News

The BMDA Chamber Restructure - A Strengthened Business Community Voice and More Efficient Utilization of Resources

The purpose of these monthly messages regarding the pending BMDA / Chamber Restructure is two-fold; to inform you of the various aspects of the restructured organization’s value proposition and to update you on the progress being made to that end. Regarding the value proposition, this month we’ll focus on the strengthened business community voice and the more efficient use of resources that will result from the Restructure. Both of which result from having one, unified business development organization as opposed to two.

 
In reviewing both the BMDA and Chamber’s 2017 – 2019 Strategic Plans (separate plans, mind you), there are five areas of overlap: infrastructure & transportation planning, workforce development, entrepreneurship, local advocacy and community engagement. These are areas which both organizations, separately, identified as being important enough to address as part of their efforts and followed through. For example, both the BMDA and Chamber had Staff and/or Volunteers serve on the City of Bismarck’s Joint Task Force, the City of Mandan’s West End Redevelopment Committee and the TEDx Bismarck Planning Committee.

It is our intent that as a result of the restructure, we can serve all those groups as a stronger voice representative of even more of the business community.

What’s more is that if we do so as one organization, we can conceivably take the same number of staff and volunteers and be involved with even more groups, efforts and initiatives. Think about it; if there were two staff or volunteers on one committee representing the BMDA and Chamber, one organization could have one of those representatives involved with that effort and then re-direct the other representative to another effort that we might not otherwise have been able to previously.

The same logic can be applied to the use of financial resources. Both organizations have traditionally had their own marketing & administrative staff whereas once the restructure is complete, we could take the same resources previously dedicated to those four staff members and keep one administrative position, two marketing positions and then re-direct existing resources to create a new workforce-focused position that we need in order to address what is the business community’s most pressing issue.

That’s just one example of how we plan to more efficiently utilize the same amount of resources to accomplish even more.

As to where we’re at in the restructure process, despite what you may have heard, it is not done. We are working with legal counsel to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the approval of both Boards which would ‘set the table’ for what we need to accomplish yet, legally. We have also engaged an area marketing firm to help us develop the organization’s new name, logo and brand for which they are seeking input from the membership.

If you ever have any questions, please do not hesitate to get ahold of me directly at britter@bmda.org or (701) 222-5530.

You can also find previous editions of the BMDA / Chamber Restructure Series at http://bmda.org/news/