When prospective business owners call the volunteer-driven Oakdale Area Chamber of Commerce to introduce themselves, a staff member at the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce — located in downtown St. Paul, some eight miles from Oakdale’s city center — will pick up the phone.
The same is true for the Minnesota Hmong Chamber of Commerce, which by last summer dropped to three board members and lost its interim executive director at the end of a six-month contract.
Since mid-December, the woman answering their calls has been Yao Yang, a St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce employee who now doubles as the Hmong Chamber’s half-time executive director, administrative support and only staffer.
Business-retention programs in Maplewood and Roseville, much like the Ramsey/Washington County BizRecycling program, are no less indebted to the St. Paul Chamber’s WorkStream consulting effort, which now provides outsourced and off-site staffing to nine different chambers, foundations and municipal initiatives.
Where some might see sleight of hand, St. Paul Chamber officials say at a time of dwindling membership and growing competition among business associations nationwide, those partnerships are born of financial and practical necessity for both SPACC and its nine new clients.
“We have a lot of in-house experience, and we want smaller organizations to succeed, but sometimes they fail for lack of staff,” said Shannon Watson, SPACC’s public affairs director. “They get a team. That’s a much more sustainable model than trying to hire somebody (in-house) for 10 hours a week.”
AFTER 30 YEARS, FINALLY SOMEONE TO OPEN THE MAIL
Tony Schwartz, a Realtor who helped launch the Oakdale Chamber 30 years ago, said having a dedicated staffer respond to phone calls and email inquiries could help grow chamber membership in Oakdale, which has sometimes struggled to promote a strong network given its lack of a central downtown business district.
On top of lunch gatherings and fundraisers, the primarily philanthropic Oakdale Chamber is perhaps best known for its annual Christmas toy giveaway with Santa Claus.
With roughly 110 members, Oakdale “is what I call a ‘community chamber’ — smaller in size. … We’re very spread out,” Schwartz said. “We’ve always been volunteer, 100 percent, and we’ve never had paid staff to do anything.”
Membership in chambers of commerce — of which the Twin Cities metro has 32 — has been declining nationally, even as new economic initiatives such as the Center for Economic Inclusion in St. Paul or St. Paul’s Downtown Alliance compete for grants, sponsors, members and clients.
That’s where WorkStream comes in. Under the direction of SPACC President B Kyle, the chamber last year launched its own consulting service, which can outfit smaller chambers, municipal programs and collaboratives with staffing, networking and event-planning savvy, as well as a business Rolodex running 1,200 members deep.
Most of all, according to Kyle, WorkStream offers a roomful of talent — SPACC employs 16 workers and additional contractors, including accountants, event planners and lobbyists — in a marketplace sometimes hard-pressed to find anyone with a minute free to answer an email.
“The whole message of this WorkStream idea is chambers either have to grow or they’re going to die,” Kyle said. “There’s competing goods — and finite resources. What we have is a machine of 16 people. So many other chambers are one or two people — or none.”
In fact, 17 chambers of commerce operate in Ramsey, Washington and Dakota counties alone. Chances are, not all of them will survive the next few years, Kyle said, pointing to her chamber’s own situation.
Membership dues once provided SPACC with 80 percent to 90 percent of its revenues. Today, that’s down to roughly 40 percent.
“It’s an indicator of what’s really going on in the marketplace — too many of us doing competing work,” said Kyle, noting that how business owners network with other businesses in the internet age continues to evolve beyond geographic boundaries. “It’s about how are we going to reinvent ourselves? Where is the money going? It’s not going to clubs anymore.”
CULTURAL RETAIL DESTINATIONS — LIKE DOWNTOWN ST. PAUL?
WorkStream launched in early 2019 with a single client — the Rice and Larpenteur Alliance — a collaboration between the cities of St. Paul, Roseville, Maplewood and Ramsey County to reinvigorate a lackluster business corridor.
Since then, it has added eight more clients, bringing in upward of $500,000 of revenue.
The city of Roseville hired Workstream last year to help make introductions to 10 or more businesses that had little to no working relationship with City Hall. “The power of the chamber name really made businesses more willing to accept a visit,” said Janice Gundlach, Roseville’s Community Development Director.
Tong Thao, who joined SPACC nearly a year ago as a relationship manager, is the new project manager for the city of St. Paul’s “Cultural Destination Area ACRE Projects.”
The city-backed effort seeks to help existing arts, culture, retail and entertainment vendors branch out from the city’s ethnic corridors into downtown St. Paul, while hopefully inspiring downtown visitors to explore ethnic neighborhoods.
“We want to elevate the entrepreneurship of the communities that are already here but have usually stayed in their cultural corridors,” Thao said.
Funded in part by the city’s Cultural STAR grants and philanthropic foundations, Thao hopes to see vendors that have gained a following in areas such as East Seventh Street or the Little Mekong business district near Western and University avenues sell their wares in the downtown skyways.
“We’re also looking to move some of the artist-vendors into the streets,” said Thao, who is working with the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts to bring in diverse offerings for the annual Flint Hills Family Festival. “If you like these vendors, you could experience them again at the Little Mekong Night Market. We definitely want to cross-promote.”
Here’s a quick look at WorkStream’s current projects:
RICE AND LARPENTEUR ALLIANCE: SPACC provides an executive director for a collaboration between the cities of Roseville, Maplewood, St. Paul and Ramsey County to improve a shared intersection.
NEXUS COMMUNITY PARTNERS WORKER OWNERSHIP INITIATIVE: SPACC partners with Nexus to provide education and outreach to employers who may be interested in selling their business to their employees upon retirement.
OAKDALE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: SPACC provides a virtual office and administrative support to the volunteer-run chamber.
RAMSEY COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH WORKPLACE WELLNESS: Need to outfit a private lactation room or employee yoga space? With the goal of improving worksite wellness, SPACC partners with St. Paul/Ramsey County Public Health to give Ramsey County businesses micro-grants.
RAMSEY/WASHINGTON RECYCLING AND ENERGY BIZRECYCLING: SPACC partners with Ramsey/Washington Recycling and Energy to provide education and outreach to businesses on resources available to improve their recycling program, which could save them money.
CITY OF ROSEVILLE BREA, CITY OF MAPLEWOOD BREA (BUSINESS RETENTION, EXPANSION AND ATTRACTION): SPACC supports two city efforts to engage local business leaders, address employer concerns and partner on expansion and retention opportunities.
MINNESOTA HMONG CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: SPACC houses a part-time executive director to lead an independent organization focused on the Hmong community.
ST. PAUL DOWNTOWN CDA/ACRE: SPACC will manage a collaboration of organizations representing the city’s Cultural Destination Areas to create new retail, as well as arts and entertainment opportunities in downtown St. Paul.
