Saturday, January 9, 2010

The right idea about fees

A column in today's Northwest Herald about the Wonder Lake Chamber of Commerce includes the membership fee schedule for that Chamber. It looks like they have adopted a reasonable fee structure, especially for the home-based membership.

Chamber membership dues have long been a bone for me to pick. It started with my own membership in a Colorado city's chamber of commerce that set a $200 fee for a one-person business that was a sole proprietorship. Since then (25 years ago) I have seldom seen a chamber with a fee schedule that truly accommodated the small business.

The dues in Wonder Lake for a home-based business are $95.00! Congratulations to Wonder Lake. Every business in town can be a member for $8.00/month. That's less than $2.00/week, or $0.40/day. A nickel an hour. Any business can afford that!

The chamber's executive director is Donna Sullivan, and she can be contacted at chamber@wonderlake.org

No comments: