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The Chamber EDC has long facilitated the Leadership Bismarck-Mandan Program and Student Leadership Network, while also supporting the Bismarck-Mandan Young Professionals Network. However, leadership opportunities for business leaders go beyond the boardroom. Those opportunities extend to both elected and volunteer service in an effort to ensure that business leaders are helping keep Bismarck-Mandan a growing, thriving communities.

To address that need, the 2023 – 2025 Strategic Plan calls for the establishment of a new online resource for business people consider such service. This new website, to be launched in early 2023, will include: available opportunities for volunteer or elected service, a ‘checklist for running’ and local business people who have been elected to office willing to serve as information resources. The Chamber EDC is also once again planning to host a candidate training session in partnership with the Bismarck-Mandan Board of Realtors in late 2023 or early 2024.

Professional Development

In 2022, the Chamber EDC developed multiple professional development ‘tracks’ found on their website at www.bismarckmandan.com and populated by content generated by the organization’s Business Development Series or strategic partners. The 2023 – 2025 Strategic Plan aims to grow those offerings by expanding their original content and partnering with others to create new content.

One example of this new approach already being implemented successfully is a partnership with John Maxwell Leadership Training to offer a professional development series entitled “Developing the Leader Withing You 2.0” which has already sold out and had interest beyond the program’s capacity. Consequently, plans are underway for another course offering with John Maxwell Leadership Training later in 2023.

Policy Development

Policy development was the primary role of the BismarckMandan Chamber of Commerce prior to the merger that created the Chamber EDC. Since the merger, the Chamber EDC has taken steps to improve its advocacy efforts at all three level of government; local, state and federal. Those efforts have already proven effective, but the new strategic plan outlines specific strategies to take the organization even further.

The most time-sensitive of those efforts is a recently launched process by which Chamber EDC Leaders and Government Affairs Committee members meet quarterly with the Bismarck-Mandan Legislative Delegation to develop the community’s next Legislative Agenda. Chamber EDC Staff is currently busy advocating that Legislative Agenda at the State Capitol with focuses on infrastructure development, workforce development, healthcare, education and economic development.

Economic Development

The last of the five ‘foundations’ outlined in the Chamber EDC’s 2023 – 2025 Strategic Plan is economic development. These are the efforts the organization undertakes to keep Bismarck-Mandan, and the surrounding area, growing. In the past, those efforts were centered around activities in entrepreneurial development, business retention & expansion and new business attraction.

However, as the community has changed, so too have its needs in this area. Consequently, the Chamber EDC has also developed a new plan designed specifically to guide the organization’s economic efforts. The details of this plan are laid out in the accompanying story of this month’s Connection.