Greenville Chamber Launches Leadership Pipeline and Goal Setters Programs
January 2, 2013
GREENVILLE, SC – January 2, 2013 – The Greenville Chamber’s CAPACITY initiative has launched two new programs designed to foster economic development through diversity and inclusion.
The Diversity Leadership Pipeline (DLP) is a program designed to advance women and minorities in leadership roles in the Upstate.
The Chamber is developing a database of information gathered from qualified individuals interested in serving in various leadership capacities, including nonprofit and corporate boards of directors. These diverse leaders will be in the consideration set whenever opportunities are presented to the Chamber for volunteer leadership.
According to the Chamber’s Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, Nika White, “The Diversity Leadership Pipeline is an opportunity to support corporate and non-profit organizations as well as women and minority leaders. Volunteerism and board service help to develop leadership skills. Our community is rich with diverse talent; however, many of those individuals just haven’t been presented with the opportunity to serve in a leadership position.
Further, there is merit to broadening the pool of diverse leaders to avoid the same individuals being tapped for opportunities, which limits development of other talented leaders. Diverse boards lead to better governance and the DLP is a way to facilitate that.”
Organizations in need of volunteer leadership can now utilize the DLP as a resource to match individuals to specific roles. The Chamber is currently working with a variety of organizations to develop this program, including professional groups, Leadership Greenville Alumni, United Way and corporate affinity groups.
So far, the Chamber has over 200 entries with a goal to grow the database to over 500 women and minorities interested in volunteering their time at a leadership level by the end of first quarter 2013. Individuals and organizations can access the Diversity Leadership Pipeline at http://www.greenvillechamber.org/diversity-leadership-pipeline.php.
The CAPACITY Goal Setters program is designed to track and help facilitate the development of goals for spending with minority and women-owned businesses. The Chamber is working with Upstate companies and organizations to collect and track spending with qualified minority-owned suppliers.
In seeking to increase supplier diversity efforts, Goal Setter organizations commit to setting annual spend goals, reporting actual spend dollars, and tracking progress with using diverse suppliers. In return, the Greenville Chamber commits to provide resources to assist with supplier diversity efforts, maintain confidentiality for all information shared, and to recognize companies as CAPACITY Goal Setters on the Chamber website.
Greenville Chamber President and CEO Ben Haskew notes, “Data is critical to economic growth planning. We’ve confirmed the importance of keeping score of key metrics with our annual Regional Economic Scorecard and envision the Goal Setters program as a tracking method for our business community’s diversity efforts.”
Organizations can sign on as CAPACITY Goal Setters at http://www.greenvillechamber.org/goal-setters.php.
About CAPACITY, the Greenville Chamber’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiative
CAPACITY is the Greenville Chamber’s initiative designed to foster economic development through diversity and inclusion.
Building capacity refers to strengthening the skills, competencies and abilities of people and communities. Growth can only be sustained by its structure. The CAPACITY initiative facilitates building structure within the community to increase capacity, enhance economic development and create leadership opportunities for diverse business owners and professionals.
Learn more at http://www.greenvillechamber.org/diversity-inclusion.php.
About the Greenville Chamber
The Greenville Chamber is the largest business organization in the Upstate. The Chamber’s mission is to build one of the premier business communities in the world by leading through collaboration, building community prosperity, being the voice of business, and enhancing quality of life. For more information about the Greenville Chamber, call 864-242-1050, or visit www.greenvillechamber.org.
