Last month the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce surveyed our member businesses and nonprofits to help us further understand their priorities, needs and concerns and to ensure we are advancing the mission of the business community in the most effective ways possible.
The 2018 membership survey allowed respondent anonymity and was designed to give our staff, board of directors and committee members a better understanding of why businesses become members, their expectations, availability and interests as well as trends for future implementation.
It is worth noting that of the members that responded to the survey call, 58% were members in their first five years of membership, 21% have been members for 6-10 years with the remainder of the respondents having memberships dating over 11 years.
One of the key pieces of information collected was the reason that businesses choose to become a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Through the survey we discovered the top five reasons a business joins is to:
- 81% Become more involved in the community
- 81% Take advantage of networking opportunities for their business
- 60% Create sales opportunities for their business
- 56% Enhance their business credibility
- 47% Take advantage of educational opportunities
Note: For this question, respondents were invited to answer all responses that applied.
Overall the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce received high marks in five key areas. They included:
- Championing the value of and the needs of local business
- Providing connections within the business community
- Building and promoting relationships and partnerships
- Providing a wide variety of educational and networking opportunities
- Supporting Frederick County business owners
Opportunities for improvement were also solicited and our membership gave us some great takeaways to consider. For example:
- Supporting and promoting a diverse business climate
- Providing more tailored and unique programming
- Developing opportunities to feature and tell the story of member businesses
- More information on what is going on in the community that will impact local business (new businesses, infrastructure, and events that will impact the county economy)
- Increased value added for smaller and larger members
An important part of Chamber membership is awareness and advocacy on matters of public policy that directly impact the business and nonprofit community. In response to the question on advocacy issues that were member priorities, the following were overwhelmingly stated:
- Infrastructure and transportation issues
- Staying on top of legislation for brewery tap reform
- Downtown hotel and conference center
- Governmental regulations that impact the business community
- Smart growth initiatives
It was eminently clear from the responses we gathered that our role in providing tools, training and resources, in addition to monthly event programming, is a high value to the bulk of our membership. We received three pages of programming suggestions from survey respondents which will be used going forward to implement valuable educational and/or informational sessions. Topics requested included marketing, public speaking, networking, entrepreneurship, small business concerns, human resources, nonprofit specific concerns, business strategy, financial management, employee wellness, etc.
The survey also revealed a growing interest in multi-chamber event collaborations, diverse event time opportunities and an interest in women’s business issues. Respondents stated overwhelmingly that all of the Chamber program committees (Entrepreneur Council, Leadership Frederick County, Business Health, Generation Connect, Public Policy, Frederick Nonprofit Alliance, Women in Business) were of high value to them.
Perhaps the most exciting discovery for us to report is the fact that 88% of our member respondents report the belief that the value they receive from their membership dues is either fair or more than fair.