CEO: Prioritizing Advocacy and Inclusivity
Dear members,
Here is another “Note from Noel” - a monthly initiative with the intention to keep you - our members - informed on our organization’s accomplishments, goals, and decisive steps towards a prosperous future. To put it simply, we want to do a better job of telling our story. The more you know about everything going on here at the Chamber, the more you can trust the success of the organization.
December concluded with our Annual Holiday Mixer. Our Palm Beach North family had an amazing time celebrating the holidays together at the Riviera Beach Marina and we were proud to support the Center for Family Services through a gift card drive. In the new year, we hit the ground running with advocacy and business engagement. Below you will find a few of our “wins” and how they align with our strategic imperatives, which ensure Palm Beach North continues to be Florida’s “Prosperity Coast.”
1. We successfully advocated for the business community during Palm Beach County Day.
Advocacy is one of the most important things the Chamber does for the Palm Beach North business community. Every year in collaboration with County leaders and the Economic Council of PBC, the Chamber visits Tallahassee to meet with legislators to fight for our members. We received positive feedback on our Legislative Agenda during Palm Beach County Day, which took place January 11-12 at the State Capital. Created by our Government Affairs Committee, our Prosperity Agenda is the Legislative Agenda that makes it clear what our business community expects from their elected officials.
Through intimate conversations with our legislators, we learned more about our state's booming economy, and how we can use those dollars to help better our businesses in Palm Beach North.
You can take a look at our Prosperity Agenda here.
2. Our staff completed Compass Cultural Competency Training
It is important to us as a Chamber, that we make every effort to maintain a safe and inclusive workplace for everyone. This month our team had the pleasure of completing Compass Community Center's LGBTQ+ Cultural competency training, which aims to increase knowledge and skills to improve one’s ability to effectively interact with and support the LGBTQ+ community.
This interactive workshop helped us learn how to create a welcoming and inclusive workplace that is supportive of the emotional and physical safety of people who are marginalized based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. This is one of the many steps our chamber has taken to strengthen inclusivity in our community. We highly recommend this program to any business or organization looking to prioritize inclusivity as well. You can find more information at compassglcc.com/trainings.
3. Business is "Blooming" and ArtiGras shows it.
We overcame many challenges last year when planning ArtiGras Fine Arts Festival (think: pandemic PLUS a location change). Through the storms we planted seeds of love, worked hard at it and gave time for it to grow.
This year, we are blooming! We have had an overwhelming response with business engagement. Our amazing team beat our sponsorship goal ahead our estimated deadline, which is a great indicator that business is back. ArtiGras brings in artist and patrons from all over the Country who stay in our local hotels, eat at our local restaurants, and buy gas at our local gas stations. Our economic impact is estimated to be around $2 million, bringing in 40% of our patrons from out of town to stimulate the economy.
In addition, we take a great deal of pride that through ArtiGras that we give a portion of our proceeds to local youth art education programs. This year we had well over 100 submissions from students all over the county for our Baptist Health Youth Art Competition. Money will be awarded to our winners and their school's art departments.
Our successes are your successes. Everything we do is to better serve our Chamber members and elevate our Palm Beach North region. We are proud of what we have accomplished this past month and are looking forward to February.
Noel Martinez
President & CEO, Palm Beach North Chamber