GrowthZone is proud to share the announcement of the 2023 Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) 2023 award winners.
Chamber of the Year Winners
The Chamber of the Year award recognizes the leadership role chambers of commerce have in their communities. Those honored with the designation have demonstrated organizational strength and made an impact on key community priorities, such as education, transportation, economic prosperity, and quality of life.
The award involves a multi-stage process, which includes the Dynamic Chamber Benchmarking process, an extensive application, and an interview. Winners of the Chamber of the Year award must wait three years before submitting another application.
Since 2007, ACCE has annually recognized chambers of commerce in various size categories for their work leading businesses and communities with the Chamber of the Year award. The award recognizes excellence in operations, member services, and community leadership.
Award of Excellence Winners
ACCE’s Awards for Communications Excellence program is designed to showcase the top communications and marketing work of chambers of commerce and similar organizations. These entries highlight some of the freshest and most innovative marketing and communications work coming from ACCE member organizations of all types and sizes.
“Chambers of commerce play a critical role in driving success for their communities,” said ACCE President & CEO Sheree Anne Kelly. “Chambers are natural conveners, sharing stories that inspire and spur action. That creativity in communications, paired with catalytic leadership and visionary thinking, is what earned them this well-deserved recognition.”
Winners were announced on Tuesday, August 1, during the awards show at ACCE’s Annual Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.
GrowthZone is proud to partner with and congratulate the following:
Chamber of the Year – Category One
Pearland Chamber of Commerce – Pearland, Texas
Meet in the Metaverse: During the workday, Pearland experiences a net loss of 15,000 people. Workers travel into Pearland but even more leave the city they live in for a job. The Pearland Chamber launched a metaverse-style workforce development site, WorkinPearland.com.
- The comprehensive job board and workforce resource center is a virtual immersive and interactive website. It even boasts live event days where job seekers can interact with hiring companies.
- Since March of this year, 200+ jobs have been posted and over 1,800 booth interactions have been recorded.
Award of Excellence Winners – Category One
Videos
Good News Friday | Cambria Regional Chamber of Commerce (Pa.)
Good News Friday is a weekly video produced to share good news from throughout the region, particularly about the chamber’s members. The video submitted in the competition was produced entirely by chamber staff. It was shot with cell phones, edited and then posted on the chamber’s social media channels, shared in its email newsletter, as well as on their local newspaper’s website and other locations. Upbeat narration and tight editing for an under three minute-long video encourages viewers to watch it to the end. With Good News Friday videos such as this one, the chamber reached 170,000 people in 2022.
Websites & Apps
Greeley Area Chamber Website | Greeley Area Chamber of Commerce (Colo.)
The Greeley Area Chamber’s main goal in its website revamp was to provide a place that tells the chamber’s story. After creating a successful re-brand project, they wanted a user-friendly resource that represented the new brand and could point to the chamber’s mission. According to the chamber, “We made it easy to find content that reinforces third party validation like testimonials and videos that establish trust and social proof for the work that we do.” A complete renovation from the prior site included: dual navigation bar, live video header, new shares for investors in the news section, a revamped membership page, an advocacy highlight page, testimonials, sponsor showcase and more. Since the website’s launch in February 2022, they’ve had 14,646 views of the homepage, 7,169 views of the events page and 4,880 views of the investor directory.
Award of Excellence Winner – Category Two
Videos
Harrisburg Regional Chamber Members’ Stories Series: Rogue Sol Training | Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC (Pa.)
This one minute, 19 second video tells the story of one of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber’s members: a military veteran and minority business owner starting his business and how the chamber has helped his business to grow and succeed. It was featured on the chamber’s social media channels, chamber website, digital newsletters and print flyers with a QR code to watch and other locations. Among the outcomes achieved include several partnerships formed with local organizations focused on supporting minority entrepreneurs; helped increase the join rate of minority-owned businesses by 100%, outpacing the chamber’s goal; added two minority business owners to the chamber’s board of directors who joined the organization during the course of this video campaign.
Award of Excellence Winner – Category Three
Videos
515 Day Video | Greater Des Moines Partnership (Iowa)
The 515 Day video was one of the marketing tactics for 515 Day, a community-wide effort created to uplift Greater Des Moines (DSM) and those living in the 515 area code. This campaign and video also encouraged people to invest back into the community on 5-15 or May 15, 2022. In under a minute, the video, which was produced in-house, highlighted the beauty of the region and encouraged others to share their favorite parts of DSM. The goal was to ensure that everyone who happened upon the video, from rural pockets of the area code to Des Moines’ city center, felt seen and recognized and were empowered to spread that message and claim the 515 area code and surrounding region for themselves.
ACCE Life Member Awards
This pinnacle award is bestowed by ACCE on those who retire after stellar careers in chamber leadership. The present “Life Member” name recognizes both the lifetime of success in the chamber profession as well as the member-for-life status granted to each honoree.
Jane Clark from Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce
Randy Gordon from Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce
Sources: ACCE | Chamber of the Year Winners, ACCE | Awards for Communication Excellence