The Company You Keep

Four Chambers, Four Unique Partnerships

Chambers are using partnerships to expand their reach, solve shared challenges and create new opportunities

The right partnership can help a chamber do more than it could accomplish alone. It can strengthen the chamber’s voice, extend its reach, bring new expertise to the table or open opportunities for members and the community.

These four partnerships show how chambers are working with other organizations to strengthen advocacy, inform public debate, connect businesses with new opportunities and address workforce needs.

Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce: 20+ years of one voice

For rural northern Michigan, the problem was never effort. It was volume. State and federal dollars kept flowing to big metros, while smaller, more rural communities had to make their cases individually, one at a time.

"You could have one or two chambers that were doing good work, and maybe getting some good results, but it just wasn't getting heard," said Nikki Devitt, IOM, president and CEO of the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce.

That challenge nearly 20 years ago prompted the formation of the Northern Michigan Chamber Alliance, which Devitt chairs. “It started with the Petoskey Chamber, Traverse City Chamber and Cadillac Chamber, who said, ‘We’re not getting our voices heard at our state Capitol. What if we did this together?’” From the start, the idea was simple: bring chambers together around shared priorities and speak with one voice.

Today, the Alliance has grown to 21 chambers and economic development organizations representing 7,000 businesses across northern Michigan. They work together to advocate for rural communities and advance rural-focused business policy. Partners invest at tiered levels, top-tier partners vote on positions, and the group employs a shared director of government relations.

“Now when we show up at the Capitol, we are on the same playing field as the largest chambers in the state,” said Devitt. “We have the same voice.”

Devitt cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a turning point for the Alliance. With Michigan businesses under pandemic restrictions, the Alliance asked the governor’s administration to let northern Michigan pilot reopening. The governor agreed, and the region's businesses were operating roughly six months ahead of the rest of the state.

"We were the test. We were the guinea pigs," Devitt said. Word came down the Friday before Memorial Day. They had three days to teach half a state how to reopen safely.

Trust followed. So did standing. "It's what they say in our state is the big three. It's Detroit, Grand Rapids and us," Devitt said. "I don't think we ever thought we would get to that level of not just having a voice, but being the voice that legislators are going to ask questions to."

The Alliance does not require its members to agree on every issue.

"You're never all going to agree on everything, and you have to be strong enough individually to be able to go to your board and to your members and state your case," Devitt said. "I think having an alliance and a coalition of chambers forces individual chambers to get stronger."

She added, “It all comes down to, how do you deliver the most for your members?” Devitt said. “This is the way that you can truly deliver big wins for your communities that you couldn’t do alone.”

Columbus Chamber of Commerce: Teamed up with a university athletics program

Conversations about a partnership between the Columbus Chamber of Commerce (Ohio) and Ohio State University Athletics began before current CEO Derrick R. Clay joined the organization in 2025. But discussions simply led to ideas such as internships and exposure to the business community.

When Ohio State University’s Athletic Director Ross Bjork finally met with Clay, Clay saw a bigger opening. He wanted to connect Columbus businesses directly with the university’s Olympic-sport athletes, where a deal might be $500 and an appearance at a pizza place, or six months of free food for a commercial.

“We just started thinking about how NIL [name, image and likeness] was creating these massive deals between corporations and star student-athletes at universities,” explained Clay. “But what about the water polo player who would love the opportunity to work with a company and create some kind of partnership? So we started thinking about opportunities for what we call Olympic sport athletes.”

The chamber and Ohio State Athletics signed a memorandum of understanding and announced the partnership in April 2026.

The arrangement is deliberately uncomplicated. The chamber only makes introductions, getting the student-athletes and the university in front of business owners. Ohio State Athletics and its partners handle contracts and compliance.

The partnership also has defined commitments. Ohio State's assistant athletic director sits on the chamber’s board, and the teams check in multiple times throughout the year. The chamber committed to raising $50,000 toward the university's NIL goals in year one and hosting one joint program. That program, featuring Athletic Director Bjork and head football coach Ryan Day, sold out.

So, what’s in it for the chamber? "The only thing that I really want out of this is exposure," Clay said. "I wanted us to say that we're an official partner with The Ohio State University. That says enough."

Clay intentionally kept the chamber's obligations modest. "We wanted to make sure that we could just deliver on everything that we said that we would do. We know if we deliver, the opportunity for us to grow the partnership will be there."

There is also a talent play underneath the buzz. A football player is interning at the chamber now. Two others did last year.

"We want to make sure that these student-athletes understand that there's a life beyond sports," Clay said, "and that life beyond sports can be done right here in Central Ohio."

His pitch to chamber peers is broader than NIL. "If you're not connected with the university, you absolutely should be. That is not just our future workforce, it could be our present workforce."

Grand Rapids Chamber: Joining vs convening a coalition

Since 2025, more than 20 hyperscale data center projects have been proposed across Michigan, including four in West Michigan. Misinformation has moved as fast as the announcements. Public meetings turned tense and unproductive, even when no vote was on the agenda.

Instead of convening a coalition, as it often does, the Grand Rapids Chamber decided to join the Michigan for Responsible Data Centers as a participant and took a seat on its advisory board.

The coalition's mission is to educate Michigan residents and local leaders on the actual impacts of data center development. The chamber was motivated to join so their members and local officials could have clear, fact-based information they could rely on.

“Facilities of this scale raise real questions for the communities around them,” explained Christine Simon, vice president of government affairs at the Grand Rapids Chamber. “As a participant, our job is to bring forward the specific concerns we're hearing from our members, concerns that often look different from what communities in other parts of the state are raising. We also have a responsibility to make sure the coalition's shared information is framed in a way that resonates with our audience.”

The coalition brings together groups that would sit on opposite sides of almost any other issue, including utilities, labor organizations, environmental and engineering firms, economic research institutions and local government advocates. According to Simon, this allows the coalition to draw on a much broader range of technical expertise.

"The real advantage isn't that we couldn't do this work alone, it's the speed and reach," she said. "These developments are moving fast, and the coalition lets us get accurate information into the hands of decision-makers and community stakeholders when it matters most."

The chamber takes the coalition's fact base and rewrites it in a voice its members recognize. It also shares that information well beyond its membership.

"These are people that may never be members of the chamber, but we want to have a good relationship with them," Simon said, "so that whether it's a data center or some other development in the future, they feel comfortable with the quality of information that they're getting from us."

Measuring impact at this stage is less straightforward. The metric, for now, is public sentiment. After a recent coalition tele-town hall, members told Simon their questions had been answered and started asking colleagues for the recording. Opposition is softening and residents are asking questions about community benefit agreements and property tax revenue. Local officials are citing sources when they explain their decisions.

Simon has insight for chambers that are considering joining a coalition. "Leading isn't the only way to add value. Knowing what level of engagement will best serve your members and doing that work well can matter just as much."

Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce: Inside the school day

Local employers kept telling the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce (Ariz.) that they could not find talent for in-demand jobs.

The chamber’s foundation reviewed what local high schools were teaching. Staff then compared the most popular career and technical education programs with the region’s fastest-growing jobs. They found a significant gap.

To address the issue, ElevateEdAZ, a program of the Greater Phoenix Chamber Foundation, launched in the 2020-21 school year with two Phoenix Union High School District campuses. It has since grown to seven campuses in that district, which runs more than 20 high schools.

The program’s model is what makes it unique. The foundation hires and pays college and career coaches, each of whom currently serves on two campuses. Coaches run career awareness activities, arrange job shadows and place students in internships. District directors supervise them and stay assigned to a single district.

"It's really an embedded level of support," said Isabel Gonzalez, vice president of ElevateEdAZ.

Each side of the partnership brought what the other could not. The chamber brought grant funding, a program model, existing industry collaboratives and relationships with local employers. The district brought scale, a large student population and permission to walk in the door.

"You can't do that from an outsider," Gonzalez said. "We're trying to create systems change."

Internships in Phoenix Union averaged four per campus in year one and now average 12, against a goal of 20. Job shadows grew from 50 or 60 students in the early years to roughly 600 across the district. Industry-recognized credentials jumped 150% from the 2023-24 school year to 2024-25.

As the initiative has evolved, Gonzalez said one of the lessons has been the importance of building support beyond a single contact. Leadership changes occur in school districts. Business contacts leave companies. If that person was the partnership’s only champion, the relationship can become vulnerable.

The foundation has responded by working more intentionally to establish higher-level buy-in that can outlast staff transitions. It also uses regular campus-level outcomes meetings as part of its operating practice.

“A lot of this work is built on trust and relationships,” Gonzalez said.

The chamber is the intermediary. And when the work hits a policy wall, such as a barrier to dual enrollment, the chamber's advocacy arm can address it.