FORT WORTH – The Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber, the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber and the Fort Worth Chamber have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that creates a blueprint for the organizations to partner more intentionally to grow and develop the city’s economy.
“The chambers and the City of Fort Worth are working closer together to better unify the business community while creating economic prosperity for all,” said Brandom Gengelbach, executive vice president of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. “To do this, we have to be intentional about inclusion of all chambers in the entire business fabric of Fort Worth.”
The agreement is a result of an MWBE (Minority- or Woman-owned Business Enterprise) retreat with the City of Fort Worth and the chambers. Although the chambers have partnered on numerous projects throughout the past 20 years, the MOU details specific objectives and actions in three categories: engagement, inclusion and project partnerships.
Examples of actions within the three categories range from cross-promotion of events and committee meetings and targeted introductions to developing a plan to address economic development recommendations from the City’s Race & Culture Task Force.
“Now more than ever, as our city’s demographics are shifting and population is rapidly growing, this agreement provides a roadmap for us to demonstrate diversity and inclusion in meaningful and measurable ways,” Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber’s long-time President & CEO Dee Jennings said. “This is a positive step to formalize our process which has been informal for so long.”
Together, the three chambers have more than 2,500 business members throughout the greater Fort Worth region.
“The Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber Board loves this idea and is very excited that we are setting formalized goals to increase collaboration between chambers,” said Anette Landeros, newly-elected president & CEO of the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Next steps for the chambers will include staff meetings to compare calendars, timelines and resources necessary to implement the action steps in the MOU for 2020 implementation.
