Why Join the Chamber?

At the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce, we believe in the power of community, collaboration, and growth. As the heartbeat of the Mad River Valley’s business ecosystem, our chamber is dedicated to fostering an environment where businesses not only survive but thrive. Our mission is:

To improve the economic well-being of Mad River Valley businesses, through leading destination marketing, building brand equity, and creating a unified and engaged culture.

To achieve our mission we need the full support of all sectors of our business community. While there are certainly tangible benefits to chamber membership, we encourage you not view chamber membership as transactional, but instead to view it as supporting an entity that provides a foundation for individual and collective success. In a nutshell, this means working together to create an environment where businesses are more likely to succeed.

The MRV website presents our community in a cohesive and positive way. The chamber is the only entity offering that online presence. It is a well-used, welcoming landing spot for visitors, locals and second-homeowners to find information about the Mad River Valley.  The new Mad River Valley Welcome Center is a place that hundreds of people visiting and living in our community can stop in to interact directly and learn about what there is to do here.

These two activities, the website and Welcome Center alone, are vital to presenting our community in a cohesive way. They alone are worth the investment of businesses in our organization. If the chamber was not actively providing these functions who would be telling our collective story? How would folks learn about us and decide to visit the Mad River Valley? Where would our community be without them?

This is merely the basic foundation of the organization, there is so much more going into it and that is why our business community needs to support it. These are just a few of the efforts that come to mind;

• Working to bring together the various business sectors (hospitality, retail, restaurants, consultants, etc.…) to engage, inform and empower.
• Conceptualizing and working to receive grants like the $410,000 VOREC Grant that will pay dividends for generations to come.
• Ensuring our voices are heard during the legislative process and working to develop relationships with our local legislators.
• The Stand Up for Safety program, the first community-wide program of its kind, designed to promote safety within the hospitality community.
• Providing information, comfort and support to our business community throughout the pandemic crisis.
• Creating an identity mark, the Mad River Valley logo that our entire community can share and rally around.
• Beautifying our community, creating bonds and raising funds for vital efforts via programs like the Star Kits and Memory Tree initiatives.
• Working with our local schools to engage them with our business community.
• Participating with the Mad River Valley Planning District and the individual towns to advocate for business interests.
• The stewardMRV initiative developed to take care of our vital outdoor recreational access points.
• Informing and educating the business community via communications and programming.
• Coordinating cooperative advertising opportunities for retail, restaurants and wedding sectors.
• Offering supplemental vision and dental insurance for members, employees and their families.
• Collaboration with neighboring organizations like Stowe Areas Association, Revitalizing Waterbury and Montpelier Downtown to promote our region and win grants totaling over $60,000. Learn about The Best of Route 100.

These just a few of the things the MRV Chamber does. What it doesn’t account for are the odd phone calls, emails and social media inquiries on the most random of subjects. Folks don’t know who to ask so they call the chamber. Because we are so plugged into the community we can answer near anything that comes up or can direct them to the appropriate person or organization. All of these functions would simply not be done if not for the MRV Chamber and they do not come for free.

Benefiting from Chamber membership is not about simply writing a check each year. It is about being involved and taking advantage of the opportunities, The Mad River Valley Chamber is an important investment for your business and to the MRV community generally. If you are not already a member we invite you to invest in the community and become a member of the MRV Chamber of Commerce