Chamber Board Outlines 2017 Strategic Objectives

Each year, the Chamber’s Board reexamines the organization’s strategic and operational objectives for the coming year to ensure that through value-added membership, relevant programming, and strategic advocacy, we’re creating a connected and vibrant business climate for our area.

In 2017, the Chamber will focus on three broad strategic objectives:

  • Improving our regional economy through a number of program areas;
  • Nurturing a pro-business environment by implementing the Strategic Plans of the Advocacy Council and the Chamber PAC;
  • Providing our members with resources, opportunities, and tools to use to help grow their businesses.

We invite you to read more about these strategic objectives, the operational objectives and the vision, mission and values of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce.

Values

The following values reflect the core beliefs of our Chamber and the manner in which we will undertake all of our activities.

Business Driven: The Chamber has businesses as its members and will be driven by their needs and interests.

Collaboration: The Chamber will seek out and work with other individuals and organizations willing and interested in working together to solve problems.

Excellence: The Chamber is committed to excellence and will seek to reflect that in all we do. We want all associated with our organization to be proud of the work that we do.

Fiscally Responsible: The Chamber will manage its funds in a responsible manner to ensure that it has the resources to accomplish its mission and to undertake new projects as the opportunities arise.

Leadership: The Chamber will build on its history by continuing to be an organization that provides leadership to our community in addressing both the challenges we face and the opportunities we have.

Regional: The Santa Rosa Chamber recognizes the importance of taking a regional approach to issues and will reach out to engage others throughout Sonoma County to cooperate in this fashion.

Strategic Objectives

The following Strategic Objectives align our activities with our Mission Statement and new brand message.

Improve our regional economy by

  • Implementing Visit Santa Rosa’s Program of Work to increase hotel occupancy, average daily rate, and encourage spending by visitors;
  • Partnering with the City of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County Tourism to Host Ironman and its anticipated $13 million impact on our community;
  • Creating and contracting to manage a new organization to represent the businesses and property owners in Downtown Santa Rosa and implement their goals;
  • Strategically expand our Workforce Development efforts to serve as the “voice of business” in the workforce development arena and to implement specific programs that improve our workforce.
  • Reviewing how the Chamber best engages in Economic Development and creating a plan to accomplish that.

Nurture a pro-business environment in our community by implementing the Strategic Plans of the Advocacy Council and CPAC which include:

  • Maintaining regular communications with our elected officials and key personnel;
  • Researching, taking positions on, and advocating for positions on issues that impact the business community;
  • Raising funds for CPAC to fund 2018 elections;

Continue to provide our members with resources, opportunities, and tools to use to help grow their businesses by:

  • Continuing and expanding our networking programs;
  • Creating advertising opportunities for our members;
  • Growing our leadership training and workshop programs;

Operational Goals

In order to achieve our Strategic Objectives, we need to accomplish a series of internal, organizational Goals. They are:

  • Creating and maintaining a balanced General Fund budget for 2017;
  • Rolling out our new brand, name, and web site to better represent and promote the Chamber;
  • Re-evaluate our membership sales and retention efforts to better align with our purposes and programs. Use this plan to grow our membership by improving our Retention Rate to 82% and recruiting 248 new members;
  • Create a Strategic Planning Committee to oversee the implementation of the Chamber’s long range planning;
  • Continue to grow our partnerships in the region to more effectively deliver our programs and for the benefit of our members;
  • Become greener by maximizing the use of technology for communications within the organization.