We lost a member last week.

It’s not atypical, as chambers of commerce will lose anywhere from 5-10% of their members annually, often for no fault of the chamber: went out of business, retirements, consolidation, closed due to Covid, etc. We offset it with 5-10% new members per year, but still every time we lose one, it hurts. It’s a loss to the community, a loss to our membership, and we empathize with the business owner’s loss, especially if this wasn’t a planned exit.

Other times, however, members drop because they either don’t want to pay the dues anymore or can’t afford to. If it’s the latter we’ll work with them, as we did in 2020 when we didn’t drop a single member for non-payment of dues because of the pandemic. Yet, if a member chooses to not continue with dues, those are the ones that hurt the most. This member we lost last week was one of those- the dues amount was something they could affordbut they chose not to invest in our chamber, and in our vision, any longer. That stings.

It made me reevaluate what we do, and how we’re doing it. In this moment of self-reflection, I realized that we don’t toot our own horn much. Each week, I spend most of these columns talking about area events, promoting others, and sharing my business policy perspective, however, it can leave some members thinking what’s-in-it-for-me?

Therefore, I want to convince you why your business should be a member of your local chamber of commerce. We lost a member business that I thought we’d never lose — and it doesn’t matter which business it is — what matters is that I don’t want any business to not see the value in what organizations like ours do.

Let’s start there, what do chambers of commerce do?

In short, just about everything. My philosophy for 15 years has been, “if it affects one of our members by default it affects us.” This includes: tracking local hiring needs, tourism visitation, marketing publications, business policy matters from the local level to international issues, networking opportunities, partnerships with municipalities, directing $150,000 in regional tourism marketing funds, partnerships with educators, county collaborators, regional workforce teams, major community events, expanding opportunities in the trades, succession planning, new Mainer inclusion, workshops on the FMLA, leadership courses, online trainings, interviews with legislative candidates, statewide business surveys, small business problem solving, information brokering, business retention, business recruitment, and answering tourist questions like ‘where is the best place to eat a lobster roll and watch the sunset’?

All of that doesn’t come from some random list, each of those refers to a project, plan or opportunity we have worked on, initiated or explored in the past three years alone. Add to that a pandemic for the last 18 months, and trying to keep everyone informed of what they need to know, and it’s been, well, a lot.

A colleague of mine gave me the best pitch I’d ever heard about a decade ago- his quote lives on the top of one of our member recruitment documents: “A chamber of commerce can only help you in three ways: it helps you, it helps your business & it helps your communities…If you don’t care about any of those three things, then membership is not for you.”

And that’s the point. To judge a chamber of commerce because one or two of your favorite programs aren’t running during a pandemic is to be short-sighted about the tremendous impact that chambers have throughout a region. How many visitors have we converted to residents, who now shop in our stores, pay taxes, make deposits in our banks and eat in our restaurants? How many new businesses have come to the area because the chamber helped recruit them? How many businesses did we help save by getting them the PPP and unemployment information they needed during the early days of the pandemic so they could make it through? How many are still around because of a policy change made, because of something a legislator heard during one of our organized calls with businesses? How many businesses are still doing business, with your business, because we kept them here, recruited them here or helped make these communities a desirable place to raise a family and have a career?

Those are just the projects you know of- this speaks nothing to the work chambers do for prospective projects. You don’t know about the three-year pilot program proposal I submitted last Monday for outside funding which would drastically change the workforce in our area. You don’t know that I spent last Wednesday doing site visits with an organization that’s looking for a new home for their major event that we’re a finalist for because of outreach I did- that one has $5M-$8M of economic impact. You don’t know about these, because they’re still in the works, but getting either one of these would be huge for our region. That’s just two examples from last week.

We’re not alone. Every chamber does this to some degree. It’s not about a what’s-in-it-for-me mindset, it’s about what’s in it for us. That’s how chambers view everything, it’s never me, it’s always us. That’s why you should support your local chamber because, in an era when many people are only looking out for themselves, it’s nice to have someone looking out for all of us. When the next pandemic, bad policy or new hiring need arises, you’ll be thankful you have someone working on your side, all for about the price of $1 a day to many member businesses, and about $2 per day for most larger businesses.

If you’re not a chamber member or are unsure of your member status, I encourage you to reach out to me personally at Cory@midcoastmaine.com or (207) 725-8797 and I’ll tell you more about the remarkable programs and outstanding ways we support businesses and our communities.

Cory King is the executive director of the Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber.

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