Stanwood Chamber of Commerce closing, other chambers face pandemic challenges
Aug 3, 2022, 11:29 AM
Stanwood First National Bank Building Photo from Flikr
The pandemic has done a number on small businesses — and now we are seeing the end of a chamber of commerce that serves them.
The Stanwood Chamber of Commerce is closing its doors at the end of the month, citing financial difficulties as the reason.
“This difficult decision was not made lightly nor easily,” the chamber said in a social media post. “Unfortunately, the resources available were not sufficient to correct a multitude of issues and would continue to hinder service to our membership.”
Chambers of commerce provide a multitude of services to local businesses, as well as to the community in general, such as creating networking opportunities, advocating for small business needs in government, giving advice to businesses, and hosting community events.
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“It all relates to economic development, and the ability of the community to develop the businesses base that is so necessary to keep taxes low, to keep people employed, to see a community grow,” said Bob Green, CEO of the Washington Chamber of Commerce Executives.
But the past two years have been a major challenge for chambers — especially those smaller, volunteer-driven chambers like Stanwood.
“Sometimes the energy and the ability of a small community to keep a chamber open and working in a very forward-working way is a challenge,” Green said.
When every event from a city’s summer parade to fall brew fest to Christmas tree-lighting had to be canceled because of COVID-19, chambers lost a major source of revenue. Dues were also lost when businesses closed.
“It was a tough two-and-a-half years, no question,” Green said. “All of a sudden, the revenue streams were cut — which, in many cases, could be a community event, or a lot of in-person kinds of things.”
In the past, membership dues made up the majority of a chamber’s funding, but Green says event revenue has overtaken that for most chambers. Therefore, when the pandemic hit, chambers had to quickly pivot and come up with other methods to stay afloat. Chambers did not qualify for federal PPP loans, but Green said the Washington Chamber of Commerce Executives was able to get some state government funding for chambers. Some chambers were able to get additional special funding from other sources, such as their cities.
Fortunately, the Stanwood case does not appear to be a theme across the state. While many chambers have certainly struggled at points throughout the past two years, Green does not know of any that are facing closure.
“Most of our chambers have held pretty strong over the last couple of years,” he said.
Some of the chambers that have run into troubles have made changes such as merging together to combine costs and have strength in numbers. Green pointed out that Bremerton and Silverdale merged to form the South Kitsap Chamber of Commerce, and Kelso and Longview also joined chambers.
Green’s advice to the businesses in Stanwood left without a chamber is to do something similar.
“My suggestion would be to reach out to other chambers in your area,” he said. “You know, the Mount Vernon Chamber is not that far away. You’ve got La Conner, maybe there are some opportunities there.”
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