Ed Burzminski
Welcome to more non dues revenue, a semi monthly zoom in our podcast series sponsored by chamber marketing partners, where we interview Chamber of Commerce leaders and visionaries to share their creative entrepreneurial strategies for generating non dues revenue can’t just live twice a month, or see prior zoomin hours at www.morenonduesrevenue.com.

Our sponsor is chamber marketing partners, generating substantial non dues revenue from Chamber of Commerce publications without using a turnkey publisher. The chamber gets total control, full financial transparency and uses local vendors. Some chambers have seen returns up to 30% or more from their award winning publications, visit www.chambermarketingpartners.com to learn more, and follow us on LinkedIn.

Now before we begin, in the chat box, please tell us who you are and what organization that you are with. Also in the chat box, be sure to select panelists and attendees from the drop down menu. So everyone sees your comments, post your questions in the q&a box, and we’ll answer them following the interview. Also, after the the webinar, we’ll send we’ll have a two question survey. We’d appreciate it if you could answer that for us and helps us out a lot. I’m your host, Ed Burzminski, President of chamber marketing partners, connect with me on LinkedIn and follow us on LinkedIn. Now let’s get started. Our guests today are both from the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce outside of Houston, Texas.

Bruce Hillegeist, the chambers president and brandy buyer, the Vice President of Operations are here to discuss a live online auction that netted the chamber $5,000 and $13,000 for local charities, a membership drive that drew in 314 new members in two days. And existing events that part that pivoted during COVID to include another Association increasing participation, visibility and goodwill. President of the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce since 1994, Bruce Hillegeist was awarded the prestigious Marvin Hurley award by TCC in 2019. That’s the Texas Chamber of Commerce executives for chamber related career accomplishments and contributions to the Chamber of Commerce profession as a whole. And he’s just a genuinely nice guy. Brandy Beyer celebrates 20 years with the chamber.

And as Vice President of Operations, she leads large groups of volunteers to execute execute events as the Tomball holiday parade, Miss Tomball pageant and Tomball Knight responsible for the day to day operations of the chamber. Brandi is also a graduate of the Institute of organizational management. She’s an IOM, we’re excited and honored to have both brandy and Bruce on the show. Welcome aboard.

Bruce Hillegeist
Well, Happy Thursday to you Ed and everybody. Thank you for joining us, and we really appreciate this opportunity.

Ed Burzminski
Well, we’re glad to have you. And let’s just jump right in. Bruce, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your chamber, how many members you have, how many staff what your town is like, the major industries in town, things like that.

Bruce Hillegeist
Yes, sir. Thank you. The greater tomball Area Chamber of Commerce dates back to the late 1920s. So we’ve been an organization that was that has a long history and legacy here in the greater tomball area. As Ed mentioned, tomball is 30 miles northwest of downtown Houston. And we have four staff. And actually a 61 years of staff longevity, I guess if we could say all of the years that we’ve been together as a staff family, and I really do want to give credit to brandy dawn, Amy, for making me look good and for doing what they can, and what they do every day to boast of the chamber. Here in the greater tomball area. Of course, we’re Texans. And so we’ve got, you know, businesses in the oil, and manufacturing, business, health care. And, and most of our members, most all of our members are your small businesses here in tomball. So our city, our city is around 12,000 people, only 12 and half square miles, but in in about an eight mile radius over 350,000 people. So it’s quite, you know, quite misleading. And people think of just tomball. And we are the greater tomball Area Chamber of Commerce, We service the city and about that eight to 10 mile radius as well. And we are a four star accredited Chamber of Commerce as well. We work with with really, Randy and some of our volunteers. We’ve had that designation for about six years now.

Ed Burzminski
That streaks you guys have been busy. That’s great to have that accreditation. Now let’s jump right into some of the non dues revenue issues. Your chamber did a live auction for the first time. And it seems to have been very successful. Can you guys tell us a little bit about that auction, how it came about? And most importantly, how much money did the chamber net?

Brandy Beyer
Sure. Thanks, ed. for having us today. We’re really glad to be here. And we put on an event we called it tomball. tidings, the event was put together really through one of our members approached us with an idea that he has he owns a restaurant and he can get donations from his vendors. He’s like y’all, we’ve been doing a lot for the community saying the chamber been doing a lot for the community. And he wanted to give back to us. Well, his vendors can only give out to 501, c threes. So we were kind of left out in the dust and couldn’t really do anything with it. So we sat down with a just a group of people and brainstorm. And we came up with the idea to host an event we called it tomball tidings, a live online auction. We, as the chamber, we got sponsors for the event. And that money came to the chamber. So that money came from businesses. And what we did was we send an email out to all of our member nonprofits, and said, Hey, if you want to participate in this live auction, all you have to do is get an item donated, and you also have to help us promote it. So I had 10 nonprofits participate. They each got their, you know, brought in their live auction item. Some of them were better than others. So the ones that needed help is where we use that restaurant to add add value to their live auction item. And at the end of the day, the chamber we made $5,000 and the nonprofit’s All 10 of them total, made over $13,000. So and it was as far as work on the chamber staff, really for us, I sent out that email and then we promoted it. We spent a lot of time on Facebook, we spent, I think $50 on by boosting the Facebook post. And everybody delivered their items to the chamber. So we had to set up that day. And we did it through Facebook Live. And people put posted their bids in the chat. And so that’s kind of how it all came together.

Ed Burzminski
So you didn’t use any special software or anything, you did it all on Facebook Live,

Brandy Beyer
we just did Facebook Live, we had some volunteers there who were monitoring the chat. As the bids were coming in. We put it had a time limit there a five minute time limit for people to get their bids in. And during that time, Bruce and I talked about each of the nonprofits, and we talked about the item. And it worked out really well. It was a fun event. We had a really good time doing it. The members were you know, that were on the chat. They were talking smack back and forth with each other. And and they made it really fun. Yeah, it was it kind of got wild there. At the end, people were giving back items, and we were auctioning off again. And they there was some bid wars going on.

Ed Burzminski
About how long did it take to prepare from like the start of let’s do this, to actually going live with it? How long did it take you to get all that pulled together and ready to go?

Brandy Beyer
Not very long. I will tell you, we talked about it in the middle of November. And we did it I think on December 17. So it was Yeah, it was thrown together really quickly. But the the nonprofit’s were so excited to be a part of it.

Ed Burzminski
What what what kind of nonprofits partnered with you on this,

Brandy Beyer
um, a wide variety it To tell you the truth, and anything from a horse therapy place, a place that deals with adults with mental disabilities, the local food pantry, the local health care clinic, at even the YMCA participated. So it was it was very a wide range of people.

Ed Burzminski
And you just reached out to these organizations and offered them the opportunity to participate for the money.

Brandy Beyer
I sent one email, that’s it, like, take it or leave it and 10 of them took and that was just right, especially for our first time. If anybody wants to go check it out. We it is still on our Facebook page. I will say that it’s rough the first couple of minutes especially we had some technical difficulties with the microphone. But we got that worked out after the first couple of minutes everybody could hear. And Bruce and I did the talking. And then Amy and Dawn were our Vanna. And Holly, Holly from The Price Is Right. And so they they showcase the items for us. And we just we just made it fun, and everybody had a good time. And it brought us goodwill, because it opened up some nonprofits to some new people, people who might not have heard of a different organization, you know, made some new friends, and then you know them get an opportunity to make some money in a year where they didn’t really make any money was was a big plus. 

Ed Burzminski
What’s fascinating to me is that you were able to do all this just with Facebook Live. And you didn’t need any other tools or software to do it. You just simply use the Facebook Live. You pushed it out all through social media that this was happening on Facebook Live. You guys monitored the chats for the bidding. And then when somebody when they were successful in bidding, you just said you’ve won. How did you do that?

Brandy Beyer
Yeah, the the volunteers were sitting beside us, and that would that would say, okay, it’s cut off. And the winner is and we just announced it. And they all came to the office the next day. And they wrote their check directly to that nonprofit. So we weren’t even the middleman on taking money. And we took out the checks and delivered them to the nonprofit’s directly.

Ed Burzminski
So if any chamber that’s on with us today wants to undertake an online auction like this, this was the first time you guys did it. So you know, it sounds like it was a little bit rough around the edges. Could you kind of summarize what steps if a chamber is sitting there thinking I would like to do this? What would they need to do? Starting from the idea I want to do this, what would be some of the steps they need to take, you know, kind of briefly To get to that point of making it live.

Brandy Beyer
Yeah, and I’m a couple of things I will tell you, we we missed the mark on. But really getting out to your nonprofits letting them know you’re doing it, setting a good price limit or bottom price on your nonprofit on the auction item, I think our item prices were a little low. Some of them were not great items. So making sure you get really good items. And then after that, it’s promote, promote, promote, we put a packet together that had all of the items that were up for donation or up for auction. We shared it with all the other nonprofits ask them to share it on their Facebook pages. And at the end of the day, then we had a location to do it, the restaurant whose idea it was in the first place is where we did the actual event. That’s where we should have done some preparation and some trial and error and done some real practicing ahead of time to make sure we got the sound right, because the restaurant was really loud that night, we did it on a Thursday night, and the restaurant was packed. But at the end of the day, I think it added to some of the energy that Bruce and I had offered. Don’t you agree, Bruce?

Bruce Hillegeist
I agree totally. That’s what I was going to mention is that that there was some complaints about people couldn’t always hear, but that the room was full of their customers. And, and it did add to the energy between brandy and I and just the whole event itself. So it was a good thing.

Ed Burzminski
So that’s what I want to share with the audience is now this is Texas. So people are joining us from other parts of the country. And in California. You know, it’s very difficult to have people number one in a restaurant, you know, in a group, let alone in a group. So how did you guys manage? Since you’re in Texas? How are you managing that social distancing? Or was it it was during the COVID? situation? Right?

Brandy Beyer
Yes, it was, it was this past December. And I’ll tell you, Bruce, and I were kind of stuck in a corner. So we were you know, we were social distance. And then Don and Amy were basically sitting in front of us. And so we could see them, and the restaurant manage the rest. I won’t say that it was stellar and how they did it. But it wasn’t on screen. So I think that what we’ve been learning is that whatever we do, if we’re gonna put a camera to something thing, we need to make sure we’ve got our masks on. But the restaurant, you know, people had their drinks, they were standing around, they were wearing their masks when they weren’t, you know, having a drink. But none of that was on camera, the camera was specifically focused on Bruce Anna, and then it would pan over to Amy and Dawn as they were showing the items. So having

Ed Burzminski
it at a venue like that is not is not critical, it was helpful for what you guys were doing. But you can certainly have an online auction without being at a specific venue, right.

Brandy Beyer
And I will tell you, it would probably be easier to do it in a big room with nobody else in there. Because then you have room to properly display your items. And they were really crowded. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. Because that energy is what I think God Bruce and I through two hours of talking. So it was a lot understood. Well, if

Ed Burzminski
anybody who’s on the webinar wants to know more about this and wants to learn more about this, just type in I do into the chat. And we’ll pull together some information from brandy and Bruce. And we’ll post it on the on our website on the post webinar page. So and then we’ll let you know. Thank you for sharing about the auction. It’s something that a lot of chambers have been very curious about. I want to talk to you about the next topic. And it’s not a non dues revenue generator. It’s a dues revenue generator. You guys had a membership drive or membership event last year. And which brought in a big chunk of members, more over 300 members. Could you tell us about that?

Brandy Beyer
Yeah, we used a company, your chamber connection to host that event. And when we started talking about it, we hadn’t done a membership event in probably 10 years. Because when we would do a membership event, we would get a lot of members but then we would lose them the next year. And so we just wanted to grow at a steady pace. And you know, better to maintain than have have them and so when we finally decided to bite the bullet and do a membership event, we had to retrain our minds. And we had to retrain the minds of our board and say, Hey, this is a fundraiser. You know, it might be a temporary membership boost, but it is a huge fundraiser. Over $160,000, we brought in. And we did have to pay commission on that, you know, that’s just part of it. But then the next year, if even half of those renew, that’s a whole lot of money next year that you’re not having to give away to anyone. So it was a big boost in income. And it was a lot of fun. They made it really fun for us. But I’ll tell you the training that they did for the members that participated, you know, the people who were calling their friends, those days, those people learned so much about our chamber, and about how chambers in general work that battle, that piece alone made it worthwhile. And it gave us so much energy for the next over the next year, it really, really pumped up our membership.

Ed Burzminski
I’ve heard that these membership drives or membership events, well that you guys called it a fundraiser, you rebranded it from a membership, historically a membership drive to a membership event to a fundraiser, just that rebranding sounds like that made a huge difference. But yeah, I’ve always heard that these membership drives are just a short, the one time short booster shot in the arm for cash, but and that people were just calling up board members, were just calling up their friends saying, Hey, can you do me a favor and join the chamber? But it sounds like the you got trained and your volunteers got trained to talk more about the benefit and the value of the Chamber of Commerce? Is that right?

Brandy Beyer
Absolutely. There was huge training about a 45 minute training session with each group of people that came in, and they only had to work for two hours. So it wasn’t or you know, is only a two hour commitment for them. So it wasn’t an all day thing or even a half day thing. So and half of that was training, teaching them about chambers, what we do and why we do it. And they did share that with the people that they that they called they did call their friends and say, Hey, please join. But here’s why. You know, we’re doing a lot for the community. So we it worked out that we actually did the event in 2019. So we sent renewables in February right before everything shut down. So we don’t have a good judgment on how many people would have renewed because of the training, and because of what we had been able to offer them because COVID just took it out of so many businesses,

Ed Burzminski
sure, but you’re coming up on the renewals right now. So in the next few months, you’ll be able to gauge what your retention rate is, from all those people that joined right

Brandy Beyer
now, you know, when you get them to join after a rejoin after that first year, you do a pretty good job of keeping them after that. So I mean, I’m excited to see that we keep most of them that have that have come back?

Ed Burzminski
Well, it sounds like if if the volunteers have been trained, and they’re really talking about the chamber, they’re talking about the Chamber’s relevance, and that’s really important is is sharing what the relevance of the chamber is in the community. And particularly during 2020. Everybody’s 2020 plan was like, shot out the window. And that was the opportunity for a chamber to shine. And that will come back in spades, if you know, the chamber did what it did. And the value proposition, I think, if it was properly imparted to the volunteers, and they properly impart it to the people, that the new members, and that’s great to hear that there’s so much good training that’s going into it. So, and I was like that.

Bruce Hillegeist
And if I can just say that without getting into the weeds, you know, they asked us to get 10 captains together. And that is the most important, one of the most important parts of the whole deal is to find people in the community who had chamber membership who have influenced, so we did have our school superintendent and our college president, our hospital CEO, that sort of thing. And our city manager, and then they added, you know, their they made their team, and then it was a real competitive thing. And so, you know, we had some very competitive types, person type personalities there that that really helped us bolster and add to the, to the success of the two day membership drive.

Ed Burzminski
So that’s key to having some competitive people as captains. Yeah,

Bruce Hillegeist
we didn’t realize how competitive our captain of our police department was and the school superintendent, but they ended up being number one and number two, and, and boy, they were, you know, all of them were very competitive. And it was and let me tell you that this the energy really still exists today. Honestly, you recall that day and it was a lot of work on the staff, but let me tell you that the good that it did, overall for the chamber, not just financially but just for people to know that we what we really do and the training was was the best part of the whole two days.

Ed Burzminski
Thank you for adding that was that was this company, the only company you looked at? Or were there other companies that you looked at?

Bruce Hillegeist
This is really the only company we looked at we’ve had, you know, we did consider, but your chamber connection really does support the Texas Chamber of Commerce executives in it, most conferences and whatnot. And I used them back in 1995. And on a on a two day membership drive in those days, it only lasted one day, because my volunteers didn’t show up. And we had 110 new members just in one day. So I knew what they could do. But then I was one wanting members to join, because they really wanted to join. But again, it’s about changing your mindset. Yes, you want the members, but think of it as a fundraiser as well.

Ed Burzminski
That makes sense. So just one last question for you guys. Now, going through this process. Are there any questions that a chamber should ask of a prospective vendor, we’re not here to promote any particular vendor, this just happens to be the vendor that you use? But if some chamber is looking to do a membership event, a membership fundraiser, what questions would you suggest that they ask of the vendor?

Brandy Beyer
I think one of the first things that people need to ask is, do they have a training piece in there, you know, we want to make sure that they are members that show up get value out of being there other than just doing us a favor. We really want them to get something out of it. And I think they got the the fun with their friends, but they learned a lot during that time.

Ed Burzminski
So the training component really is critical for you.

Unknown Speaker
Absolutely.

Ed Burzminski
Okay. Well, thank you for sharing about that membership event fundraiser. Now, the next topic that I want to ask you about is you had some existing events that pivoted during COVID that included other organ associations, increasing their participation, visibility, and goodwill, as well as your own. Tell us a little bit about that. And how did it all come about.

Brandy Beyer
So at the end of 2020, we usually do a big tumble holiday parade. It’s like the the highlight of the Year for many, many people, we have 150 entries or more and 30,000 people come to town to see this parade, it’s been going on for this would have been the 54th annual holiday parade. So it was it’s a huge, huge local event. And everybody was devastated that we couldn’t do it. And we were looking for a way to have some sort of event that people could just come to town. So we decided we were had been throwing around during the shop local event. When we got approached by our local it’s called tomball Business and Professional women. And they do a fall food fest every year. And their fall food fest didn’t get taught be held because of COVID. And so they wanted to do a Restaurant Week. So we kind of put their Restaurant Week together with our shop local. And then our tomball Economic Development Corporation, which is a city funded development organization. And the three of us came together and we created tarball together. And it was 10 days of it was 10 days of tar ball together. And it was a shop local campaign. And it was basically any business in town could participate. We had a website that had you know who was having specials on what days. And, you know, then people could come and go at their pleasure. We as one of our other events we didn’t get to have in 2020 was called pinball machines. And part of tomball Matt, we have mystery shoppers. And we have a poem every year and whatever the poem, The clue is in the poem. You ask somebody, for instance, if they’re wearing flip flops, Hey, are you the mystery shopper, and you can win $1,000 one $100 if you’re the mystery shop, or you know if that person is the history. So we added that to that event on the Saturdays and the downtown area was pretty crowded with people just walking around, visiting the shops, visiting our farmers market. And the farmers market is considered essential because they sell fruits and vegetables. And so they were not shut down during any of the COVID stuff. So you know, masks are definitely required there. But there was big crowds all over town and the businesses really, really appreciated us trying to do something to help them out.

Ed Burzminski
So one question you have, you have a parade. Now, I just want to ask you about that because in My experience, I’ve seen a lot of communities moving away from parades, and moving more towards more events that are more business related and related to the Chamber of Commerce. Can you share with us you shed a little bit but you’re still doing the parade,

Brandy Beyer
we’re still doing the parade. We it’s a fundraiser for us, we make over $15,000 15,001. Five, I wish it was 50. But it’s 15. But we make about $15,000 on it. And the goodwill that it brings to the community is is huge for us. And we invite all of our local dignitaries there. So we have an attorney breakfast. So we make it a full well rounded event. And it does goodwill for us on a legislative level, as well as on that just community level. But yes, we still do a parade.

Bruce Hillegeist
And you can tie in shop local too, because we have, you know, like 30 or 40,000 people that come to that parade. And hopefully they eat breakfast by gas or shop when they while they’re coming or when they leave. And it’s just so popular. And but we did not get to do that in November of 2020. And that’s why this tomball together came about between that and our tomball night event in August of each year, which is always so hot. But it’s that’s our main shop local campaign is Tom all night. So just combining those two events more or less together and with you know, collaborating with other with the tomball business professional women, that that was that was key as well, putting our strengths together. So just the last question

Ed Burzminski
on that. What was the non dues revenue contribution from that pivot to what you guys did?

Brandy Beyer
Honestly, not very much. And and that’s why one of the things that I want to ask back out to the people on the zoom today is we’re going to be doing this top 10 days of towball. Together Again, over spring break. And we are looking for ways to add revenue generating step into that we did make some money, I brought in about $5,000, which we split between us and the business of professional women, that will go directly to our scholarship funds. But that, and that was businesses just making donations or doing 15% of sales on a specific day, and that sort of thing. So that was kind of how the money came in with that. But we’d like to do more, and make it a real to dues revenue or you know, non dues revenue generator. And we’re definitely open to ideas. So if anybody I have Amy from our office is monitoring our chat for us. And so if anybody has any ideas, please put your email address in there. And we’ll get with you. I see on here. Do we donate the revenue from the greater keep it we keep it that is a fundraiser for the chamber, and for us to continue all of our economic development.

Ed Burzminski
So awesome. Well, we’re coming up on the half hour mark. And I want to thank you guys for being here. But we also have our q&a now. So helping us today’s Judy Hayes. Judy do what questions do we have coming in?

Brandy Beyer
We have a couple of good ones. Okay. The first one is, Do you find that you have to chase people to bring in their donations? Do you have any recommendations and an easy way? You know, once people commit to actually getting their donations? You know, we didn’t with the the 10 days of towball. Together? We didn’t? Yes, I will say yes, that people, some people still have not paid from the event back in November. And we didn’t have a budget for it. So we didn’t really push people. But in the future. That’s why we’re wanting to do more of a way to get the donations ahead of time as opposed to the 10% here or the 15% there so that we can do a better job of bringing that money in. So we’re looking at maybe doing a spirit night every night and charging people to be the hostess spirit. So that’s just one idea we’ve got going okay, and then how do you generate revenues on the parade? Do you have entry fees? Can you give a little bit more detail? Sure we have sponsorships and sponsorships don’t necessarily mean an entry into the parade. We have. We do have parade entry fees, and the and sponsorship those are our two main income for the parade and the the entry fees pretty much pay for security and the things that we need to put on the parade but the sponsorships are where the money comes in.

Bruce Hillegeist
And either we’d be happy to share like an application with you to show what our sponsorship levels are and whatnot as well. You’ll be you’ll be kind of shocked because we have a certain like $50 for a member and 150 dollars for a non member and the non members don’t blink an eye, you know, that just kind of shows you how much that parade is love to hear that people still want to be in it.

Ed Burzminski
So if I could ask our attendees, this question again, whoever wants to know more about having a parade, and what’s involved in bringing that back to your community to say I do in the chat, and we’ll make sure to get some information to you once we gather some of that from Bruce and brandy.

Bruce Hillegeist
And we’ve really kind of been made fun of for having a parade still. But, you know, it brings goodwill, and it brings us money. So if it does that, you know, that is that we’re gonna keep it for now and hopefully for the future, because it you know, it’s a legendary part of this community. It may not work for every community, but it works for us. Well, I

Ed Burzminski
think he just said something that’s really critical. If you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber, we’ve heard that adage for many, many years. If it works for one community, it may not work for another community, but it works for you generates goodwill, it generates revenue, and it’s it’s tradition, and the attendance is high. So you know, why change it?

Bruce Hillegeist
Thank you. Yeah, yes.

Ed Burzminski
Oh, absolutely. God, what, what else? Do we have?

Unknown Speaker
Another question, I want to make sure that we didn’t miss this. Okay, it says, what measures have you put in place to make your membership drive members sustainable, rather than an influx of money?

Brandy Beyer
We tried. You know, we tried to just do more of a reaching out to them, making sure we had a big new member welcome event. And then, and then COVID hit. So it kind of backed us up a little. Okay, and then another question is, do you happen to give referral perks to existing members who bring in paid members? No, we do not. They get it, they get listed as the sponsor of the new member. And I thank you, and that’s about about it for that. Okay. And do you happen to give referral? I’m sorry? Do you donate the revenue from the parade? Or do you keep it? We we keep it. It’s a fundraiser for the chamber.

Bruce Hillegeist
years ago, we during our golf tournament, we would give money to scholarships, but the board probably 20 years ago decided, you know, we need to keep that money. There are other scholarships throughout the community. So, you know, it’s it’s not, it’s not bad to say,

you know, it’s

for the chamber because of what we do. You know, we’re about at 60% revenue, adieus revenue and 40% event revenue that keeps our budget to what it is, and, and I always say I really don’t want us to be an event Chamber of Commerce. And, you know, we’ve been talking about parade and whatnot. We do a lot in mobility and legislative affairs and other things, too. But it’s Don’t be ashamed to say that that money is going to go to benefit the chamber Don’t be at all the same for that.

Ed Burzminski
Absolutely.

Brandy Beyer
Question. Let’s see for the membership drive, did you offer a special rate or a package for those who actually joined as members? There was no special rate, it was our standard. And in fact, don’t the right before the membership event, we raised our membership dues. For for that event,

Bruce Hillegeist
and brandy, one of them also mentioned that he had quite a few of our members that upgraded their membership during the membership grab, like if they were paying 350 they might have gone to 650 or $1,000. We were We were amazed.

Ed Burzminski
Why Why do you suppose they did that?

Unknown Speaker
At the education, probably and just to help benefit the chamber? Our chamber is, you know, really, really, you know, we’re very humbled, but it’s loved here. People know that we bring great value. Sometimes we wonder too about that. Let me just say what I wanted to say at the start of this is that we are not, you know, we do not have all the answers at all. We’re we’re looking for answers from you guys. This type of an event, which you host Ed and Judi is is really what is the best for chamber executives chamber staffs to learn, you know, best practices and new ideas. But but we just wanted to share this with you but but our chamber is is loved. And I believe that a lot of them were educated over those couple of days and wanted to do more.

Brandy Beyer
Yeah, and I’ll tell you two, and this kind of answers the next question of how do you market the membership drive as a fundraiser? We just marketed it as a membership event and the beneficiary is the chamber as the Chamber of Commerce we don’t we do scholarships for our Miss tomball pageants for winners of our pageant, but we do not do. We don’t raise money for other organizations. If people want to give to us They’re organizations they can give to other organizations. If we feel like if they’re giving money to us, they’re giving money to us, for us to continue our mission. And, and that’s kind of how we, you know that that towball tidings was new. And those that money went specifically to that charity that donated the item, that we still got sponsors for that event, and that money went to the chamber. It may sound a little selfish, but I feel like we’ve got to look out for ourselves. And those other nonprofits have heartstrings that they can pull with other you know, and we don’t Our heartstring is, yay, you know, we’re building our economy. And it doesn’t have the same effect as saving the children or feeding the hungry. So

Ed Burzminski
yeah, you’re you’re right on that. But building a strong local economy creates great quality of life. It created helps people build wealth, it builds security, it builds a sense of community, a lot of issues just calm down. So I would argue that one of the things that that primary mission that chambers of commerce do, is super critical to to economic prosperity overall. That’s why I’ve stayed in this industry since 1993. Going on 28 years, because of exactly what you just said, that is what you do. And that is super, super important. For to raise the level of education will raise the quality of life of everybody in our country. I’ll get off my soapbox,

Bruce Hillegeist
go ahead. Well, and we’re just so thankful that you get it because so many people in our community and around the world, they don’t get it. And I’ll guarantee you people on this call, you don’t have to, you know, minister to them, they know they know. And that that is a frustration with us all. But thank you for saying that.

Ed Burzminski
That’s that’s so true. Oh, my pleasure, Judy, Any more questions?

Unknown Speaker
No, I think that covers it. We are going to have a show notes page. So some of the other questions that were along the same lines, will we’ll be adding all that information to the shownotes.

Ed Burzminski
Yes. And everybody who’s attending you’ll also get an email with a replay of the webinar seminar so you can watch it again. And also on our our page. You can see the previous webinars as well. Well, great questions, everybody. Thank you, Bruce. Hello Geist and brandy buyer for joining us today. Our next episode will be a panel of three CEOs discussing his print dead, our Chamber of Commerce publication still relevant. That’s going to be Thursday, February 25, at 11am. Pacific time, one central to Eastern time. I’m Ed Burzminski. For chamber marketing partners. Let’s connect on LinkedIn, stay relevant and keep on making a difference in your business community. Onward and upward, everybody. Thanks for being here.

Bruce Hillegeist
Thank you, ed. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai