In July of 2020, Boulder resident and business proprietor Carey Burnside submitted a letter to the Boulder Area Chamber of Commerce questioning the organization’s purpose and function. Her letter articulated frustration with the lack of benefits the Chamber offered area businesses, and confusion as to how exactly, as written in its mission statement, the group “promotes economic and social development that leads to the enhancement of the quality of life of the Boulder area.”
In response, the Chamber claimed that it was in a transitory phase and that it would seek to create more opportunities for participating businesses to liaise with and help improve one another. Yet nearly five years later, the Chamber’s calendar of community events and resources offered to members remains largely unchanged. Now faced with an aging board and a dwindling pool of active members — there are now 60, half of them individuals — and working volunteers, questions on the Chamber’s future now grow more serious. How can Boulder’s business community more meaningfully benefit from Chamber membership? Does Boulder need a Chamber, at all?
Current Chamber board member Pat Lewis thinks not. “Main Street businesses in Boulder most certainly benefit from the events that we’re doing, but we’re basically just entertaining the community at this point,” said Lewis in an interview. “We should realize that the personality of the business community has changed. There doesn’t need to be a Chamber. We don’t need to save it, but we do need to think of what we can evolve into. ”
