Billings CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

As the largest city in Montana, Billings is a hub for healthcare, retail, travel, hospitality, entertainment and more. Additionally, Billings boasts an attractive lifestyle with accessible and affordable living making it an attractive place to live, work and play.

The small town feel with big city amenities creates an opportunity for a vibrant workforce and diverse career opportunities. Additionally, Billings offers a vast number of tools and resources to our most vulnerable populations.

As part of our Resilient Yellowstone partnership, the Billings Chamber of Commerce is committed to making Billings a welcoming place for all. A welcoming community increases the connection that an individual creates with the community they call home. At the Billings Chamber we are proud to play a role that sparks significant growth in being a welcoming and inclusive community where citizens feel safe, respected, and comfortable being themselves. With a focus on business growth through diversity, equity, and inclusion the Chamber’s online business resource center, www.BillingsDEI.com has resources and information to begin one’s DEI journey.

Every step of the way, we work to make our community stronger and boost our quality of life. As your Chamber, we intensely focus on our core role as Conveners, Champions, and Catalysts. That is who we are at our core. We advocate for policies that will benefit the community. We work with our partners to identify some of the most challenging issues our community is facing and then take action. With a focus on advocating for a healthy economy and aligning businesses and government, we provide a voice for initiatives relevant to our members.

As a partner with Resilient Yellowstone, the Billings Chamber looks at obstacles, helps overcome roadblocks and brings about real change. We thrive on collaboration and alliances to build improvement plans, creating a space where together we can make a larger impact. Through our committees and programs, we are able bring the community together to build relationships, offer education and make a positive influence.

Resilient Yellowstone has allowed us to peel back the layers and see how much of our work centers around being intentional about community of belonging. It is important for businesses to know how to work with people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.

By collaborating with partners such as Adult Resource Alliance, Big Sky Senior Services, Special Olympics, LIFTT and many others, we are able to bring awareness for community members on welcoming initiatives like becoming a Certified Autism Destination, the Aging Friendly Coalition, Young Profession-als Network, and women in business and leadership.

We’re engaging in the community through programs and events that influence the culture of our community and enhance the quality of life. We’ve integrated community health work into our programing because we know that healthy people make healthy employees. We have worked to identify the health needs of our workforce and focus on ways to develop education and outreach in the work-place.

The adaptiveness and growth of local businesses is a vital component of a strong community. The Billings Chamber will continue to participate and lead in areas that have an intentional effort for business growth and quality of life for Billings residents.

—Kathy Grider