Above: Brandi Schulz, executive director of the Cave City Area Chamber of Commerce
By Andrea Bruner, White River Now
CAVE CITY – Brandi Schulz likes to say it only took nine days to reach the “Founding 50” for the newly formed Cave City Area Chamber of Commerce, but she is also quick to point out that it really took six months of behind-the-scenes working leading up to that.
Schulz was named executive director of the chamber just about six months ago, and she’s already seeing tremendous excitement for the possibilities in the community.
The “Founding 50” refers to the first 50 businesses and organizations to join the chamber, but Schulz isn’t stopping there.
“We reached that goal in nine days, and now we are shifting to inviting businesses to become one of the first 100. We are currently at 72 members, so there’s still time to get in and be one of the first 100 to join the newly reorganized Cave City Area Chamber of Commerce.”
Schulz said the word “area” is significant to the name, explaining that the chamber encompasses more than what’s inside the city limits of Cave City.
In northern Sharp County, the quad cities are served by their own active and thriving Spring River Area Chamber of Commerce, but that area feels divided from the southern portion of the county, where Cave City lies.
Schulz said the same could be said for the area to the east, heading into Lawrence County.
“We have a couple of communities on this side of the river, and with Batesville and Independence County, we aren’t technically in Independence County, so it was important to us to include the word ‘area’ for the communities without representation.”
This may include Evening Shade, Sidney, Strawberry, Lynn, Imboden, north Batesville/Pfeiffer, and more.
For years, Cave City had an active chamber, but it was dissolved in 2016. However, that did not stop the town from becoming a pilot city – and the first small city – for the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture’s Thriving Cities Lab.
Dr. Scott Roulier, who teaches courses in political theory, constitutional law, urban politics and environmental politics at Lyon College, was acting as co-director for the Thriving Cities Lab (TCL) initiative and made a connection with John Beller, who had served as president of the previous Cave City chamber, to get the program going locally.
The initiative is building dialogue around urban development, especially in light of the expectation that by 2050, three out of every four people will live in cities. For the first time in its history, humanity is a predominantly urban species.
The Thriving Cities Lab is researching things like urban analysis, community assessment, and civic engagement based on a holistic framework of community well-being, then using the information that will empower key stakeholders (including city governments, foundations, politicians, educators, business people, and citizens) to ask and answer the question: What does it mean for my city to thrive for all of its citizens, and how can I help?
Last spring, the Thriving Cities Lab hosted some forums with community leaders, and that is where the idea for a newly formed Cave City chamber arose.
“They came and we were discussing what we would like to see in Cave City, and a lot of the needs or wants that I heard, I thought could be fulfilled by a chamber,” Schulz said, adding with a smile, “I happened to say that in front of the right person.”
At first, Schulz said she was a little surprised when asked if she would be willing to step up and rebuild the chamber, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized how much this was needed.
“I thought a small business owner would be uniquely positioned to be a chamber director. The idea was planted at that meeting, and the rest was history,” she said.
Schulz, who has owned and operated Key Moments Photography for over a decade, said, “As a small business owner, I felt like there was a connector that was missing. We have primarily small businesses here in Cave City. To the best of my math abilities, it’s over 90 percent small businesses, so I really noticed that there was a gap in some entity that could connect all those businesses together and amplify their voices and needs and interests in our community.”
To kick things off, the old chamber had left behind some “seed money” that had been sitting there for almost a decade, but the chamber’s operational budget is from membership revenue. The city is a “gold” partner and dedicated office space inside city hall for Schulz’s office, but the city does not fund the chamber.
There was a lot of preparation work before starting a membership drive, and Schulz said she tried to personally visit as many businesses as she could and attend events like the nonprofit summit in Cherokee Village last November to introduce herself.
She also organized different campaigns like Pink Friday (a night of shopping geared to women, with food and special “passports” and stamps and a special grand prize to cap off the event, held the Friday before Thanksgiving).
“We really want to show what a chamber can be and can do for the business community,” Schulz said.
She said there were people asking if she was ready so they could officially join, but she had a few legal hoops to jump through before the chamber was formed. Still, it was great to see the community’s enthusiasm, and it made the membership drive that much smoother when people had already seen some of the fruits of her labor with the business campaigns.
“When we went live, it was just a wave of people who were very excited and had been waiting to formally join,” Schulz said. “I had a long list of people on a spreadsheet who said, ‘We want to be involved.’”
It just so happens the U.S. Small Business Administration observes May 4-10 as National Small Business Week, so perhaps it’s fitting that Schulz said this week, she is working on the chamber’s professional directory.
“That’s very important to me because it’s such a powerful and valuable tool that Cave City has not had, one place to see our business landscape and make referrals from there for visitors and locals.
“We have UniFirst, we have the school district, we have Sonic and other chains, but most of the businesses here are mom-and-pop owned,” Schulz said.
Entrepreneurship is something this mom of four boys knows quite a bit about.
“I was probably Sam and Jack’s age or just a little older, and my mom was designing her business cards, which were hot pink, and they said, ‘We do windows,’ and it was so catchy. My dad was designing his, and it said, Cutting Edge Construction, and it had a lightning bolt. They were both entrepreneurs, and I couldn’t imagine not being an entrepreneur in some way, shape, or form. It’s in my DNA.
“I love that aspect, and it translates well into this job because I’m supporting those people, I’m uplifting those entrepreneurs, and then I also have a passion for marketing. It’s something I truly love, and I’ll be up in the middle of the night because I’m so excited,” she said, laughing at how she has 408 notes in her Notes app on her phone.
“That’s a little unhinged, I know it is, but anytime I think of anything, I write it down,” she continued.
“Inspiration hits me in waves. … In October, I had this crazy idea and went to the dollar store to get a sheet for a campaign, ‘Ghost Towns Happen When You Don’t Shop Local.’ I was just all over town with a sheet, making people put it on, and they challenged the next business. It was just so fun, and we got so much organic reach with that.”
Schulz has also implemented a monthly “chamber chat,” which is an informal Dutch-treat get-together currently held at Drifters Coffee. Schulz said the events are a good place to stay current on chamber activities, but they’re also about networking and finding or generating business leads.
Even at this week’s chamber chat, she said there were some recurring topics, such as a career/job fair, young professional retention and recruitment, beautification, and others.
“We are applying to be a Main Street Arkansas community, we present for that on Wednesday, and we have a special presentation for that prepared, so I’m very hopeful we’ll get that. If we do, we’ll need a board for that and a committee for that as well.
“Our ambassador program is going very well – we are up to 16 ambassadors. Our ambassadors will get to don the green blazers, attend ribbon cuttings, and receive professional headshots and a permanent spotlight on our website (cavecityareachamber.org).”
The chamber has its own board, currently with four members: Beller, who also serves as the current chamber board president, Mayor Jonas Anderson, Jenny Davis, and Garrett McSpadden.
She hopes to eventually form some committees, but now the chamber is going by a “form follows function” model, based on the idea that the purpose should be the starting point for design. In this case, they will develop committees as the needs arise.
“We are a reflection of what our businesses need and want, what our community needs and wants. Our vision is a thriving, unified community where businesses flourish, citizens prosper, and local pride inspires growth, setting a standard of excellence for others to follow. I’m really proud of that, and that is genuinely what we’re working towards, so when people sign up for a membership, they’re receiving chamber benefits, but at the same time, they’re contributing to the greater vision and mission of what we want Cave City to be like for our businesses and our community. It’s really more of a partnership, I guess you’d say,” Schulz said.
“About a year ago, I wasn’t positive what a chamber did, and as I was out in the community and we started first introducing this idea of the chamber to other well-educated business owners, we were all kind of like, what does a chamber really do? In that respect, I had no experience whatsoever. I know Crystal Johnson from the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce, and she’s a friend of mine and has been very helpful to me,” she said.
Even though she had no experience in economic development, Schulz said she found the chamber industry to be very welcoming and helpful.
“It just so happened the first week I was hired, there happened to be a chamber of commerce bootcamp in Little Rock I got to go to for 48 hours,” she said. The class was informative, but also allowed her to meet others in the field and make her own contacts.
“It’s kind of like my photography – I just learned as I went, and that’s just as valid a way to learn as anything else, just learn as you go!” she said with a laugh. “You just have to dive right in. If you have passion and creativity, anything else can be learned.”
She said she appreciates the support of her husband, Bart, and their four sons, but at the same time, it’s been an adjustment for the family.
“My sister called me the other day and said, ‘What are the twins going to do this summer?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and she said, ‘While you’re at work.’”
Schulz said they had a good laugh because it had not occurred to her that she no longer had a job where she set her own hours and came and went as she pleased.
“Even the older two, they’ll call me in the middle of the day just wanting to chat, but it’s like ‘I’m working. Mom has a real job now.’ Everyone has been so used to the photography (which she still does), which is so flexible in so many ways. Bart has been super supportive – they all have.”
This summer, she said she may adjust some of her office hours, but she has no intentions of slowing down. Schulz said the chamber is still holding its membership drive, and anyone interested in information may contact her at brandi@cavecityareachamber.org, or on Facebook.
Featured image: Cave City Area Chamber of Commerce
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