Letter From the President

On behalf of the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce and our Board of Directors, we thank you for your continued support of the CB Chamber and our amazing community!

The CB Chamber continues to have much to be proud of, and be thankful for, as we start 2023.

In 2022, we continued to grow our membership and expand our programs and offerings to ensure Chamber members are seeing the greatest possible return on their membership investment. We also initiated the Leveraging Individual Female Talent (LIFT) Program to bring local females back to the workforce, expanded our professional development series, worked with local partners to assist in the transition of Afghan refugees to the Council Bluffs community, and recognized twenty-one local organizations as Unbelievable Workplaces.

With advocacy being such a critical part of any successful Chamber, we were proud to host our first DC Trip in over 5 years. We also hosted a State Legislative Reception in Des Moines for the first time in two years, offered Legislative Roundtables throughout the State Legislative Session, hosted two candidate events prior to the General Election, grew our Public Policy Committee, introduced the Southwest Iowa Advocacy Collaborative to empower Southwest Iowa and ensure we have a strong and meaningful advocacy presence at the state and federal level, supported Iowa’s historic state income tax reform, and provided consistent and timely updates throughout the Legislative Session with weekly video updates.

Leadership programming is a staple of the CB Chamber, and the 2022-2023 Leadership CB class is our biggest ever, with our Youth Leadership Class being one of the largest ever and including youth from eight school districts.

Impact CB, the Women Inspiring Women Program, and the Executive Women’s Partnership all saw gains in membership and are providing meaningful educational and networking opportunities for local leaders.

Internally, we hired a new Client Services Coordinator, Michelle Forristall, expanded and grew our Chamber Chat Podcast, and began a partnership with the Midlands Business Journal with monthly articles. The latter two allow us to expand our marketing efforts to continually improve our brand and image as an organization and community.

As we begin 2023, the CB Chamber team and Board of Directors are excited to continue to grow our programmatic offerings to serve your needs and we think you will like some of our plans for 2023, which include:

• Transitioning to Livability for our community and relocation guide to further expand our reach and impact;

• Partnering with the Council Bluffs CVB to include relocation information in their highly successful marketing campaigns to targeted regions;

• Adding events focused on the State of Education and State of Healthcare in the region;

• Expanding our Leaders of Integrity professional development workshops;

• Growing our DE&I offerings;

• Initiating the Southwest Iowa Advocacy Collaborative;

• Hosting a membership drive to expand our reach and services in the community; and

• Additional partnerships with regional partners to leverage our joint skills and assets

As we continue to innovate and grow daily, now is truly the time for the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce to be the unifying force to bring the community together to empower growth and create positive change. We have such a critical role to play in bringing community stakeholders together on a regular basis to discuss opportunities for generational change for our community, and we are happy to do so on behalf of our members and the community.

As we kick off 2023, we know Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, and Southwest Iowa will be building on a significant amount of positive momentum with a very strong foundation. Local public, private, and nonprofit partners all have a role to play in our future success, and we know each will do their part to capitalize on the unique set of challenges and opportunities being presented to us now and going forward.

We are at our best when serving our members, so if there is ever anything we can ever do to be of service, please do not hesitate to reach out to the CB Chamber team!

Drew Kamp