinct, right? That is how far emotional memory goes back. So the activity of emotionally enhanced memory retention can be linked to human evolution. So during early development, responsive behavior to environmental events would have progressed as a process of trial and error and survival depended on it at that time. And then numerous studies have shown that the most vivid memories are of emotional events or occurrences which are likely to be recalled more and with more clarity than just neutral events.

Brandon Burton 19:34
Okay, so as we make the connection, how does it the impact of memory affect retention from from the event.

Cally D’Angelo 19:45
Yeah. So findings show that emotions play a role at various specific stages of remembering, and those stages are encoding, consolidating and recall. So the first stage of encoding refers to the process of interpret. Incoming stimuli, and combining the processed information so emotionally arousing stimuli results in enhanced memory. So in this context, dimensions of arousal range from soothing to exciting or agitating. So both positive and negative experiences can be formed into your memory bank from your chamber events

Brandon Burton 20:21
for sure. Yeah, people remember how that chicken was right?

Cally D’Angelo 20:26
The chamber chicken, it’s so funny. You mentioned that because I actually have a sticker that I give out as swag that says I love chamber chicken to chicken professionals, because if you know, you know that’s right, but yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, you want people to have a good experience, but if they have a bad experience, they remember that too. So it’s very important you know that people aren’t frustrated by the time they find you that if you have award recipients that are announced, that you’re taking the time to make sure you write out the phonetics of the pronunciations of the name on stage, right? Let’s say someone brings their whole family because they’re up for an award, and then you butcher their last name, so that’s not a good memory to store, okay, so we have to be intentional on the front end to create these positive experiences. So yeah, and then after encoding, we dive into emotional arousal. Increases the likelihood of memory consolidation during the retention and storage stage of memory, which is the process of creating the actual permit record of the encoded information. Okay? And then your third stage is recall, which is the process of being able to retrieve that information from your memory bank. And as we know from what we’ve covered so far, recall is dictated by your emotional state. So if you can increase and provide a positive experience at your events, then people are going to recall that feeling and that experience more.

Brandon Burton 21:50
Yeah, I have definitely seen that now, when we speak to the word emotion, people might assume that, in a professional sense, that there’s that emotion doesn’t really have a place. But from what I understand, it’s not just about being emotional, right? There’s a difference between emotion and emotional. But can you share some types of emotion that chambers might want to intentionally evoke through their events? Yeah,

Cally D’Angelo 22:17
absolutely. And you’re you’re correct about that Brandon. You know, I think people, when you hear the word emotional, or someone is labeled as emotional, there’s a negative connotation with that, right?

Brandon Burton 22:27
Makes me think of a league of their own where he’s like, there’s no crying in baseball, right? Yes,

Cally D’Angelo 22:32
but I want you to cry at my events. But I do want you to be moved, okay, depending on what the event is. So it’s not just about crying. You know you want people to feel embraced or welcome. That’s a feeling, right? You want your chamber feel like a place of belonging for the business community. You know you may want your members to feel excited, because you want them champion your membership campaign and sell some memberships on your behalf. You know there are situations where you may want your members to feel contemplative, you know, and considering the impact of an issue that you are discussing. You know you might want to ignite support around a cause, and you would want your event attendees to feel motivated you. You know you may be having an award ceremony, and you want your members and your event attendees to feel seen. So I would say, you know, at the bottom of this, I would just try to understand what the goal of your event is, and what emotions you can tap into to advance whatever that goal is for your event.

Brandon Burton 23:33
Yeah, so let’s, let’s talk about the tactics. What are the practical ways to evoke emotion during an event. So

Cally D’Angelo 23:41
I would just think through your pre event, your during event, and your post event, so all the actions that you are doing at all of those stages, okay, you know, pre event, when you’re promoting it, you can tap into emotion just simply through the language that you’re choosing for your events promotional copy. You know, we are a chamber, but we don’t have to be so buttoned up. And there’s a way, if you have a strong event Brandon, if you have a strong chamber brand, that you can be a little bit more intentional in the copy that you’re creating, in the language in which you’re using to promote your events, you can, you know, implement some emotion through video content and who you’re interviewing and the questions that you’re asking them and how you’re staging that you can, you know, evoke emotion through thoughtful speaker selection. Okay, so someone that is telling a story through the photos that you use to promote your event, you know they don’t have to be clip artist or super buttoned up, they could be more relatable to whoever you’re trying to reach right more interactive, smiling networking you can use, you know, you can evoke emotion through your walk up music at your award ceremony. You know, it doesn’t all have to be the same kind of walk up music with no work. You can, you know, be specific and tailor the walk up music based on the award that you’re giving. So like, for example, if it’s an entrepreneurial award, you know, maybe it’s a I will survive song, you can be specific about and intentional about how you’re doing this. And then through lighting, you know, some of those theatrical elements. So, like, if you have an award ceremony, we’ll go back to that example you have, you know, your walk up music and the lights are kind of going in tandem with your walk up music, right? So it’s just kind of that build up and that experience that you’re giving someone. And then lastly, through storytelling. I mean, there’s a mile long list that we could go through, but I would just say the things that you’re doing already just be more intentional about it, right?

Brandon Burton 25:48
Yeah, absolutely. And when I think of these practical ways, just one small example, I had done a presentation at a chamber conference, and I wanted the attendees to feel welcome. So I got to the room. It was a breakout session, so I got to the room well before anybody else did, but I made sure I was saying hello and introducing myself to everybody that came in the room, and then by the time the presentation started, they all felt welcome. It kind of broke the ice, and it got engagement going a lot quicker. So there are a lot of ways to evoke that emotion, but that’s just an example that I’ve used. But I know storytelling, you mentioned, storytelling can be such a powerful tool for chambers, but why? Why is storytelling so powerful to use in an event setting?

Cally D’Angelo 26:40
Yeah, so when we listen to a good story that is rich in detail and full of metaphor and expressive, we tend to imagine ourselves in that same situation, right? So when I started with the question of kind of we asked of what has been most impactful, or what have I carried with me on my professional journey. I mean, that’s a good example of storytelling, so I’m sure that there are other professionals that can kind of relate to that. Hopefully they’ll remember that and also implement it as well as we, you know, we’re looking to embrace the next generation of female leaders. But that’s just an example. You know, on average and emotion only lasts about 90 seconds. It’s not the emotion that lingers, but the story that you attach to it in your mind. Okay, we keep feeding, you know, these memories, our thoughts, these stories, and we were playing them in our minds, and reinforce that feeling. So that’s one of the reasons why storytelling is so impactful, because we can imagine ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We can relate.

Brandon Burton 27:41
Yeah, so I know you’ve studied the topic, but can you break down for us the science behind storytelling? You kind of alluded to it with, you know, put putting their emotion into that story as they try to picture themselves in that story. But what’s the science behind it?

Cally D’Angelo 27:58
Yes, I basically had to become a scientist to uncover this, just so y’all know, totally kidding, but you know, scientists are discovering that chemicals like cortisol, dopamine and oxytocin are released in the brain when we’re told a story. So those are kind of the chemicals and mechanics behind it. So for example, if you’re trying to make a point stick, cortisol assists with formulating of memories and dopamine, which helps regulate our emotional responses, helps keep us engaged, and then when it comes to creating deeper connections with others, oxytocin is associated with infinite empathy, which is an important element in building and maintaining good relationships. So those are just some of the chemicals that are activated in our minds when we are listening to a story?

Brandon Burton 28:44
Yeah? So I’m trying to see, in a practical sense, at an event, how can a chamber incorporate storytelling into their events?

Cally D’Angelo 28:53
Yeah? So there’s a variety of different ways, but let’s say, let’s go back to the Small Business Award Ceremony example. Because you know, most chambers, about 90% of their members are small businesses with 50 employees or less. So I feel like this example will kind of resonate with the masses. But let’s say you’re hosting an award ceremony for a small business, for small businesses, and you can actually promote a small business success story via a video interview to tee up and promote on the front end your award ceremony. You can also host a fireside chat. So your event format can help through storytelling, where it literally the focus of the event is hearing someone’s story. So maybe it’s someone’s entrepreneurial journey that’s always impactful, yeah. So for the chamber itself, you can also tell your story as well through your events. At the end of the day, it should be driven by your strategic plan and your communications plan, and then interwoven into all your chamber elements such as events, but chambers can really humanize their mission, elevate their members and create emotionally engaging events that drive deeper connection. Time through storytelling. So let’s say we talked about, you know, the stats surrounding 90% of Chamber members having 50 employees or less. You can tie in the support of your small businesses and to your events, if that’s something that you’re championing through your strategic plan, through your MC remarks, through highlighting members entrepreneurial journeys. If you’re able, let’s say you’ve got a grant for a small business through some connection at the Chamber, then you could not, you know, let’s not just self promote the chamber for doing that, but you can do a story on what that will mean for that small business. Okay, just really kind of connecting those dots and storing those emotional responses. You can do things like a why I joined, or why I stayed campaign so utilizing your members to tell the chamber story for you. You can also do this through like legacy moments, so like milestone anniversary highlights. You could do this through a social media campaign where you talk about my chamber, my story on social. And you can also do future focused storytelling. I know a lot of us have state of events, right? State of the County, state of the city, state of space. So this is, you know, those are really updates on where we are, but where we’re going as well. So you can use those as a tool for future focused storytelling as well.

Brandon Burton 31:21
That makes a lot of sense. There’s no, no limit to when and how to incorporate stories into events, and I would even say regular communications through different channels like podcasts and YouTube and your newsletters, and, you know, all the different things. But before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you for maybe a tip or an action item that a chamber professional can take today to elevate their next event.

Cally D’Angelo 31:49
Yes. So if anyone’s heard me speak before, it really always comes down to be intentional. That’s typically my top takeaway. So I would ask you, what kind of story do you want your chamber to tell? What do you want to be known for? What is your chambers legacy? And then, how can you leverage events as a platform to tell that story? So I would say, intentionality and cohesion across your organization and make sure everyone is working towards a common goal, so we’re not siloed in events and siloed in membership, right? Yeah, really operating off of that strategic plan and who you want your chamber to be, and then, you know, evoking emotion through events, through storytelling, and all the different elements we discussed today.

Brandon Burton 32:36
Yeah, it’s important to have all the staff to have the same vision, so they’re all telling the same story, right? Sounds bad. It sounds bad to say, you know, get all of our stories aligned, because that’s usually, you know, Incorporated to, like, making up a story, but, you know, getting in line with, here’s what our vision is, and getting all the staff on board with, yes, this is a vision, and everything we do helps support that story. I think is, is a great piece of advice. So I always like asking guests on the podcast how they see the future of chambers going forward, but I wanted to specifically ask you about how do you see the future of chambers evolving, and what role will events play in that?

Cally D’Angelo 33:18
Yeah. So you know, I think we all wish we had a crystal ball. But what I will say is I see, in my opinion Chambers as continuing to evolve as and serve as a catalyst for their communities. But I think that, you know, we’re going to have to probably be more intentional or specific on kind of the causes we champion and the things that we support and how we do that, I think, also too, you know, we’re going to continue to be that trusted resource in the future, but we also need to modify our approach and our communications to reach the younger professionals. You know, currently, right now, millennials are the largest segment of our workforce, and they hold the largest spending power and the United States right? So as a chamber, we have to continue to evolve and modify our approach so we can be a chamber of the future. Not to sound campy, but we do have to have some intentionality, you know, behind that, as far as how we can use events to, you know, expand upon that. I mean, you can use events as as a tool to reach and support, you know, the younger professionals market. You can be specific and how you’re creating these events. You can, you know, create events surrounding whatever your objective is and whatever action you want to implement within your community. You know, I know sometimes there’s talk around how I say this, don’t be a parade chamber, or a negative connotation with events, don’t just be an events mill organization, right? But I think that might come from a lens of not understanding that specific chambers. Different communities. They’re not all the same. It’s not a one size fits all. And events are a, you know, strategic tool to advance whatever your objectives are. And for you know, some of our smaller chambers, some of their strategic plans may be community engagement. So parade would be fitting. So I would just say, as we hear, you know people speak to things in different events and so forth. They very much are still important. Are and are going to be the way that you engage your community, that you recruit, retain your members. So keep up the good fight with your events.

Brandon Burton 35:35
I love what you said about events being a strategic tool to advance your objectives. I think a lot of chambers, you know, leaders staff, they come into a chamber and there’s already a menu of events that they’ve been doing for a long time, you know, the 50th annual whatever, whatever you know. And they kind of get into this trap of doing events for the sake of doing the event, instead of identifying the how are we, how are we being strategic, and how is this event helping to further advance our objectives? And when it comes becomes more about just we have to do XYZ event because, you know, it’s that time of year. Well, is that really the purpose behind it? So I love that. I’m glad you really glad that you pointed that out. So you mentioned in your in your introduction, and about collective edge, kind of what you do, but do you also speak and instruct with chambers and associations? I know you do with you know, from what we shared in your bio, but in what ways are you available to support chambers, and what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you if they were to try to bring you on board to help their their chamber with any of the things that you’ve talked about?

Cally D’Angelo 36:56
Yeah, thanks, Brandon for that tee up. Yes, I do regularly speak or instruct at different chamber conferences, whether that’s you know, nationally or statewide, or I can even you know, come speak to your members for your chamber. So recently, did something on innovation, and was actually presenting to the chambers Chamber members. So we can do that a variety of different ways. I like to say, I take a tactical approach, so you kind of walk away with, you know, some applicable things that you can implement, and not kind of super high level. So that’s the approach. So if that would be helpful to anybody you know, certainly reach out. You know, I started this organization to expand my impact and making a difference, I know a lot of that will resonate with our audience, because chamber professionals typically are purpose driven and mission minded. So if I can help you advance your mission, whether that be through coaching or teaching, please keep me in mind and you can get in touch with me in a variety of ways. My email is super long, but it is cally@collectiveedgeagency.com my website is collectiveedgeagency.com and then my cell phone feel free to call or text. Is 912-412-5109,

Brandon Burton 38:22
that that’s perfect, and we will get that in our show notes to make it nice and easy for people to find. But I know Cally, you speak and present on a variety of different topics, so not everything is all about psychology and science behind events, but I think this is one of those topics that kind of bleeds over into so many things that chambers are involved with and and I’d argue even that you’re involved with to be able to make sure that the experience for your clients is something that’s memorable, that’ll evoke that emotion and stay with them for a long time. So I appreciate you spending time with us today, here on chamber chat podcast and and really digging into the science and psychology behind events. This is fantastic. I appreciate

Cally D’Angelo 39:07
it. Yeah, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having

Brandon Burton 39:12
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

Importance of Being Proactive in 2025 with Clint Nessmith

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brandon Burton 20:55
yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brandon Burton 34:23
care, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!