Local chambers facing economic stress

Chambers of Commerce, those nonprofit organizations on the front lines of promoting local business communities, are being challenged like never before amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For some chambers, their very livelihood is at stake.

On June 23, the Libby Chamber of Commerce informed members via email of its decision to cancel the organization’s annual fundraising event planned for January 2021.

They opted to cancel the event, “because of continuing concerns about COVID-19,” the email stated.

The cancellation comes at a steep price: the January 2020 banquet raised $28,000 for the chamber.

“Without this event, our budget will need a minimum infusion of $15,000 from members to keep our doors open,” the email read. This comes at a time when most local businesses themselves are economically strapped.

The email then implored members to give to the organization and listed the chamber’s many achievements for the Libby business community, including installing “Welcome to Libby” signs and more than $24,000 spent locally through the Libby Bucks Program last year.

“We spend your membership dollars doing the work that you expect and deserve, and we have no pool of money to overcome this shortfall,” the email stated.

But Libby is far from the only business community where the chamber is taking a big hit due to Covid-19.

At the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, Executive Director Kevin Gartland said the pandemic has unleashed a slew of different challenges for the summer. They have had to cancel large fundraising events, suspend networking opportunities and make the best of a trickling revenue stream.

“It’s a big hit,” Gartland lamented.

Cancellations included their Fourth of July fireworks display and Feast Whitefish at the end of May, which is normally a $12,000 fundraising event, according to Gartland.

The “biggest question” now, Gartland said, is the fate of Oktoberfest this fall. It’s the chamber’s single biggest fundraiser, and if conditions haven’t improved by the end of September, Gartland predicted the Whitefish Chamber will see “a pretty significant hit to our annual budget.”

Even without these large events, Gartland reported the Whitefish Chamber’s general revenue sources are struggling, too.

“We saw people start to get very conservative with their money,” he noted.

They’re working with members about alternative schedules to pay their dues, but in the meantime they have had to lay off one staff member. Gartland noticed a distinct drop in recent walk-in traffic to their Visitor Information Center, and current trends suggest the city will be at about half the number of bookings for lodging for the entire summer, compared to bookings during the same time period last year.

He is hopeful Whitefish will experience an “incremental comeback.” One good sign was the addition of around 10 new members since April 1.

“Folks are still hot to do business in Whitefish,” he added.

The economic impact of the pandemic is only one of the issues area chambers are encountering this summer.

Connie McCubbins, executive director of the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce, called the coronavirus outbreak an “economic crisis for many Evergreen businesses and nonprofits.”

But she added the cancellation of most Evergreen Chamber events has other impacts that can’t be measured in dollars.

“Kids Count in Evergreen brings the community together, showing support for the Evergreen School District students and families, with a fun evening of carnival games and pizza,” McCubbins wrote in an email. “This was to be the second year for Sprucing up Evergreen, [and] the community was excited, but it will be bigger and better in 2021. Suspending the Energizers [networking events] and Chamber luncheons was a disappointment, [as] both are a great way for chamber members to get together, socialize and gain from our luncheon speakers.”

McCubbins said the Evergreen Chamber is currently looking at ways to safely hold its “Show ‘N’ Shine” car show.

In Bigfork, Chamber Executive Director Rebekah King said it isn’t so much the canceled events that seem to be hurting local businesses, but the lack of tourists in town.

“In Bigfork especially, our businesses really make their money in June, July and August,” she explained. “They bank on that for the rest of the year. The business closure really ate into those savings.”

In an effort to try to ease that impact, King said the Bigfork Chamber will not cancel memberships for any tourism-related Bigfork businesses, at least until September, regardless of whether they can pay dues right now. “We know that our businesses need all the help they can get,” King said.

However, the Kalispell Chamber staff is trying to see the silver lining in these difficult times for local businesses. Even though the chamber canceled all of its events, which normally reach up to 175 activities in a year, Director of Education and Workforce Development Kate Lufkin said she is grateful for the way the “new normal” has pushed the chamber to get more creative with its digital efforts.

The Kalispell Chamber started a Zoom conference series for business owners early in the spring and Lufkin said the chamber might permanently switch to this format for their luncheons, as well as their youth entrepreneurship initiative Lemonade Day. It’s a more accessible and time-efficient way to communicate the information they would normally broadcast at their large monthly gatherings.

“Utilizing that technology has been good for us,” Lufkin said.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.