Local consulting company lands project to launch a Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry
A Greenville company specializing in Chamber of Commerce membership development has been selected to assist on a Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI) project.
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) is coordinating the three-year project, which is funded by the British government. To date, the project has created a foundation for the organization and recruitment of 350 members in the two countries. The project was established to “promote better cross border business relations and implementation of a key regional trade deal,” CIPE said.
Membership180 was contacted by CIPE management requesting that they submit a proposal based on its owners’ unique skillset.
Owners Annette Medlin and Jay Handler said they use their diverse backgrounds to assist chambers of commerce across the U.S. gain new members.
Traditionally chambers have gotten new members via fundraising, but “that doesn’t keep members,” Handler said. Membership180 provides a structure for sustainability and retaining members long term, not just “renting bodies for a year.”
Medlin and Handler will spend the next four months working to accelerate PAJCCI’s membership development efforts and help the organization create a sustainable financial future. This is Membership180’s first client overseas.
The team will work onsite with project staff in Washington, D.C, Handler said. They then will spend two weeks on the ground in Karachi and Kabul to evaluate the organization’s current membership recruitment and retention approach, identify potential market opportunities in Afghanistan and Pakistan and train PAJCCI staff to meet the project’s membership recruitment and retention goals.
“We know what chambers across the U.S. will do to bring in revenue, but we don’t know what the Afghanistan and Pakistan business owners will do,” says Handler. Once the duo conducts their initial assessment, they will come home to design a plan and then return to Dubai in January to conduct training.
“We are committed to the work of helping chambers of commerce grow sustainably,” Medlin said. “We love getting to know our clients and their successes and challenges and helping them craft solutions that work for them. The opportunity to take our philosophy not only to a unique organization, but one that is in a completely different culture is a career pinnacle for us.”
“It’s such a rewarding bit of work whether we are doing it in Richardson, TX, Greenville, SC or Pakistan,” said Handler. “We’re helping build communities and businesses for the future.”
