The Green Bay Chamber of Commerce: Foundation’s Foundation

Knowledge Management Audit Introduction

The Green Bay Chamber of Commerce – Foundation was begun in 1982. It is broken down into two major programs. These are its economic development initiatives and its education and leadership initiatives. The majority of the funding needed to run these programs is raised primarily through private business contributions. For the Foundation to be able to fulfill its mission, these contributions not only must continue but increase. This is increasingly becoming more difficult due to the business environment described above. Companies with local ownership and decision making capabilities are increasingly declining. The art of local networking for success is diminishing. With it is the ability to just “pass that knowledge along.”

Currently there is no system in place that adequately addresses fundraising across the organization. This has created an information void in the Foundation’s fundraising. More importantly, the knowledge that is currently being learned while individuals in these groups are fundraising is never recorded, analyzed and used to enhance the probability of future success. Many organizations fund both Foundation initiatives and are openly asking the programs to justify why that should be so. To make matters worse, competition for funds has increased with the introduction of New North – a regional entity with many of the same goals as the chamber’s foundation programs.