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Strategic Thinking: Evaluate Your Response to 2020

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Strategic Thinking: Evaluate Your Response to 2020
March 26 2021 admin Uncategorized 0 comments

It’s been a year since we all began to experience the Covid-19 pandemic in personal ways. We talked about ‘expecting the unexpected’ and about how to ‘pivot’ (one of our favorite words for 2020) and how to continue to serve your members and communities in the midst of what felt like chaos.

After every TRC we conduct, we hold focus groups so we can get feedback on what Chamber staff and volunteers felt went well and what didn’t. We also review the statistics and provide those to the Chamber staff and leadership.

In short, we do a comprehensive review so we can continue to improve. It’s something all good strategic planners do after a big event.

While we are in no way saying the Covid-19 pandemic is over, we do think that maybe – at this one year mark – we’re all at a place in which we need to do some reviews of the last year. It will be like no other evaluation you have ever done because this last year has been like nothing we have ever done.

But we challenge you to take this as an opportunity to look critically at how your chamber functions in crisis, because that’s what this last year has been… one seemingly never-ending crisis.

You may have had to let staff go because of budgetary shortfalls. You may have had to move everyone to remote workspaces. You most likely had to cancel events and programming.

But you may have also found that your staff rose to the occasion and worked together in new and more productive ways. And you assuredly discovered which of your staff work better in-person in the office and which ones thrived in the remote environment. And you may have discovered a world of webinars that allow you to offer programming to your members while still maintaining a safe environment for all.

As you work through your 12 month evaluation, consider if there are aspects of this last year that you want to keep. Will you continue to have some staff members work remotely – even if only a few days a week? Will you continue to offer virtual programming – at least for certain programs? Did you begin a new program that was intended to be a stop-gap but that you now have data showing it should be a standing program?

For us, we discovered an array of new sponsorship ideas that we will continue to offer to chambers choosing to conduct TRCs in the future. We have seen the power of social media and the value of sponsorships based around various social media platforms.

As more people are being vaccinated and as many states loosen their precautionary restrictions, we are all going to be moving toward more in-person events and programs. We encourage you to take the bones of those events and programs (from what you used before 2020) and look at them critically. Are there line items within each that no longer serve your chamber, your members, or your community? If so, we hope you feel empowered to let those aspects go. Replace them with newer options that you have seen be successful in this last year.

We are not the same after this last year. Your program of work shouldn’t be either. If we all work to learn from this experience, the next time a crisis happens (and there will always be another crisis around the corner, though hopefully not one with the size and scope of Covid-19), you and your team will be ready.

If you need help doing an annual review of this nature, let us know. We’re here to help. We hope to see chambers everywhere flourish in the coming months and years, in part because they stood strong in their communities during this last year.

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Strategic Thinking: Networking
February 10 2021 admin Blog, Chambers, TRC, YGM 0 comments Tags: networking, sponsorships, YGM

In these early months in 2021, we are focusing on strategic thinking. That’s right – strategic thinking, not just strategic planning – though they go hand in hand. You have to be thinking strategically in order to do the important work of the planning for your chamber or organization. All strategic thinking involves questions. We encourage you to grab a notepad and do some thinking with us.

In our last blog post, we went into detail on why strategic thinking is important and how you can utilize it. Today, we are thinking about how we network with our members, especially now during these unusual COVID-19 times.

Networking is built into chamber life – into the life of any organization, really. Members of any organization attend networking events to expand their business contacts, to be seen as a vital component of the organization, and to build their own business. Networking is about building.

What are you building with your networking events? What do you want to build? Do the two answers come together with the actual attendance numbers and engagement of your members or clients?

Networking

What is the one event/program that most chambers have? AfterHours or a similar networking program. It doesn’t matter how your chamber does it. Are you thinking about it? Really thinking about it? Think about your networking programs and ask yourself these questions.

  • What is the real reason your chamber does networking in general?
  • Are you penetrating the percentage of your membership that you desire with this program?
  • Is your networking program segmented?

What is the real reason your chamber does networking in general? Are you penetrating the percentage of your membership that you desire for this program?

Are you trying to engage your members in your programming? Think about the results you want from your networking events. When you do a wrap-up evaluation after an event (you do those, right?), do you look to see if the results are in line with your goals?

If you do networking events to engage your members, are they attending? Whether virtually or in-person? Are you providing what you think is best or have you gotten input from your members?

Whether you recognize it or not, you are getting input from your members. If you have a monthly networking event and the same 20 people attend each month, you are not engaging your members unless your definition of and goal for engagement is to create a small club for certain members.

If you hold in-person events during the middle of the day, and your small business owners aren’t attending even if the programming and educational opportunities are geared toward them, they are telling you the timing isn’t right for them.

During Covid, we have seen many chambers having more engagement from a wider group of members because they are able to connect virtually and not leave the office. Even if your in-person event was only an hour, adding drive time to that could leave a member away from the office for an hour and a half to two hours. Virtual events have streamlined that process, allowing them to engage while also being available to answer a call or email or to respond to a client. These are things that should be included in our planning when it is possible for our events to be primarily in-person again.

Is your networking programming segmented?

Other than your Leadership or Young Professionals programming, do you have segmented events? Or do you simply have one AfterHours and assume it will fit the needs and desires of everyone in your membership.

If you aren’t presenting segmented programming, you are missing opportunities, both to engage your members, to attract a broader range of sponsors, and to charge for some events (we are seeing people willing to pay for viable content). As we have seen with more members engaging in virtual events, we are also seeing that they are specific about what content they engage with on a consistent basis.

Now, while it’s so easy to set up Zoom networking events, begin to think about how you can segment your offerings to best reach the greatest number of your members. Now is the time to experiment and see what works. Look at your membership and see how you could divide it into various networking events, provide those events, and watch who attends. Continue to carve away and hone the events until you are seeing growth in them – growth that mirrors your mission for the program and your goals.

Have you considered:

  • A book club
  • Entrepreneur groups
  • Sweat work groups

Remember that if you hold an event and the outcome doesn’t mirror your objectives, you need to look at the program and see what might have caused the disconnect. Was there a breaking news event in town that affected the group you were targeting? Try again next month and see if your engagement changes. Did people simply not attend? Did they begin the virtual event and then log out early? Reach out to a few members and ask why. Your members are constantly refining their business practices. They will appreciate that you are doing the same.

How Do I Get Rid of AfterHours

This is one of the questions we hear most. AfterHours is a traditional sacred cow of the chamber world. The best way to let AfterHours go is to create other networking opportunities that benefit both your members and the chamber more.

Cash Mobs are a great example of an event that provides both networking and a chance to support local businesses.

A little strategic thinking can help you navigate this process. Putting in the effort in the planning stages and watching how your members respond will allow you to create networking programs that are vibrant, engaging, and well-attended.

When you have programs like that, you will be able to monetize the events – get sponsorships and charge a fee for some of the events. There is no limit to what is possible.

Get ready, get set, go strategic think.

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It Starts with the Thinking
January 22 2021 admin Blog, Chambers, TRC, YGM 0 comments

It doesn’t take long in the chamber world to realize that strategic planning, board retreats, and annual programs of work are mainstays of chamber life.

For some, this is an organizational thrill ride equal to the best roller coaster, but with charts and highlighters. For others, the mere thought of this induces a queasy feeling in the pit of their stomachs.

Whether you are in the first or the second group, planning can be easier, better, and more productive. Does that type of planning require a different type of thinking? Certainly. Will it be worth it? Again, certainly.

Strategic Thinking

Strategic planning and strategic thinking are not the same things. Having the same meetings year after year and carrying over the same plans with minor tweaks is often ineffective for a chamber and frustrating for chamber staff.

Strategic thinking initiates the planning.

This kind of thinking requires that chamber staff look at their program of work from a different perspective, from a perspective that views all of the programs and initiatives working together, interlocking. So often, chamber work is divided into silos, and the work is never viewed as interweaving. But the more we see chamber programming as a tapestry in which all of the elements are woven together to make the whole greater, the stronger the organization will become.

Strategic thinking requires that staff members look for ways in which their individual areas:

  • Already work with other areas within the chamber
  • Could begin to work together on new projects
  • Could begin to work together in new ways on current projects

Learning to think strategically and to see the chamber program of work as a cohesive tapestry will allow staff to delve into all of the possibilities available to them. Seeing options that weren’t readily discernable previously will soon become second nature.

Leadership Programs · Young Professionals (YPs) · Non-profits

Most chambers have Leadership and Young Professional Programs, and all have non-profit members. Have you ever considered how these three threads in your tapestry could be woven together better?

For each group, do you have a clear understanding of the end result you hope to accomplish, both for those within the group and for the chamber? If not, start there.

Your Leadership Program probably has a goal similar to ‘producing quality leaders in the community,’ while your Young Professionals Program likely has a goal of ‘strengthening the professional foundations of aspiring leaders.’ With regard to your non-profits, if truth be told, many chambers are at a loss as to how to best support them.

Consider this…

  • Non-profits, in general, are looking for quality individuals to serve on their boards.
  • Individuals involved in your Young Professionals groups are looking for ways to increase their business development, to better understand the community at large, and to find leadership information.
  • Individuals in your Leadership Program are ready for more responsibility in your chamber and community.

How can you take this knowledge and use it for the betterment of your chamber? By seeing it as how they work together and not as single pieces of information.

  • Give your non-profits an opportunity to host a session for your YPs to provide information about what they do and what leadership opportunities are available. Or host a non-profit expo and allow those members to set up booths and have reps available to provide that same information.
  • Do you have YPs who never miss a professional development session? They are telling you with their actions that they are ready for something more. Groom them for your Leadership Program.
  • Have a session in your Leadership Program dedicated to the role and responsibility of serving on a board of directors. Then close the circle by helping this group connect with non-profits who need board members.

Initiative-driven Programs

When considering initiative-driven programs, some chambers become paralyzed by not being able to visualize how a program would sustain itself through the years. The truth is, not all of them do.

Chambers that have public policy programs are in a position to already be a little better at envisioning programs that may only last one year because they are accustomed to looking at the legislative session as encapsulated opportunities for programming. Take a cue from them. Accept that it’s more than fine – it’s great! – to do one-off programs.

Some of these programs are driven by current community or world events, for example. Chambers who were already comfortable with this concept had an easier time conceiving and executing COVID-19 programming for their members and communities. Those initial sessions giving advice and guidance on how to handle the pandemic won’t be needed again (we are feeling positive today!), and those sessions won’t be added to the annual program of work. But they were vital at that moment.

Your strategic plan will never come together as the working document you need if you don’t spend time thinking strategically first. You and your chamber have countless resources at your disposal. Spend some time thinking about how your program of work weaves together to form the tapestry you want to reveal to your community.

Get ready. Get set. Go strategically think.

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What We Learned from the Unexpected
December 14 2020 admin Uncategorized 0 comments

As we look to the new year (with great relief to let 2020 go and great hope for 2021), we know that we cannot fully prepare for the new without pausing to take stock of the old.

Without a doubt, 2020 was the Year of the Unexpected. I doubt any of us will talk in the future of how a speaker arriving late to a luncheon because of travel disruptions was ‘unexpected’ or ‘the worst.’ Because we know for certain now that, while those types of things are certainly challenging in the moment, they are things we can quickly overcome.

And we also know that we and our staffs and our communities can overcome so much more. In honor of that, I would encourage each of you to take a moment to think about how overwhelmed you were at points throughout this year. And now think about how you are here today. You made it through it all. Likely not unscathed, but through.

We’re in it together.

It was a team effort. I can say that with all certainty, even not knowing each of you personally. Because one of the things 2020 taught us was that we need community. Even those of us who identify as introverts, loners. We all need community. We need people to work with us and support us, to bounce ideas off of and to collaborate with us. We need to feel like we are in it together, whether ‘it’ is a project at work or just life itself.

I would encourage you, if you are the captain of your team’s ship, to carve out a few moments in the coming days to send notes – handwritten or email – to those who work with you and to let them know how much you appreciate their hard work in 2020. Tell them specifically how their presence in the chaos made a difference.

People are motivated and encouraged by hearing that they and their actions matter.

Benefits matter.

As we have worked with businesses through the year discussing the move of programs and events from in-person to virtual environments, we have found that sponsoring businesses have been accommodating, by-and-large.

Though initially, concerns were about meeting in-person, we discovered through honest dialogue that those weren’t their real concerns. The true issues they were concerned with were getting their messaging to their target markets. And if you have built out the benefits offered with your sponsorships properly, those benefits translate to both in-person and virtual environments.

It is our hope that chamber professionals will carry this lesson with them into 2021 and years to come. Member businesses – sponsoring businesses – want options that allow them to reach their target markets while also telling the story of their business. Make sure your benefits are structured so your businesses are able to do those two things. If you have done that, you don’t need to be concerned with whether or not your events are in-person or are in a virtual environment.

Change is good.

How often do we as chamber professionals brush off a new idea because ‘that’s not the way we do it?’ Or insist upon keeping an event that uses more staff hours than it has value for simply because ‘we’ve always done it that way?’

This year has forced chambers everywhere to take a hard look at their programs and initiatives and determine what really was necessary, what served the mission, and what was simply a sacred cow, even if no one could quite articulate why. With finances tight and communities struggling, this was a good year to let some of those sacred cows move on to pasture. With that extra time and energy, it’s an opportunity to try new things.

Failure is an option.

Do you remember at the beginning of 2020 when we were all starting to use online meeting platforms? The internet would crash, or someone’s significant other would walk through, or you would hear a pet or a child in the background, and everyone would be horrified? And now, everyone asks to see the pet or child, and we now know everyone’s roommates and spouses. If someone’s internet crashes, we casually wait, knowing they will be back in a moment.

We have learned that we try things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t, and it isn’t a big deal. And in that knowledge, we have gained a freedom we didn’t have before. If we embrace that freedom with boldness, we will see that we can take chances with the programs and initiatives that we would like to implement in the coming months in our chambers. We can try something, knowing that even if it isn’t a traditional success, we can still learn from it and put that knowledge into the next new project. And the next. Because it is better to be consistently moving forward (even with the occasional misstep) than to be mired in perpetual sameness.

Collective and individual.

While these lessons apply to most of us, there are individual lessons that we can each only assess for ourselves. We encourage you to take a few moments and think about the year. What did you learn about how you and your chamber handle adversity? Who on your staff is your encourager? Who kept everyone on track, even when you were in separate locations?

What did you discover about your chamber and the way your members interact? What one program are you most proud of this year? What sacred cow are you looking to let go in the coming year?

May we all be more mindful in the coming year of how we can be in community and support one another.

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Approach this holiday season with new perspective
December 02 2020 admin Uncategorized 0 comments

Did you put your Christmas decorations up the day after Halloween? It seems like a lot of people are ignoring their usual holiday traditions this year and jumping into Christmas because that season just tends to lend itself to joy. And if 2020 is in need of anything, it is joy.

As we work with clients looking toward the holiday season, we are looking for ways for chambers to help their communities, to help small businesses especially in this time when sales and profits are usually high.

While many communities have ordinances in place that make in-person gatherings like holiday mixers or parades impossible in their traditional formats, even those aren’t without possibility given a little creativity and innovation. And 2020 has proven true the old adage about necessity being the mother of invention.

Support Small Businesses

Develop your community’s version of a #ShopLocal campaign. There are lots of available options from which to model your version if you need inspiration. (Just Google #ShopLocal and scan through the campaigns already being done. Keep in mind your community size and what would work best.)

Your campaign should ideally include:

  • The ability for residents to purchase gift cards online (both for safety and convenience)
  • Some incentive for member businesses to participate
  • Sponsorships for the chamber

Be sure you are really considering how this will impact your businesses and how you can make this beneficial for all parties. If you have questions, please contact us (info@nullygmtrc.com) and we will be happy to walk you through options that would best suit your chamber and community.

Christmas Parades

Much of what will be done by your chamber in this next month will be done in the effort to build your community up, to foster a sense of goodwill amongst the people around you. Because this year has been difficult, people are looking forward to this time to give them a feeling of hope, of community, in its truest meaning.

And that’s challenging when we may not be able to safely gather in community. If your chamber doesn’t usually sponsor a Christmas parade, maybe now is the time to consider one of these options just for the ways in which they can provide people with a boost of positive energy.

If you do usually sponsor the annual Christmas Parade but know it’s impossible to gather a crowd of that size right now, don’t despair. You have options.

  • Do you have a video of last year’s parade? Would the businesses who were involved in the parade be willing to pay sponsorship dollars to help bring the video to a virtual format for this year? Play it on an accessible format and promote both it and your sponsors. Have local businesses offer Parade Discounts for take out or delivery dinners and snacks. Promote it on social media. Ask families to share their favorite memories of parades through the years. Have them share favorite photos from past parades. Not only will you generate excitement for the 2020 Parade, but you’ll build a bank of photos for your archives.
  • Offer your members the opportunity to dress up and perform sketches for a Parade of Businesses. Have them video themselves and submit them (for a fee, of course). Compile the video and distribute it on social media and your website.
  • Consider a contest. Invite local businesses to create a float just as they might for an in-person parade. Each entry needs a float, elves or other holiday characters in costume, and a dance routine. Videos should be 30 to 45 seconds. Let your community vote on the best videos. Be sure to get sponsorships along with entry fees.

Make Old Traditions New

When you were a child, did your parents put you and your siblings in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights? A little seasonal music on the radio… candy canes or a hot chocolate in a thermos? Did you do the same with your children?

This year, as we’re being advised to stay with our ‘Covid pod,’ consider how you can give that old holiday stand-by a makeover.

  • Can you create a Trail of Lights? Let businesses pay to have their location and light display included on your Trail of Lights. Produce an online listing of where the best lights are available. Let businesses give short stories or links to their lights or businesses.
  • Do a ‘Best Of’ and let the community vote. Set a specified time period and allow the community to vote for the business that has the best lights display.

There are so many ways you could spend this next month celebrating the holidays with your community. Start from the basics… what could you do to bring that feeling of Christmas cheer, of holiday happiness, to your community? And go from there.

If we can help you brainstorm ideas, please get in touch with us (info@nullygmtrc.com).

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Is it 2021 yet? Tips for getting the next year in order
October 26 2020 admin Uncategorized 0 comments

This year has brought uncertainty and discomfort to communities and individuals on a mass scale, to which few of us have seen firsthand in our lifetimes. It left everyone scrambling to determine how to continue onward in different ways, to find ways to make 2020 productive, bearable.

And now, we are all looking to 2021 to decide how to grasp hold of its potential now. We know there are lots of things we just can’t plan yet because there are still lots of things we just don’t know now.

But instead of approaching the new year either with a sense of unease and trepidation or with the same plan as usual, we encourage you to approach 2021 with a different model.

Covid-19, for all of its devastation, has allowed us the opportunity to get out of the everyday rut we’ve been in and shown us possibilities to change in places where we thought change wasn’t possible. Our programming and initiatives may not be as inflexible as we had previously thought. We now have, to some degree, a blank slate in terms of our 2021 calendars.

We are suggesting to clients – and to you – to print out two blank calendars for 2021 with just the months. BLANK calendars.

On the first one, write in all of the events and initiatives you usually schedule in each month. Take a good look at each of the items you wrote down. You’re going to do some critical evaluations of your calendar in light of the unsettled nature of 2021.

Those items scheduled for the first quarter may not be able to be held in person. We are all hopeful things will settle into a new normal by mid-year, but we know the first few months may still include restricted movement for some.  

Even though your by-laws require you to have an annual meeting, they do not require the dinner that accompanies it. Can your meeting portion be done via Zoom or another platform? Can you handle the required portion at the usual time while postponing the dinner and fun portions until later in the year when you can gather together?

Or could you do the entire thing virtually but from a new perspective? Have the meeting and some fun networking things as well. Depending on how you market the event, you can still sell tickets and sponsorships.

  • You can offer 30 minute networking opportunities with a speaker or select member prior to the event.
  • You can hand deliver event boxes to ticket holders prior to the event with small bottles of wine or champagne, gift cards to a local restaurant to cover the meal that normally would have been served, along with give aways from sponsors.
  • You can have a webpage set up for your live auction and allow online bidding until a certain time and announce the winners during the event.

The possibilities are endless. It’s up to you to determine how you want to approach the options. We encourage you, however, to refrain from calling an event held online a ‘virtual’ event. For instance, don’t call it your ‘virtual annual meeting.’ You would never have called it the ‘hotel annual meeting.’ The hotel was merely the location of the event. The same is true if you have the meeting virtually. We would suggest you merely call it your 2021 Annual Meeting. Location: Virtual.

You should not be charging people to attend an event because of the location or the meal. You should be charging based upon the content, for the access to the people in the room, even if that room looks a lot like a Zoom gallery. 

Before you move an event, we urge you to take some time to look at each item under the following four lenses.

  1. Income Gain/Loss – Is it financially profitable to move?
  2. Participation – Is your target market going to attend?
  3. Staff Time – How focused can staff be?
  4. Value to Members – Should you be more focused on more important initiatives?

Consider especially whether it would be better to move to virtual or to move to later in the year. In looking at this option, consider especially staff time. You don’t want to expend staff time early in the year to only have to postpone and then have staff have to do that work again later in the year.

After reviewing these questions for your events and initiatives, you should be able to take that second blank calendar and build your 2021 calendar with a more accurate reflection of what a productive 2021 might look like for your chamber, both in terms of being a strong supporter of your members and in terms of building your own internal foundation.

While the word for 2020 was surely ‘unexpected,’ here at YGM we are claiming the word ‘wiggle’ for 2021. We’re aware that there will need to be some flexibility in order to greet the year with hope and in order to continue through the year with promise. Join us as we plan to wiggle through 2021.

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60 Sponsorship Ideas in 60 Minutes
August 06 2020 admin Uncategorized 0 comments

YGM recently sponsored one of our favorite workshops – ACCE’s 60 Sponsorship Ideas in 60 Minutes. This is our fourth year to sponsor this workshop, though this was the first time the workshop was conducted entirely online. We were delighted with how well the workshop went and with the interaction with the participants.

If you missed the workshop, here are some of the ideas suggested.

  1. Institute a webinar series. Sell sponsorships of the series.
  2. Move your networking events from in-person to virtual via Remo.
  3. Send an email per day with chamber and local news. Sell a sponsorship for that email.
  4. Sell sponsorships of Zoom backgrounds with sponsor’s logo on the background.
  5. Maker’s Mark Spirit Sponsorship – Attendees paid $35 for a signature cocktail with a specially dipped bottle
  6. Boxed lunch sponsorship – For the Military Appreciation Luncheon, the event was pushed to a virtual platform for the awards portion, and a sponsor was found to provide a boxed lunch, which were delivered to soldiers on a local Army base.
  7. Chamber Trivia – host virtual trivia nights and get sponsorships
  8. When you transfer meetings and such to a virtual format, consider having a virtual swag bag. Instead of pens, give tips. Create a virtual, secret website on which you give warm leads.
  9. Sell series sponsorships
  10.  Life Fair (job fair) which is a talent portal and allows sponsors to spotlight jobs within their businesses.
  11. Online trivia nights can feature sponsors throughout – blur sponsor logos or remove portions of the logo… whichever participant guesses the logo receives a prize from the sponsor business
  12. Podcasts are excellent sponsorship opportunities and provides sponsor recognition through deep-dive conversations.
  13. Annual meetings – Everyone has to have one. This chamber’s was themed each year. The chamber planned a theme and delivered theme boxes, including the kind of swag that would normally be on the tables, along with a bottle of wine and a gift card for dinner. It made it so that while people watched the awards portion online, they were also able to simulate the experience of the dinner portion at home.
  14. Question of the Day – On social media, allow each sponsor to answer a question regarding their business and how it is involved in the community or how they impact the community.
  15. Blog posts – There is a need for current information right now. Get sponsors for blog posts such as what businesses should do if they have an employee test positive for Covid-19.
  16. Do you have a Community Improvement Awards Luncheon? This chamber is doing them as a publication this year.
  17. Support local employees who might be out of work. Sponsors pay to be in a video, holding one word of a supporting message.
  18. Pay it forward. Establish a program in which your larger, more established businesses can “sponsor” your smaller businesses’ membership dues.
  19. Recovery kits – This chamber had posters with helpful information printed. The kits included the posters, sanitizers and other useful information. Sponsorships made it possible to distribute to both members and non-members alike. The chamber gained new memberships as a result.
  20. Seniors on the Silos – This chamber has multiple silos in town. To honor the high school seniors, the chamber got sponsors and projected the photos of the seniors onto the silos each evening for a certain number of days.
  21. So many chambers have a Taste Of. This chamber continued on with their’s despite the issues Covid presented. They changed it to a drive-thru event, giving the samples in take away packaging.
  22. Chamber Night Out at the Movies – Sponsors have video promo spots prior to the movie.
  23. Race Bridge – This chamber’s YP group hosted conversations focusing on race relations via zoom.
  24. Trade Show – Rather than moving their trade show to a virtual platform, this chamber created a publication similar to a “Who’s Who” and included a check-in challenge encouraging people to visit each business in person.
  25. Book Club – This chamber started a book club focusing on diversity, inclusion, and equity. Businesses can showcase what they are doing toward these things. A branded swag bag was created to go with the book giveaway.
  26. Game Changers – The chamber President interviewed local leaders who have innovative ideas. The sponsor was able to present the opening remarks.
  27. Coffee and Connections – Hosted on a virtual platform that allowed participants to move to different rooms. Each room had a sponsor who was a coffee shop and the sponsors were able to chat with participants directly.
  28. Keep it Local Directory – Magazine which featured a multi-cultural section that was sponsored.
  29. Member Minutes on Facebook – Sponsors were able to be visible and linked on Facebook
  30. VIP Meet & Greet for webinars – Sponsor the 15 or 30 minutes prior to a webinar and allow the sponsors to host the networking time prior to a webinar. Sell the breakout rooms
  31. Virtual Chamber Auction – Members provide donations for the Chamber to auction.
  32. Steam-a-thon – In a telethon format, Chamber and COVID information shared throughout the day with sponsors having promo spots.

Our congratulations to the winners of the best ideas:
* Honorable Mention: Nate Phillips at Grand Rapids Chamber
* Third Place: Colleen Schipsi of the Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce
* Second Place: Randall Chase, IOM, of the Cedar Hill Chamber of Commerce
* First Place: Andrea Cole of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce

If you would like to watch the video of the workshop, you may find it here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7J7_3ZM5TY&feature=youtu.be

We encourage you to take these ideas and take them for yourself. Modify the ones you like to fit your chamber and your community.

And make notes of what you think are your chamber’s best sponsorship ideas. Make plans to present those at next year’s workshop at the annual ACCE conference – hopefully in person!

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Improve Your TRC Communications
July 01 2020 admin Blog, Chambers, TRC, YGM 0 comments Tags: communications, sponsorships, total resource campaign, TRC

Are you planning your fall Total Resource Campaign (TRC) now? One of the first things on your timeline is most assuredly to promote it to your members and community.

In the YGM TRC world, you know that all communications and promotions should be centered around your members. If the focus is put on how involvement in the TRC through sponsorships benefits the members and their businesses, that communication will be more successful than if it is focused on how the TRC helps the chamber.

Now, we know TRCs help chambers. They give you a deep dive into strategic planning. They give you funds for your budget for an entire year. They bring in new volunteers and new members.

But Total Resource Campaigns – if done well – are also really beneficial to your members because they allow them avenues of contact with their target audiences that they might not have otherwise had. Let your pre-TRC marketing reflect that.

How do you do that?

  • Don’t simply announce in your newsletter/e-news that your TRC starts on whatever date. That’s boring and not informative.
  • Tell the story of your TRC by telling the story of your members. And let them tell their own stories, either in print or video.
  • Ask successful volunteers for the names of businesses they worked with that saw significant growth as a result of their sponsorships. Ask that volunteer to do a 60 second video interview with the business owner about how the sponsorship helped them reach their target market.
  • Include information in your communications pieces regarding the different sectors that were reached in your last TRC and how your sponsorships helped your member businesses reach those sectors.

Above all, you cannot overemphasize in your communications leading up to the campaign that the TRC is about finding ways to best assist member businesses in furthering their unique missions. Find new and different ways to say that. Even if you grow tired of saying it, your members won’t grow tired of hearing it. Because for them, the chamber should always be about how you can be of service to them.

Do your communications pieces communicate the right messages? If not, now is the right time to discover that and make any changes necessary.

If you need any help with a communications review, let us know. We are here to help you.

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Tend to your sponsorship garden
May 15 2020 admin Blog, Sponsor development, TRC, YGM 0 comments

Spring is beginning, and I love to see the flowers beginning to bloom. This spring has been anything but usual, but we have seen people out tending to their gardens. In fact, we have seen a few more flowers and gardens popping up around the neighborhood. I think people are finding the calming effect of being in nature.

When you look around your neighborhood, is there one house with a perfect lawn or beautiful stoop? If that beautiful display is at your home, then you know it doesn’t happen by accident. The true beauty of a garden happens thanks to the dedicated hand of a gifted gardener.

In many ways, maintaining your Chamber’s sponsorship list is like maintaining a garden.

Those gardeners who enjoy their beautiful garden in the spring and summer and then leave it dormant through the fall and winter have a very difficult time preparing the garden again the next spring. It is extra work, and through the years, the garden may not continue to rebound with the same beauty as the year prior.

But those who tend to their gardens through the year, a little at a time, discover that their gardens blossom greater and greater each year.

In order to properly tend your sponsorships as a garden, you will need to work on them throughout the year, not just during your Total Resource Campaign. If you are just considering a Total Resource Campaign now because of what is going on with this pandemic, consider that if your chamber had conducted a TRC in 2019, all of your funding for 2020 would already have been secured.

In a ‘normal’ year, as chambers hold events throughout the year, staff should review them in light of their future sponsorships.

  • Did you value the sponsorship appropriately in this year’s sponsorship campaign?
  • Is your marketing and promotion of the sponsorship appropriate?
  • Are there any additional sponsorships that you could launch in the future?
  • Have you discovered that, thanks to the marketing and promotions of the event, the sponsorship should be valued higher (or lower) in the future?
  • Have you discovered additional layers to the sponsorship?
  • Are additional benefits available which would increase the sponsorship value?

Considering these questions throughout the year rather than just at the beginning of your TRC allows your sponsorships to be stronger and more appealing to sponsors.

If you have a fall TRC, be using these questions to conduct your strategic planning for your campaign. Think about what areas of your membership haven’t been reached well in the past and need to be approached, what volunteers performed really well in past TRCs, what sponsorships seemed to appeal to your members the most, and how you can take this information and use it to make this your best TRC yet.

Right now, so many chambers are (and have been) in the process of reviewing their remaining 2020 events to determine which ones can be modified to move to a virtual environment and which ones need to be rescheduled to 2021. Be sure to look at your calendars, what sponsorship benefits can still be provided, and to involve the sponsors. Continued communication with your sponsors will ensure that they feel valued and that their interests and needs are being met.

As we all move through this current moment in time, continual review of your sponsorships will allow you to prune the excess, to see areas that can be improved, and to find places where growth is possible in your TRC sponsorships.

Use this as an opportunity to take another look at your sponsorship list, even if you aren’t currently in a TRC – maybe especially if you aren’t currently in a campaign. Even if you aren’t making alterations to a sponsor’s event or initiative, consider just touching base with that business owner, letting them know you are there for them.

Tend to your campaign as a good gardener, and you will be rewarded with a blossoming garden of sponsorships when your next TRC arrives. As always, if we can be of any assistance or offer any guidance, please feel free to reach out to us.

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What Is So Great About a TRC?
April 28 2020 admin Blog, TRC, Uncategorized 0 comments

As you can imagine, I could talk about Total Resource Campaigns (TRCs) until ‘the cows come home,’ as the old adage goes. I could tell you about how TRCs focus on sponsorships, are led by volunteers from the business community, and invite businesses from across your community – both large and small – to participate in greater depth in the life of your chamber.

But today, in the midst of all that is happening around us, there is one benefit of a TRC that is so powerful that it cannot be overlooked.

If a chamber held a TRC in 2019 for 2020, that chamber’s entire budget for 2020 would already be funded. Money would already be in hand for all of 2020.

Think about that for just a moment.

If a chamber held a TRC in 2019 for 2020, that chamber’s entire budget for 2020 would already be funded. Money would already be in hand for all of 2020.

That chamber’s staff would certainly be looking at working from home, virtual staff meetings, and conducting board meetings via Zoom or other virtual meeting platforms. They would absolutely be reviewing their calendar to see what initiatives and events should be postponed and which should be pivoted to a virtual environment.

But they would not be frantically trying to determine how they would fund their budget for the remainder of the year in addition to doing those other things.

Total Resource Campaigns serve as strategic planning on a deeper level than what many chambers have done before. That planning allows chambers to have a greater knowledge of their members and community and a renewed sense of their mission. With that, they are better able to make sure their initiatives and events follow their mission.

Through that strategic planning process, chambers offer sponsorships in the TRC that meet the marketing needs of their members and of the businesses in their community. When chambers do that, businesses response enthusiastically. And successful TRCs allow chambers to fund their next year’s budget.

With those fully funded budgets, chambers have the freedom to focus on assisting their members, especially in challenging times like these.

Those chambers who have done TRCs in the past know the financial freedom a TRC can offer. If you are interested in information about how you, too, can conduct a TRC and experience that for your chamber, please contact us at: info@nullygmtrc.com.

And yes, it is still possible to conduct a TRC this year, despite the uncertainty around us. We have a plan for a full virtual TRC, and we will be there to walk you through the process if conditions require that.

The TRC is built in such a way that volunteers talk to their business contacts in whatever manner they feel comfortable. Often, they are already dealing with those contacts virtually anyway – via email or text – regardless of the outside circumstances. Moving those volunteers and the campaign to an entirely virtual environment will be more of an effort for the chamber staff than for the volunteers or sponsors. It can be done and done well with a little extra effort on your staff’s part.

And those who have done a TRC in the past know it is well worth the effort. Consider this comment from Amy Britt in Seminole, Okla.

“Doing our TRC in October of last year for 2020 saved us from having to try to ask for donations or cancel events due to lack of funds. TRCs are the best thing we’ve ever done to ensure funding for our next year.”

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