Chamber Changes Its Name and Focus

Looking to get a fresh start on the new year, the Mid San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce resolved like many others to shed some excess fat. The first cut lay in the name of the agency itself.

Trimming away at the mid-section of its title, the now-new Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce dropped San Fernando from its name.

Then the new board of directors developed a task force of area business experts able to identify program aspects that could be handled more efficiently. The task force set out to expose the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats inherent in the chamber’s decades-old strategic plan.

From its discoveries, a few suggestions were made.

First on the list was to reduce the number of members on the board of directors. With some of the board’s more than 32 members having few responsibilities, the task force found that the chamber could get by with 25 sitting members. Consultants, its report said, could be temporarily employed for special purposes.

“Those positions will be eliminated over a three-year span,” said chamber spokeswoman Nancy Hoffman.

“Every time we (sought) to do something different, a new board member would be elected,” Hoffman said. “We want to create a stronger, more focused leadership to carry out the larger scope of activities the chamber hopes to get involved in.”

An example of that widening scope lies in the task force’s discovery that increasing ethnic diversity among mid-Valley businesses served as both a weakness and an opportunity to the chamber’s old programs.

Stating that the chamber often failed to communicate effectively with businesses owners from different cultures, the task force found that some chamber activities, such as graffiti removal, were being duplicated by programs run by businesses working together on their own.

Concentrating on working more closely with those communities could open up opportunities to create both a stronger network of businesses in the area and more effective programs, the task force’s report stated.

A final task force recommendation embraced by the chamber was to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy. According to Hoffman, the chamber only markets itself and its business members on a limited scale.

“We want to assign another task force to come up with a marketing plan or retain a public relations firm to help us with one,” Hoffman said. “Essentially, we’re looking to fine-tune ourselves in all areas. We’ve begun a process where we’re repeatedly re-evaluating ourselves and our relationships with other agencies.

“After all, (the chamber) is operating as a business,” she said. “We need to make sure we’re getting proper returns on our investments.”