Portland Business Alliance: Leading the way
Ever since our beginning as the Portland Chamber of Commerce in 1870, Portland's business community has helped create one of the nation's best places to live and work.
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The Alliance is dedicated to providing value to our members and working in partnership with other organizations to build a vibrant Central City and regional economy.
Our mission, vision, goals, values and strategic considerations reflect our membership. We strive to be a member-driven organization in all that we do.
The Portland Business Alliance is one of Oregon's leading business organizations. We have nearly 1,400 members representing more than 325,000 business people in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Yamhill counties in Oregon and Clark County in Washington.
Our $7 million annual budget is generated through contract revenues and membership fees. Our 56-member Board of Directors represents a diversity of business interests.
J. Isaac, of the Portland Trail Blazers, is our 2011-2012 Board chair and Sandra McDonough is our Alliance President and CEO.
We serve our members by providing them with opportunities to grow their businesses, learn new skills, issue certificates of origin, support other businesses in their community and access to members' only savings and discounts.
We help our members lead their region by providing strategic partnerships and expert public-policy advocacy. We build the vitality of the Central City by operating one of the nation's oldest and most successful Downtown Improvement Districts.
Boost your business
Raise your impact
Lift your community
Join the Portland Business Alliance today.
Mission
To promote and foster an environment in the Portland region that attracts, supports and retains private sector jobs, spurs economic vitality and enables quality educational opportunities for the region's residents.
Vision
Every Portland-region resident has opportunity for a good job and a quality education.
Goals
- Private Sector Job Growth: The Alliance will drive public policies that support and create private sector investment and job development and encourage entrepreneurialism, including tax and regulatory policies that encourage rather than inhibit private sector job development.
- Economic Vitality: The Alliance will advocate for policies supporting its belief that livability for Portland-region residents starts first with a sound economy that supports both private business growth and important public services.
- Central City: The Alliance will be the leading regional advocate for a strong central city as a key component of a healthy region.
- Sustainability: The Alliance will define regional sustainability as an appropriate balance among three equally important factors: a healthy economy, an educated workforce and environmental stewardship.
- Educational Opportunity: The Alliance will be a voice for effective and diverse educational opportunities for all Oregonians, from pre-school through higher education.
- Business Support: The Alliance will offer a variety of programs and services that support Portland-region businesses, large and small, including leadership development.
Values
- Advocacy: The Alliance's primary purpose is to be an advocate for Portland-region businesses with government, with partner organizations and with the public.
- Collaboration: To achieve its goals, the Alliance will develop broad partnerships and relationships with public sector leaders, other organizations and the region's residents.
- Solution focus: The Alliance will work with others to develop solutions for regional issues impacting business and private sector job development.
- Member diversity: The Alliance membership will reflect the broad diversity of Portland-region businesses and business people, large and small, and its board leadership and programs will be representative of that diversity.
- Integrity: The Alliance will conduct its business in a manner that is honest and forthright at all times.
- Member value: The Alliance will be focused on the needs of its members, ensuring each member reaps commensurate value for its investment in the organization.
- Financial integrity: The Alliance will be fiscally responsible with its constituent funds, producing regular, transparent financial statements for board review, and will present annual independent audits for Board review.
- Great place to work: The Alliance will value and respect its employees.
Strategic Considerations
The Alliance represents Central City and regional concerns. The vitality of the
Central City and the vitality of the region depend on one another, and Portland's vibrant, growing downtown is a regional asset. As a strong business association representing both downtown and regional interests, we have a unique responsibility.
The Alliance is a strong leader and good partner. We have a natural leadership role on
Central City issues. On citywide and regional concerns, we partner with others, exercising leadership as appropriate. We collaborate on common interests with other business associations and consortiums.
The Alliance balances the interests of "big" and "small" business. We advocate for the common interests of both, which diverge only rarely. We recognize that both large and small members are essential to our success, and small business is represented at every level of informal leadership and decision-making.
The Alliance promotes advocacy, policy development and membership activities. We continually strive to find the right balance because all are important. We are the Portland Chamber of Commerce and we proudly sponsor business networking activities. We use committees wisely, making sure each is clearly charged and properly staffed.
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