Your Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce has the vital role in the business community of being an advocate and leader for business interests in the Tucson metropolitan region. It is perhaps the most behind-the-scenes, yet most important role your Chamber plays in Tucson - fighting for the success of our business community in a vibrant and diverse economy.We fight for business in so many ways - from keeping government an arm's length away, to keeping taxes low, to providing a skilled and stable workforce, to opening up opportunities in foreign markets, to helping your business run more efficiently and reduce costs of operation. Your Chamber fights many battles on many fronts on your behalf. Following is a sampling of what we do to help you succeed.
Governmental Affairs
Your Governmental Affairs staff advocates on behalf of the business community to ensure economic prosperity for business. State Government, Local Government, Environment and Transportation, Healthcare and Candidate Evaluation committees serve to direct the efforts of the Governmental Affairs staff. We work with committee members to address federal, state and local issues that affect business and the community.
Your Governmental Affairs staff confers with committee members, researchers and elected officials to develop the Chamber’s annual legislative agenda. The legislative agenda details our policies on specific issues and outlines our legislative priorities and advocacy efforts for the upcoming legislative sessions.
Your Governmental Affairs staff also advocates on behalf of Chamber members. We developed a non-partisan resource for information on government, elections, legislative issues, and voter resources where members are able to educate themselves and voice their opinions on issues that are critical to business and the community. Advance Tucson is a Web site designed to provide the information and tools necessary to cast informed votes, track voting records of elected officials and directly contact elected officials to express opinions on critical issues.
Education/Workforce Development
Your Chamber’s Business Development division strives to help members stay in business and grow their successes. Using the output of the Building Bridges to Business (B3) interviews, your Chamber has kept its fingers on the pulse of companies in the metropolitan area. The two major findings from these interviews are: 1) businesses are having difficulty in locating “qualified” employees, and 2) businesses are having problems with the City of Tucson and Pima County development services departments.
Providing “qualified” employees for businesses is a broader issue that impacts more than 80 percent of the companies with which your Chamber interfaces. The demand for unskilled workers has shrunk over the last 20 years from more than 40 percent of total job openings to less than 20 percent in just the last 18 months. Your Chamber has actively pursued this issue on several fronts.
Encouraging high school students to succeed: Keeping students motivated drives one of the sub-committees of the Business Education Partnership Committee. The Speakers Bureau sub-committee provides speakers to local middle and high schools who offer insightful presentations on more than a dozen subjects, from goal-setting to writing good resumes to balancing a checkbook. These experts from industry bring the real world into the classroom, enticing students to look into their own futures and begin to plan for their careers. You may request a speaker here.
In order to help students get started on their post-high-school education, the annual State of Education Luncheon brings funds into your Chamber’s Tucson Center for Career Enrichment (TCCE) endowment fund that funds at least six student scholarships. In existence since 2003, your Chamber’s scholarship program has awarded 42 scholarships and almost $50,000 to students who agree to go to school here in the metropolitan area.
Your Chamber has also worked closely with the newly formed “Tucson Values Teachers” (TVT) initiative (an outcome of the K-12 focus from the 2007 Tucson Town Hall). As a commitment to that effort, your Chamber has promised to find funders for two teacher scholarships to complement the student scholarships. These new scholarships will be used by teachers to acquire higher certifications and to business people who are leaving their previous careers and plan to enter the teaching profession. The Institute for Better Education (IBE) has asked your Chamber to use its normal scholarship selection processes to award scholarships to two private-school students and two private-school teachers each year. The funding for these four scholarships will come from IBE, but will be awarded through your Chamber’s TCCE.
Finally, your Chamber serves on the Joint Technologies Educational District (JTED) Advisory Board which is a committee that provides business and industry input to the area-wide initiative. By working with the teachers and administrators who provide instruction in subjects like construction, automotive services, healthcare, business management, administration services and hospitality, this group of business people can assure industry-specific relevancy to companies who one day may hire a graduate of JTED.
Helping existing employees retool: The Town Hall Initiative, which began in the spring of 2007 spawned more than 12 areas of focus for our community. Two of those areas, workforce and adult literacy, complement your Chamber’s mission and are therefore initiatives in which your Business Development division has become very active. Helping adults become more productive and viable for new and/or better jobs widens the prospective employee pool for the community’s businesses. By partnering with “Literacy for Life Coalition” (LLC), a consortium of non-profit organizations focused on improving literacy at all levels, your Chamber has been a key driver in the efforts to not only increase community awareness of the problems of illiteracy, but to find ways to assist these organizations to be successful. It is estimated that 47 percent of Southern Arizonans cannot read or write at “grade” level (the level of literacy that is expected of high-school graduates). By helping this important piece of the employee pool to become literate, the LLC will not just help potential employers today find skilled personnel, but will provide role models for the children of the newly literate adults, helping to convince the upcoming employees to stay in school and to pursue important secondary education or training. Your Chamber has also volunteered to play a role in the efforts to improve the entire workforce. Working with the Workforce Investment Board (WIB) as well as the County One Stop (a subsidiary of the WIB), the Business Development division of your Chamber plans to begin similar efforts to raise awareness and address roadblocks to success. These efforts will begin during the spring of 2009.
International Trade
The next frontier for many businesses in our community will be expanding business to other countries, through both export and import opportunities. Your Chamber is a partner in Global Advantage, an organization in Southern Arizona focused on making Tucson a globally recognized city. Each partner of this organization has a specific role, from advocacy to education to matchmaking in foreign countries. Your Chamber’s function is one of introduction and education.
Trade paths: In order to help our members and other businesses in the community become familiar with the world of international trade, your Business Development division will begin holding monthly seminars at the Chamber that offer insight into subjects such as developing an export strategy, developing an international business plan, international legal considerations and international taxation and tariff considerations. After business people have attended all of the seminars, they will be in excellent position to make the important decision to put off international trade for the moment or “Go Global” now. Your Chamber’s partners in Global Advantage are prepped to take those businesses to the next steps once that decision has been made.
Trade missions: Currently, your Chamber has offered members economical trips to China and Hong Kong annually that serve to introduce the travelers to the regions and to allow them to see firsthand the types of commerce available. Your Chamber is investigating several other trade locations around the world that might interest our members. If similar junkets can be located and arranged, these new locations will be made available in 2009 or 2010. .
Development Services
The latter of the two issues from the aforementioned B3 interviews is an area in which your Chamber has been a key player for more than two years. The City of Tucson and Pima County stakeholders meetings have been facilitated by your Chamber’s Governmental Affairs division and substantial progress has been made to not only streamline, but simplify processes. Most prevalent is seeing the overall approval process being shaved from an 18-month effort to as few as 4-6 months, saving developers and the city thousands, if not millions of dollars up front.
Events
Events are important aspects of a member’s investment, and your Chamber works hard to develop fun, interesting and productive events for businesses. Events such as the State of the State, State of the City, Man and Woman of the Year, State of Education, and UA Wildcat luncheons allow members to hear first-hand from our government officials, community leaders, and show support for the University of Arizona Athletics Department. It’s much different than reading it in the paper or watching it on the 10 p.m. news.
Networking opportunities: We provide many opportunities for members to grow their business via networking throughout the year. It’s a process where a member can maintain their contacts and make many new ones in one spot in a short amount of time. Time is valuable and driving around town or playing phone tag for an entire day can be frustrating. Besides being enjoyable, your Chamber’s networking programs are effective and efficient for all attendees.
Sponsorship opportunities: Sponsorships give a Chamber member the ability to advertise its presence in the community and show its support of Chamber programs. Several sponsorship packages are available to serve all types and sizes of businesses. Packages range from $200 for a golf tee sign at the annual golf tournament to $10,000 for the title sponsorship of our prestigious Man and Woman of the Year/Founders Award Luncheon. There is a sponsorship opportunity for every member to take advantage of throughout the year. All Chamber members are eligible to sponsor any event. Make sure to include sponsorships in your marketing plan each year as it is a win-win situation for the sponsor and your Chamber. If you'd like to advertise, fill out this form and we'll work to make a package that fits your budget.
Web site/Chamber News
We just updated and upgraded our Web site, www.tucsonchamber.org, to make it more user-friendly and to make your Chamber more accessible. Information that you need to maximize your Chamber investment and help your bottom line can be found here, as well as information about how the Chamber benefits you and your business.
Chamber News is your Chamber's monthly newsletter, available on the site or sent by e-mail (upon request). it has information about your Chamber's activities, promotes upcoming Chamber events, highlights some of our membership and gives you business stories you may not find in the local media but may have an impact on your industry in general or your business in particular. Receiving this will keep you up on the business community and your Chamber and give you insight into how to maximize your investment. Information is power, and you can get the power to control the success of your business by getting involved with the newsletter and your Web site.
Member Services
Your Member Services staff works diligently to help members (and prospective members) understand the benefits and visibility of being a Chamber member. These are vital points in enhancing your business' bottom line.
One of the ways to ensure success in business is to keep costs low - costs of running your business. Your Member Services staff is constantly working to provide opportunities through our Bottom Line Benefits and Member-to-Member Discount programs to help your business run better with less out-of-pocket cost. Your business can get special pricing when buying goods and services from other members and save money on everyday expenses as well - including common office supplies.
The staff also works hard to provide a variety of opportunities to give your business more visibility through advertising and sponsorships and through your online membership directory. There are also added opportunities in your e-mail newsletter and your Web site. For more information about how we help your business as a Chamber member, visit the Membership section of your Web site.
