Michelle Green-Ford, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce, talked with Invest: about the outlook for the Chamber, which she said is looking good, with several opportunities in the area. The Chamber’s goal, she said, is to increase its membership to 1,000.
What are the greatest opportunities as you look at the state of the economy of North Texas?
We have many opportunities in the area of access to capital, which is always the number one issue, particularly among the small-business population that we work with and service. There’s a great opportunity to make sure that we’re getting the resources to the businesses at all stages. That would entail startups but, also, a lot of businesses in a growth phase as well, where they need access to capital in order to grow their business further. They have a proven track record. They have a proven product; however, to get to the next level, they need the appropriate lines of credit and appropriate resources to launch to the next level. So, we have a lot of opportunities there. Education continues to be an issue in terms of financial literacy. We find that there are resources out there but companies often lack knowledge, education and sometimes preparedness to be ready to receive those resources. That’s another huge opportunity.
How do you expect the Chamber to navigate the current time period and even help lead the area?
The obstacles have increased. One of the ways the Chamber is helping is by trying to be that voice that helps people become aware of the climate, particularly the business climate, as soon as possible. If we see things changing, such as interest rates or the labor market, we want to be able to communicate those to our members and address those developments. One of the real strengths of our Chamber is that we’re small in staff and our board is very much a working board, which makes us very agile. As we see things developing, we usually will educate and implement changes immediately to help our business owners. If we see there are issues around funding or interest rates, for example, we start to look at how we can bring them to our members quickly so they can start to deal with them. The climate that we’re in calls for immediate action.
The other part has to do with education, being aware and providing options. When you start to look at the number of things there are to overcome not just one obstacle but five obstacles, you’ll find that people get discouraged. We’re that arm that tries to show that there’s a path, a way forward. If one way doesn’t work, what about this way? We’ve worked with strategies to help keep the optimism going. We also work with mentoring. One of our strengths is that we have on staff, as well as on the board, people who are in the same situation as our current business owners or who have navigated the same climate or types of climates for many years. They serve as role models for others. I often share my experiences. I had 18 years of small-business ownership. I started in this region and worked through the Chamber, so I can share those experiences I had and those things I did to overcome the challenges. In many cases, the contacts and individuals who assisted me are still available. We use our resources, we use our connections, we use the information and we make sure people know that there’s a great deal of support for them in the community.
What has been the strategy in attracting new players to the Chamber?
When I first started, we began a membership campaign called “Each One Reach One.” The value proposition for our members is that secret weapon. We literally sat down and started crafting what we provided, what the impact would be for our members as a part of our Chamber. We also started to put that on all our social media platforms so people could know exactly where to go if they needed a resource. Our Chamber has an open website for all its members, where they can go in and find people in different industries. That is an advantage not only for our members to be able to find someone but for others to find them if they need a particular service. None of this was there before.
What are some of the initiatives and projects you’re excited to push forward now? What is next?
So much is next for us. We have a three-year strategic plan that we’re just kicking off. Within that three-year strategic plan, we’re looking to increase our membership to 1,000 members from 600 now. We expect to accomplish that within the next three years. That’s going to be a major win for us. We want to grow in numbers to set the bar high. We also want to expand the disciplines our members represent. I’m also concerned about the next generation and the types of businesses they are going to focus on. We’re connecting with the next generation to ensure we continue to make the Chamber relevant. This is also where diversity and inclusion come in.
