New W.A.C.E. Resource: Thinking Bigger Together

Chambers are being asked to tackle increasingly complex community and economic challenges, including workforce shortages, housing, economic development, advocacy, regional competitiveness, and more.  While these issues fall squarely in the universe Chamber’s should be engaged with, in many cases, the scale of the opportunity is larger than any one organization can effectively address alone.
That reality is the idea behind W.A.C.E.’s newest member resource, the Chamber Collaboration, Partnerships & Mergers Playbook, part of the W.A.C.E. Toolkit Series.

The Playbook is designed to help Chamber leaders think deliberately about when joining forces with another organization might make sense and, just as importantly, what form that collaboration should take. It is not simply a guide to mergers. The resource explores a continuum of possibilities ranging from joint programs and strategic alliances to shared services, regional coordinating structures, management agreements, and full organizational integration.
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The framework is organized around three practical stages: Explore, Assess and Decide. The Explore phase begins with an important question: What specific issue or possibility are we addressing that warrants community leadership? It encourages leaders to define the work first, evaluate organizational readiness, identify potential partners, and connect the opportunity to tangible business and community value.

From there, the Playbook helps leaders assess possible operating models, funding sources, capacity requirements, cultural fit and timing before moving into the governance, legal, financial and implementation decisions required to make a partnership work.

One of the Playbook’s most important messages is simple: structure is not a funding strategy. Successful collaboration begins with meaningful work, a clear understanding of who benefits and who pays, and an honest assessment of whether the chosen approach creates capacity or simply consumes it.

We trust this new resource will help W.A.C.E. members approach collaboration with both ambition and discipline, thinking bigger together while choosing the structure the work actually needs.

Kudos to Kami Welch, W.A.C.E. Immediate Past Chair, for shepherding this project to completion, along with thanks to the all the Chamber leaders who provided insight, advice, editorial help, and encouragement throughout the project.

You can learn more and download the playbook here.