When the Bossier Chamber of Commerce was founded, it was founded on the principles of advocating for good business, creating an environment for economic growth and promoting free enterprise. Those truths still hold today.
In fact, our mission has stayed mostly the same since our inception in 1947: “The Bossier Chamber of Commerce’s purpose shall be to promote the advancement of the civic, commercial, industrial, technological, and agricultural interests of Bossier Parish, all while promoting the general welfare and prosperity of the parish and the stimulation of the public’s interest on key issues.”
We continue today advocating for those business first policies in our city, parish, region, state and nation.
But as the world and the United States becomes a more and more competitive market, the Chamber finds itself in need of defining a role that it has really been working on all along – community development.
As the Chamber staff and board work toward making sure our economy is primed for growth, that goes hand-in-hand with making sure this community is a place that is desirable for the employees of our businesses to live, work, play and learn. The amount of things that encompass this Quality of Place type of work is vast and can only be done by holding true to some core principles:
Patience: Understanding that Rome, or Bossier City or Bossier Parish, was not built in a day;
Listening: Residents are a priority when listening to the voices that will shape your community;
Perseverance: Continuing to stick to a vision for growth, even when it gets hard or solicits push back from community stakeholders.
Action: No good plan can be executed without someone constantly tending to it and creating actionable items for forward movement.
Not all leaders understand the full scope of what it takes to build successful communities that take into account a wholistic approach to creating an environment for sustained growth. However, communities like Bossier are ripe with champions who are ready to do so.
That’s where the Community Development Institute (CDI) comes in. This national program, which now has a site in Bossier City and is hosted by the Bossier Chamber of Commerce, teaches community leaders across all business sectors how to build, sustain and grow communities by encouraging an emphasis on the community and residents first. From infrastructure and managing the built environment to tourism, business retention and economic development financing, all the way to the arts, neighborhood development, entrepreneurship and workforce development, CDI in Louisiana teaches leaders from across Louisiana and the South the all-encompassing work of community development.
While the Bossier Chamber continues to work within our own community to build and grow Bossier City and Parish one day at a time, we hope you also will support as we work to grow leaders across this region to build a Louisiana that our next generation will be proud to live, work and play in.