Photo by Sydney Cromwell.
Chamber staff Sarah Anne Elliott, Meredith Drennen and President Mandy Schwarting at the Holiday Open House, one of the Homewood Chamber of Commerce’s annual events.
The Homewood Chamber of Commerce has finalized its strategic plan for the next three years.
In December, the chamber released a document outlining its priorities and plans through 2020. This included four main goals: support economic development; market Homewood; liaison between the city and businesses; and connect members through networking and events.
For economic development, the chamber will invest $70,000 over two years to help the city pay for contracted economic growth services with the Daniels Communities. Chamber staff will assist in marketing, planning public meetings and serving on the steering committee. Daniels Communities will provide regular updates at chamber board meetings.
The chamber will also assist the city in recruiting new businesses to Homewood, building existing businesses and supporting the downtown master planning process.
For marketing Homewood, the chamber will work on promoting the city both locally and nationally, including its community attributes, business strengths, education, shopping and accomplishments of residents, local nonprofits and businesses.
The strategic plan also outlines strengthened relationships between the chamber and the city, including tracking legislation that impacts businesses and providing regular business updates to the city council.
More events with a variety of purposes - networking, introducing new and existing members, multi-chamber events and more - are also in the plans for the next three years. The chamber has also declared its intent to evaluate existing events for their effectiveness and create new events to fill gaps based on member feedback.
See more details about the chamber’s strategic plan at homewoodchamber.org.