Happy September!  While the weather this week doesn’t feel very “fallish” your Chamber is in full Fall mode.  A couple of highlights to check out:

• The Fort Collins Area Chamber is declaring this month Small Business September! We invite everyone to join the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce and our community partners during the entire month of September for in-person events and on social media as we celebrate the impact small business has on Northern Colorado.  This month of celebration is being underwritten by amazing business partners FNBO, Elevations Credit Union, KRFC 88.9, iHeart Media, Kaiser Permanente, Madwire, Signarama, UCHealth, Williamson CPAs, Jet Marketing and WTF Marketing.  Keep an eye out for great experiences and join us in using the hash tag #FCSmallBiz to tell the story of the value and importance of small business in Northern Colorado!
• The Coloradoan’s Pat Ferrirer shared a great story over the weekend about the Hire Me, Connect My Partner program that we helped to underwrite at Larimer County Economic and Workforce Development Center. I was happy to be a resource to this important story telling and to celebrate the great work that Larimer County is doing to help employers land great employees in Northern Colorado.

“We heard from lots of employers they were very successful in attracting someone to C-level (executive) positions but would end up having that prospect say ‘no’ to the job because their partner, spouse, kids couldn’t find similar types of employment,” said Ann Hutchison, CEO and president of the Fort Collins chamber, which provided seed money for the program and is underwriting marketing efforts.

And keep an eye out – we are continuing to serve as a champion and convener of important conversations around how we continue to transform our workforce system to create the talent that northern Colorado businesses need to thrive!

Shout Out! 

Congratulations to Outreach Fort Collins (OFC) on their expansion of their services to midtown.  Outreach Fort Collins (OFC) is a professionally staffed, on-the-street team that builds relationships with individuals experiencing homelessness, community members, service providers, businesses, and city services as a means to effectively address and de-escalate disruptive behaviors. On September 6, 2022, Outreach Fort Collins officially expanded their response area to include Midtown Fort Collins.  Learn more about this Chamber member here.