What is a Chamber of Commerce?
Misconceptions abound regarding many brands, products and organizations. When it comes to the term “chamber of commerce,” confusion and erroneous assumptions are even more likely, even though almost everyone has heard of the term. The lack of understanding is in large part self-inflicted because chambers in various towns, cities, regions, states and even nations focus on different things and actually operate in different ways.
Definition
A chamber of commerce is an organization of businesses united to advance their collective interests and strengthen their community. Business owners voluntarily join and invest in these organizations to advocate for economic prosperity and community vitality. While chamber missions vary, they tend to share core goals, including:
- Building and promoting their communities to attract residents, visitors, businesses and investors.
- Advocating for economic prosperity, a pro-growth policy environment and a competitive workforce
- Connecting and growing its businesses
- Representing the unified voice of the employer community
- Providing community leadership and convening key stakeholders to address their region’s top challenges
For the purposes of ACCE’s definition, any business-led civic or economic organization, whether it calls itself a partnership, alliance, board of trade, business council or something else, is treated as a chamber of commerce.
In the majority of countries, the use of the term "chamber of commerce" is regulated by statute, though this is not the case in the U.S. Only trademark, copyright and domain name rules protect a chamber’s identity – only state corporation law defines their existence and reason for being. While most chambers work closely with government, they are not part of government although many consider the process of appropriately influencing elected/appointed officials to be one of their most important functions.
There are more than 7,500 chambers of commerce in the United States.
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