Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”
In many ways, Bemidji has always had to fight above its weight. Because of our historic economic distress and limited resources as a greater Minnesota regional center, we have learned by necessity to work together.
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Simply put — we have to work together to get big things done. But recently I have come to believe that our ability to work together is more than a necessity, it is our greatest competitive advantage.
Case in point: the Bemidji Alliance.
Just short of five years ago, the leadership at Greater Bemidji, the Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce, the Bemidji Downtown Alliance and Visit Bemidji came together to lay a foundation for working together.
Dubbed the Bemidji Alliance, our partnership began with the realization and acknowledgment that we have a shared mission — to support Bemidji’s growth as a regional center. We are all in service to you — our community.
To be honest, our organizations have not always worked well together. Our pasts are littered with turf wars, personality conflicts and intentionally working in silos. We might have worked together and aligned on projects here or there, but once the project was done, we went our separate ways.
Yet the holy grail of collaboration is alignment at the strategic level. If you can agree on where you are headed, working together to get there becomes so much easier.
That’s why the sole purpose of creating the Bemidji Alliance was just that — to align our organizations behind a common strategic direction for our region. Because of the Bemidji Alliance, we now have that alignment, and as a result, the collaboration among our organizations is at an all-time high. The beneficiary of that alignment and collaboration is you — our community.
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Highlighting our partners
Each of the partner organizations in the Bemidji Alliance are doing incredible work. I’m so proud to be partners with them. I’d like to honor their leadership by highlighting their work.
Let’s start with the Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber’s mission is to serve its members and advocate for the business community. With strong leadership from the board and staff, the Chamber has really transformed itself over the past several years.
Its membership keeps growing — with an increase of over 60 members just this year. That kind of growth only happens when you are making a difference. The Chamber provides opportunities for businesses to network and learn from each other, including the popular Chamber After Hours socials. Quietly, the Chamber’s Young Professionals Network — which seeks to inspire and encourage our region’s emerging leaders — has grown to 75 members. The Chamber is doing outstanding work.
Visit Bemidji has made quite an impact over the past few months. The mission of Visit Bemidji is to encourage tourism in our region. They exhibited at the Minnesota State Fair and were recognized as one of the State Fair’s best. Out of the over 1,000 vendors, Visit Bemidji was one of 12 that were recognized as exceptional. If you were there and saw the exhibit and Visit Bemidji team in action, you know that the 1.8 million fair-goers were left with a great impression of Bemidji.
In addition, Visit Bemidji has hosted two national conferences back-to-back. They recently wrapped up the Mississippi Rivers, Cities and Towns Initiative national conference, welcoming mayors and guests from all along the Mississippi River to our region.
They are currently hosting the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers — introducing them to our tremendous natural resources. The value of having our region front-of-mind with outdoor media writers and personalities can’t be overstated.
The Bemidji Downtown Alliance works to build a vibrant downtown and we all know “it’s everyone’s downtown.” They have transformed themselves over the past few years, and the change is evident in the vibrancy of our downtown. They have hosted two downtown vendor markets this summer, created an interactive downtown guide and updated the downtown kiosks — all with volunteers. Our downtown has never been more beautiful or more vibrant.
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My organization — Greater Bemidji — continues to work to drive development and private investment in the region. We provide free support to our region’s small businesses and startups — providing them with the support and resources they need to be successful. We support expanding companies in the region and recruit new companies (Delta Dental being a recent example).
We also take on big “place-making” initiatives — most recently the proposed sports and wellness complex. Our goal is simply to build the region into the state’s emerging regional center.
Recently, the Bemidji Alliance welcomed 218 Sports into the partnership. The goal of 218 Sports is simple — to drive economic growth through additional sports tourism. Simply put, let’s host more tournaments, increasing the economic impact on our community and keeping our kids and families at home on weekends as much as possible. I have no doubt that 218 Sports will be a strong partner in supporting our community.
Whether it’s the Chamber, Visit Bemidji, Bemidji Downtown Alliance, Greater Bemidji or 218 Sports, YOUR organizations are serving you well. They work behind the scenes and often don’t get the tip of the hat they deserve.
I’m proud that the Bemidji Alliance partners have become a model of collaboration — supporting each other, working together, sharing staff and resources — all to better serve the greater Bemidji region.
Strategic alignment does not just happen. It takes strong leadership. For those leaders who had the foresight to drive the creation of the Bemidji Alliance and for my partner organizations who live out the Bemidji Alliance culture every day, I say “thank you.”
Our ability in Bemidji to work together — public, private and nonprofits — is our competitive advantage and the ticket to a better and stronger region.
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Dave Hengel is the executive director of Greater Bemidji Economic Development. He can be reached at (218) 444-5757 or dhengel@greaterbemidji.com.
The Trust Project
