By Sam McClure, executive director of Quorum: Twin Cities GLBTA Chamber of Commerce
I always leave NGLCC's National Business and Leadership Conference: Out for Business inspired and challenged, but this year hit me at an even deeper level. I spent most of my conference time in sessions with the Council on Chambers and Business Organizations (CCBO). The CCBO is an amazing collection of leaders from around the country, all engaged in the hard work of creating and maintaining their local LGBT and allied chambers of commerce. Our sessions are an amalgam of organizational management best practices and an equality think tank. We're not only sharing ideas, policies and procedures for how to increase the sustainability and effectiveness of our organizations, but we're also ‘connecting the dots' to create a strong network.
The most important connection LGBT regional chamber leaders share is NGLCC. We all bring strength to our chambers by accessing the innovative NGLCC programs and resources available to us through our affiliation. NGLCC's LGBT business certification program is the most powerful tool I've ever seen for leveraging business growth opportunities for our local members. We need to do everything in our power to support our members seeking certification. Our members will need our help with the certification process and seeking out opportunities after they receive their certification.
Chamber leaders owe a great debt to the NGLCC staff and those courageous folks who are fighting for LGBT supplier diversity inclusion within their corporate structures. We need to do everything we can to make this program strong so that forward-thinking, equality-minded companies reaching out to find LGBT vendors for their diverse supply chains have a pool of exceptional businesses to choose from.
This revolutionary program is creating access points for our LGBT small business community, allowing them to achieve success, acquire wealth and to do our part to drive the American economy. We can never forget that more than 95 percent of the businesses in our country have fewer than 10 employees, and 70 percent of all employment provided in the last five years came from small business. That's us; that's our members. Our country needs us now more than ever-let's get to work!
