We continue the mini-series of A Case for Becoming an Active Chamber Member: Advocacy
6. Advocacy
A foolish belief among large companies, especially national retail outlets, is that they’re too big or not local enough to care about getting involved or joining their local chamber of commerce. A few things they should think about: Are their employees and customers local? Are taxes and school systems important to finding and retaining a high quality work force? These are key areas that the chamber researches, lobbies and routinely discusses with local and regional government units, politicians and the media to keep people up to date on central issues of importance pertaining to their membership and the community.
What happens to your local employees and customers does have an impact on your business, even if you’re a national chain. In addition, missing out on networking, sponsorship and other business building news and benefits, I think it looks incredibly tacky if four or five local businesses are active in the chamber and a national firm in the same market area won’t even join. In my mind, this sends an incongruent message to the market when the national company claims to be ‘a good corporate citizen’ but they won’t join and get involved with their local chamber of commerce.
Used with permission from “7 reasons every business & non-profit organization should be a member of their local chamber of commerce in a challenging economy.” by Tony Rubleski