Chamber Remade
By Fredrick McKissack
Ink Spot Managing Editor
New billboards for the Fort Wayne Black Chamber of Commerce and a redesigned website are just the beginning of some evolutionary changes set for the organization, said Ramadan Abdul-Azeez, the organization’s president.
It's been a meteoric ascension to the volunteer position for Abdul-Azzez, a tech entrepreneur who joined the chamber in January 2020. All of this is to increase both the chamber's visibility, viability, and membership, which currently has 70 members on the books.
"The rebranding effort started in early 2020," said Abdul-Azeez. "We realized that we needed to improve our message to the black community and black businesses at large."
By becoming a facilitator, the chamber, founded in 2012, wants to connect its members to banks, financial resources, and other support organizations in Fort Wayne, the state, and across the country. The message is that the chamber is a business, albeit a non-profit, that provides an array of services to its customers.
"The first thing to do was the website and bring it up to have a much more modern look to the previous website, which was fairly static and not very appealing to the eye," Abdul-Azeez said.
The chamber commissioned Fallback Media, a Black-owned marketing consultancy to build a site that would be both stylish and functional.
"We improved the site by moving to a different platform and making the site a lot more dynamic in the type of information that we were wanting to convey," Abdul-Azeez said. "It was my strong belief that those that saw a desire or need to become members of the Black Chamber of Commerce would want to join on the spot. So, our website includes a member portal that allows people to join right at the website, at the touch of a button."
Membership costs listed on its website are $500 for businesses with 50 or more employees; $200 for those with fewer than 50 employees or $100 for an individual.
A directory of black businesses provides a physical compendium.
In the near term, Abdul-Azeez would like to conduct a funded survey on how Black-owned businesses work with each other. Given that the next few decades could see technological advances in transportation, communications, medicine, education, home heating, and cooling, and even what and how we eat, Abdul-Azeez believes the chamber cannot be one-dimensional and serve its members well.
"I'm challenging myself and the organization to think bigger and broader, about what we can do for the black business community," he said.
In its rebranding initiative, the chamber is holding community economic forums. The public is invited to an October 20 event at the Public Safety Academy to learn about "Wealth Building in the 21st Century." Beginning at 6:30 pm, this one-hour session will include members from Edward D. Jones and other financial institutions who will discuss ways of developing sustainable growth. The academy is located at 7602 Patriot Crossing.