Ellsworth County Economic Development and the Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce have begun and continue the dialogue about the potential benefits of combining efforts, asking the question "could we be stronger together?"
Providing opportunities for the community and members of both organizations to ask questions, receive information, and engage in this process is a high priority as we continue discussion. We believe in a transparent and open dialogue and will track information here for the public to review our processes and decisions.
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One of our most fundamental missions is to generate more business activity for the community, thereby increasing the tax base for the county. We will do this through enhanced opportunities for co-marketing, business to business events and cross promotions, and regularly scheduled networking opportunities. We want to partner with you in this vital work, and we want you to feel your investment is helping to GROW Ellsworth County.
Stay tuned as we continue to provide you information on how we plan to deliver this in an efficient and robust way, assuring that your return on investment in your membership dollars is working for you, your business, and your community.
And please join us at the Discovery Session on 11.2 at 5:30pm.
Through the efficiencies gained, the business plan model includes the addition of a full-time staff member who will serve as the membership liaison, providing targeted services driven to enhance our business community. We anticipate this creating MORE capacity, more energy, more participation, more satisfaction, and thereby more revenue.
Additionally, a one-stop shop office will provide additional hours of service and access for our businesses, and allow for streamlined office hours, even when there are community events or other activities that would typically create barriers for a single-staffed office.
We are here for you, and are excited about the opportunity to create an energetic and modern plan to provide services that will support your business and our community.
Creating a cohesive model with a strong value proposition for the members and for our community, we know that streamlining communications is a common sense way to better serve the businesses. Through the optimized model, there will be ONE website, ONE Facebook page, ONE email newsletter, ONE dedicated person to call, creating a robust organization with robust activities, events, and networking opportunities. Leveraging collective resources and relationships will lead to a stronger approach for greater long-term outcomes.
Economic conditions require investigating the most efficient ways to serve our business community. As we researched other models across the state of Kansas and nation that have undergone similar mergers or consolidations, a quote from Matt Pivarnik of Go Topeka stood out. "Why are we competing with ourselves when we need to compete with the rest of the world? If we are competing against the world we should be on the same team, rather than working separately from each other."
Post-Covid stressors and the economic conditions of today's market require us to be good stewards, mindful of the pressures our businesses face. Competing for investment dollars between two organizations doesn't make sense, and we are committed to the merger bringing new opportunity to the business community, with a healthy return on their membership investment.
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