Building for the People – Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce president offers ideas for membership growth

Build it and they will come.

When it comes to boosting the membership of a community’s chamber of commerce, increasing the organization’s value to its members will lead to more businesses joining, according the Jonathan Coe, President of the Coeur d’Alene Area Chamber of Commerce.

By DON SAUER
Hagadone News Network

http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2004/06/25/business/bus01.txt

Coe addressed a joint meeting of the Historic Wallace and Historic Silver Valley chambers of commerce Thursday at the Shoshone Golf and Tennis Club at Big Creek.

While it may go against the beliefs of many chamber officials, especially in smaller communities, Coe urged the valley’s two organizations not to be overly concerned about membership numbers.

"Don’t worry so much about membership, it’s hard to get everyone involved," Coe said. "I look at it like the Field of Dreams: build it and they will come, make the chamber valuable and membership will follow."

Coe said smaller communities where there are many small "Ma and Pa" businesses often find it more difficult to recruit members or get participation because the owners of the smaller businesses have less time to give to organizations because they must devote so much of their time to keeping their operations going.

Relying less on membership also means being less reliant on dues as the primary source of funding for the chamber, Coe said. He added that the Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint chambers see only around 20 percent of their annual budgets come from members’ dues.

"You just can’t rely on dues memberships," Coe said. "You have to look at all possible ways of generating income."

Coe emphasized the need for the chamber to be one of the most important organizations in the community. He said new businesses looking at a community automatically contact the local chamber for information.

"Using a basketball analogy, you want your chamber to be the ‘go to’ organization," Coe said. "The chamber is respected because you normally have the community leaders involved in the organization."

In developing programs for the community, Coe said chambers should look beyond the overall business structure to what he called "subsets."

Coe said a chamber-sponsored "plan center" was developed in Sandpoint where building contractors could go to look at blueprints for proposed projects which were being let out for bid.

He said this works well for local contractors because they often learn of projects that are available in their area and it also is a plus for the entities putting out the bids because it can make the process more competitive.

Coe also urged to chambers to be more creative in their fund-raising events and to look beyond the normal raffles and dinners.

For example, Coe said the Coeur d’Alene Chamber developed computer training classes which not only helped chamber employees with their jobs but also raised money from other people paying for the training.