Thinking bigger about your chamber's impact

Martin Manna: I see a lot of these chambers that are just kind of in this circle mode. They'll have a networking event. They'll have a ribbon cutting. Those are the smallest parts of our business. We look at this as a business and every event that we have, it's always back immediately. Why was this event important? How did it improve the lives of our members? Did they make meaningful connections? And if they didn't, we'll have a different type of event. We're always reinventing ourselves.

And in this day and age with AI and all this technology, we have to get ahead of the curve. Now, we're really focused on making sure our members stories are being told. Social media is free. Bring in a social media guru, put them everywhere. You know how valuable that is. But I could tell you, it's about making sure that you're impacting the businesses that you're serving or the municipality that you're a part of.

Ted Wind: Hi, I'm Ted and I build software for chambers of commerce. For the past decade, chamber tools were all built the same way. One clunky system for every chamber. But if I've learned one thing, it's that no two chambers are alike. That's why on this show, we go beyond the ribbon cut with top chamber leaders to share the unique programs, processes, and what makes their chamber work, and to give you new ideas you can take back to your chamber. This is Beyond the Ribbon Cut.

Hello and welcome back to Beyond the Ribbon Cut, the podcast for chamber leaders. I'm your host, Ted Wind from Diagonal for Chambers, and my guest today is Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce in Michigan. Martin, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Martin Manna: It's great to be with you, Ted.

Ted Wind: Thanks for hopping on. So, to kick us off, paint us a picture. What is the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce and who is the community behind it?

Martin Manna: Yeah, look, the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce was founded really in 2003. We had an image problem here in Metro Detroit. People didn't really understand what a Chaldean was. The US invaded Iraq. We had challenges in the city of Detroit with the government there. Our stores were being raided. And so we knew we had to address this public relations disaster of what uh people maybe understood to what a Chaldean might be or what contributions they're making in this region.

So there was a small committee led by a man by the name of Sabah Hermes and Dave Nona and a steering committee which I was a part of that met and said that we had to do something really to improve the image of the Chaldean community. And so the Chaldean American Chamber was born and that year and the US invasion of Iraq also really shaped our future because it was at that time we went from 1.5 million Chaldeans or Christians in Iraq to fewer than 150,000 today. It kind of led to the systematic challenges and all of the various genocides and displacements that took place in that country against Christians and other minorities.

And now Michigan, if you don't know, is the largest concentration of Chaldeans in the world. Some 200,000 almost that contribute 18 billion dollars to the economy. But before all that, we really wanted to just help people understand what a Chaldean was. That were indigenous to Iraq, that our native tongue is Aramaic, and historically we've always been farmers and merchants. And given religious and economic freedom, our people are dispersed throughout the world. They were very highly successful entrepreneurs.

So the chamber was launched at that time really become a public relations voice for the Chaldean community and addressed the ongoing concerns that existed in dealing with our business people.

Ted Wind: Mhm. And you mentioned there that a large percentage of Chaldeans are entrepreneurs, business owners. What is the kind of breakup of businesses kind of look like in the community that you serve?

Martin Manna: People from the Middle East sometimes tend to exaggerate numbers. So we have studies done every few years with a partner. So the most recent was with the Walsh College. We've done them also with the University of Michigan Dearborn. We've done them with United Way. But the survey came back not only on the size of the community but also addressed uh entrepreneurship.

So it was something along the lines of almost 60% of our households own at least one business. Nearly 40% own two or more. So it is a community of entrepreneurs and when I see we're historically farmers and merchants people always are trying to understand why do Chaldeans have these different concentrations of business right and so Chaldeans were historically merchants and beer and alcohol go back to the beginning of time to Mesopotamia which is today Iraq and Chaldeans always owned liquor stores or alcohol type of businesses because Islam forbid the sale and consumption of alcohol So the Christians always own those types of businesses in the Middle East, specifically also in Iraq.

And so here in Metro Detroit, we own a lot of independent convenience stores. Most of the independent supermarkets are Chaldean-owned. We have a big concentration in hotels. The wireless industry development. And you know if we start looking digging deeper into these numbers you'll see that the city of Detroit for example maybe 70 out of the 85 independent supermarkets are owned by the community. Before the Chaldeans they were owned by the Jewish community. Before the Jewish community was the Italian community. So we form occupational patterns like other immigrant communities.

And then we own a lot of suburban gas stations, not so much in the city, but in the suburbs because they really become convenience stores with gas. And then I talked a lot about development, multifamily. We'll take the city of Birmingham for example. Greater than 50% of those buildings in downtown Birmingham now are owned by members of our community. So that's just a snapshot of what's one municipality here in Southeast Michigan.

Ted Wind: Wow. That's incredibly interesting. And the other thing I want to point out too is not all your members are Chaldean though, right? It's around like 30% of of your membership base isn't. What is bringing them through the door?

Martin Manna: So we have a great community. I think a lot of partnerships, but it's our whole mission is to serve our members more than anything else. You know, it's building business, building relationships, building community. Very simple. And it doesn't matter if you're Chaldean or not. We are active in many local governments, many municipalities at the state level and attract members from all different backgrounds. Either they want to do business with the community or they want to be part of a growing chamber. Yes, we're still growing quite significantly. We've never had a higher membership base and connect with them. So, it was 30% I think it's closer to 35 to 40% now of our membership is non-Chaldean. We have some 200 corporate members and so that's a lot of the local Fortune 500 companies, the big companies here in Metropolitan Detroit and also folks from a diverse backgrounds uh who either are business owners or professionals that want to network or communicate with our membership base or community.

Ted Wind: Wow. Wow. That's incredible. Now, before we get into the the meat of today's episode, I'd love if we could share and learn a little bit more about you, Martin. As you mentioned, a 15 person steering committee launched the chamber back in 2003. That was actually the year I was born. So, you've been in this game for as long as I've been alive. Along the way, you became co-publisher of the Chaldean News and president of the Chaldean Community Foundation. Can you just walk us through that journey?

Martin Manna: Yeah, look, I'll take you back in high school. I went to career day one at one point and like other young Chaldeans, I mean, we were taught how to run a business. So, while maybe our friends were having a great time after school, I'd have to go and work at our family-owned business. And I really disliked it. I mean, I was so angry that I had to go to work every day while my friends were enjoying other things. But you look back and although we're running a liquor store, I learned how to communicate with people. I learned inventory management. I learned what a balance sheet is. I learned profit and loss. That's hands-on experience no college can ever teach you.

But it also helped me understand that I don't want to ever own a store. And so I made it a point to go to college and get a finance degree. When in high school career day, I just looked up the top paying jobs. who was doctor, lawyer, and stockbroker. So, I said, I don't want to be those other two. I became a stock broker.

And we have a very close-knit community. And I joined the likes of a company called PaineWebber, which today is UBS. And I did very well. I started while I was in college telemarketing, cold calling. I then became an assistant to the manager. I then was part of operations. I became the cashier, the wire operator. All those things were a little different back then. And eventually passed the exam and I became a stock broker.

And so for the first two years, I was the number one stock broker in my class for the country and had like $50 million under management. Our branch manager passed away suddenly. A lot of the guys didn't like the new fella. So they told me to go over to Morgan Stanley. These guys gave me a lot of money to do so.

I took the $250,000 and I made it a million and a half dollars and I was living large and then the market crashed. I lost all that money plus another half a million dollars and I really prayed for guidance and direction and I knew at that point my wife loved me because this is now 2001. She stayed with me and I really was focused on a lot of what I was doing already with our church and community.

And so after all that I started a little marketing company. I managed the affairs of the Chaldean American Chamber as an association management. I did it also for the Greektown merchants, but it also gave me the ability to think outside the box. We launched the first Chaldean Community Bank, the Bank of Michigan. I got in touch with some friends along with some of my colleagues in the community with the Jewish News and we mirrored what they're doing with the Jewish News and launched the Chaldean News.

And so what's happened though ever since then, I thought I'd always be a serial entrepreneur is the chamber just grew so quickly and here I am 20-something years later still in this position.

Ted Wind: That's incredible. Wow. What a what a story. I think something that is a throughline from all the chamber leaders that we've had on the show is no matter what the background was and oftentimes like your story it was completely outside of the chamber world once you step into the space of becoming a chamber leader it just like there's something about it just pulls you in and draws you in and now know like you said what 20 27 years now you're here still leading the chamber so that's really really incredible Now, today and part of the reason I'm really excited to have you on the show, Martin, is to talk a little bit about your foundation. Chambers minds right now. Your chamber built a foundation that helps families find housing, learn English, become citizens, see a doctor, etc. What and why does that work belong at a chamber?

Martin Manna: Yeah, look, we were partners early on with the Detroit Regional Chamber and knew that they had a foundation. I serve on the Michigan Chamber of Commerce board. They all have a foundation, but it was a little different for us. We're not a geographic chamber. We're ethnic. And I mentioned it was the same year the US invaded Iraq.

So, we were getting quite a large influx of refugees. But the real reason unfortunately we started a foundation is we needed a 501c3 because more than 100 Chaldeans were killed in their place of business.

So after a taxi cab driver and a crab fisherman a store clerk is the third deadliest job in America and about 100 members of our community were killed. So early on even with the chamber we wanted to postreward money through Crimestoppers to identify the perpetrators bring them to justice bring some relief to the family and that's how we started the Chaldean Chamber Foundation initially but quickly we had a large influx of refugees and we knew that we had to serve them.

So we opened up a little shop in Sterling Heights. We wrote a grant to serve 400 people through the Chaldean Community Foundation at the time and 4,000 people walked through the doors.

Today that little 1,100 square foot facility is now 30,000 plus in a new building we created and had a capital campaign for and serves more than 52,000 people annually from 68 different countries of origin. Another example that our focus even at the foundation is service. The foundation led helps the chamber in many ways, right? So the foundation is the one that would work with these university and commission a survey for the chamber. The foundation will create these health needs assessments for the community. It was a just a bigger broader way for us to support and serve our growing community.

And now, as I mentioned, uh about a thousand people a week, access to health care, we do career services, we do job placement, which is a great partnership with the Chaldean Chamber cuz all of our members now have the ability to use our foundation that we could find people to fill jobs that they're looking for.

We have a loan fund. If we find you a job, we'll give you a car. We'll give you a loan as long as you have a job and you stay there to pay it back. We help now almost 2,000 clients with intellectual developmental disabilities.

We've recently taken on attainable housing. We just finished a $31 million affordable housing project in Sterling Heights. We have a phase 2 starting this upcoming spring, 135 units. We're adding another 30 that's almost 90% occupied. It just finished a few months ago. And it just goes back again to this building community, but more importantly, we have empathy for everyone that walks through our door. We're focused on service, and there's really no greater gift in this world if you're able to help others.

Ted Wind: I love that. That's really, really incredible. And you touched on something there in the beginning of the foundation's history. It was originally kind of centered around donations, especially for helping with the kind of Crimestoppers initiative, right? How is the foundation funded today? Is it mostly like grants, government contracts? Is it still mostly kind of individual donations from members, non-members? What does that breakdown look like?

Martin Manna: Yeah, it's a great question, Ted. So, we had to figure out quickly how to raise money. The Chaldean Catholic community supports the church, and they should. We have 10 Chaldean Catholic churches. They're robust. They're growing. We're acquiring additional churches, but there's uh challenges when it came to fundraising. We had to teach philanthropy to the community.

And so that really started when people were coming to our facility in Sterling Heights and they would see people lined up outside because we had nowhere to put them, right? When people still come to our facilities and they see that we're helping people, it's the easiest ask in the world because they're asking us how they can help.

And so it's also a tale of two communities. We have a newer community in Macomb County, right? They're generation behind the Chaldean community in Oakland County. So while we're serving people mainly in Macomb, it's the Oakland County community that's really helping support us.

So we went from a $3 million campaign to a $10 million capital campaign to now 20 million. And we've raised 19 of the 20 million. And so now you're talking about what's our next phase, right? We're 23 years in or whatever it might be. And it's succession planning. Martin's not going to be here forever. It's endowment to ensure that the next generation has the ability to get these services or support other communities and it's also looking at where our communities headed.

So we talk about these two communities and Sterling Heights office. We're teaching English and the office here in West Bloomfield. It's all about preservation. The building here in West Bloomfield is a Chaldean museum coming. It's a library that's housing all of our historical manuscripts. It's a radio studio, podcast studio with grandchildren interviewing their grandparents. It's a way for us to maintain our historic native language, which is Aramaic, the language of Christ, because we are are acting as if we won't have much of a future in Iraq at some point. And if we don't preserve it here, then our identity eventually will fade.

Ted Wind: Wow. And you touched on the Sterling Heights Center, which is something I wanted to bring up as well. You mentioned the language learning there, the podcast studio, which is great. A lot of these programs. Could you walk us through in a little bit more detail what actually is going on inside on a normal Tuesday?

Martin Manna: Yeah, in Sterling Heights, we'll have 100 or 200 people walk in and they'll come in for a variety of services.

Now that school's back, we also have three classrooms. So, we're doing early childhood. So, we want to from cradle to grave now is our mission. How can we serve the the community? So, you'll walk in, people might be coming in for a variety of service. It could be immigration. It could be unemployment services. It could be access to health care. It might be that they're having a problem in Sterling Heights or Warren or any other municipality and they need us to help get through that.

Resume writing, job placement, enrollment in college, financial aid applications, behavioral health. We have full-time therapists on staff. Again, offering guardianships and other type of case management for those with intellectual developmental disabilities.

We have a little Main Street phenomenal corporate partners. Again, you talk about the relationship. We have a Supercuts salon and we provide free haircuts to autistic children. We have a little area that's called First Merchants Bank. So then we have ceremonial signing for people who are getting loans from our organization.

We have gymnasium for after-school activities. But the gym also hosts like the National Civics Bee competition there that we do with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. We host a breakfast of nations. We host a lot of programs that are for the entire general community.

And the Sterling Heights Center, by the way, is an early voting center. And for the first time, we had great turnout. We were the fourth busiest early voting center in the whole state of Michigan as people were engaged because they're able to come to a place that they're familiar with.

Ted Wind: I mean, I think a that's just incredible the number of offerings that you're providing to members or to not just members, but just to the community, right? The other thing that's really interesting about that is a lot of those things you mentioned, especially around like you mentioned the the resume, the resume workshops, the classes, getting involved with Main Street, the corporate partners. These are services that are looping straight back into your member businesses, right? Through the career services, through the workforce pipeline. Is that something that you guys really like push to member businesses as another value-add that the chamber provides?

Martin Manna: Well, if you look at our corporate members, especially the financial institutions, we're running financial literacy courses there all the time, right? And they have to do that in as part of their mission. So, that's one example. But our members, forget the dues they're paying and all the support they give us. Imagine they're also sending these salons are sending people to our facility to cut hair and never asking for a dollar or to participate in volunteering with their employees. We try to help them as best as we can, but frankly, they've been the biggest gift to us more than anything.

Ted Wind: That's incredible. And I mean, I just think we had Jason Rae recently from the Wisconsin LGBT Chamber on the show, and he was talking a lot about that importance of those corporate partnerships, but also individual kind of member partnerships and how engaging those and getting them engaged with the chamber through volunteer work is like one of the most powerful things you can do. So I think that's really really incredible there. You're obviously operating alongside a bunch of other different organizations here, whether that's social service agencies, county governments, the big regional chambers, right? I know you've got a formal partnership with the Michigan Chamber as well. How do you do all this work without stepping on toes of some of these other organizations?

Martin Manna: We do a lot of collaboration and if any of them are interested, we're happy to do it, right? But not everybody wants to play well together. And we're not really focused on what anybody else is doing. We're just really focused on serving people. And I've said that a few times. But I think over the years, people didn't really understand who we are or what we're doing. And as we've grown and people have become big investors in our work and supporters, I think many have realized that uh this is an organization that they want to partner with.

So, a lot of our events now, every chamber does networking, but it's better for us when we're doing it with the Detroit Regional Chamber, the Michigan Chamber, or some of these local regional chambers. There's also an ethnic coordinating council. Sometimes we get with them. We do stuff with the county chambers as well in areas in which we have a large presence.

And then we do a lot of local, our big push this year has been local investment in local municipalities. So, I give you one example. We just stuffed a bus in Southfield with Kroger. We're doing some things in a lot of other local municipalities with our members supporting law enforcement. And so while these guys are our members, all we're doing is getting them to be more engaged and involved.

And the first bit of advice we give to anybody who joins is to also join their local geographic chamber. And we can't do for them what maybe someone in the industry chamber or the local chambers can do. But I can tell you, we've developed a network of contacts like no other organization. And we tell them they're not for Martin. They're not for our staff. They're for our members. And we connect the dots. The reason we're successful is we solve people's problems. We make connections when they need them. And we don't always get the right answer, but if they have a problem with MDOT or EGLE or any of the state agencies, chances are we know the directors now and at least they'll listen to us.

Ted Wind: Mhm. 100%. And another thing that I think is so incredible about your chamber is, you know, it's not just the relationships with some of these state groups. You're also kind of exporting and expanding the chamber's presence. I know recently you were out in California, so looking at expanding the chamber's presence out there, launching a West Coast chapter. Why are you thinking about expansion and is also doing this kind of additional time? what gets copied versus kind of built locally in these additional communities.

Martin Manna: Yeah, great question. Initially, it was just because I wanted to spend January through March in San Diego, but that didn't work. We have our second largest community is in is Southern California in San Diego. So, it was the US Navy that recruited uh members of the Chaldean community because they needed translators. And now we have more than 100,000 Chaldeans living there. And they're very successful.

We tried this before. We didn't really figure it out. I mean, we had a lot of different variations. What we figured out works best for us is a chapter model. And so, we hire the executive director. There's an advisory chapter board, but all of the backend, the financing, HR is run through the corporation here in Detroit. And that works for us because we're in protecting the integrity of the organization, the brand really that we built.

And frankly, I mean, this is not 2003. We're running at north of $20 million in some years on an annual budget and nearing 80 to 100 million in assets. So, we wanted to protect that, but also connect our community throughout the country.

One big frustration is we haven't figured out the federal side of this yet. While most of the Michigan delegation loves Chaldeans, we don't have champions at the federal level. We're just too small of a community. And that frustrates us when we're trying to advocate for minority populations, specifically Christians in the Middle East who have been persecuted for so long. We think by connecting with California and maybe some other areas in the country where we have a presence, it'll help us build a broader network that we could then collectively use to work on advocacy in Washington.

Ted Wind: Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense there. I think another piece of the puzzle too that would be helpful for chamber leaders listening is along this journey, right? How does the C6 of the chamber and the C3 of the foundation kind of play together?

Martin Manna: Yeah. So, I told you a little bit about the services we offer through the C3. So, I know you asked about funding. We get a lot of fundraising from our corporations. So, you talk mainly about the local banks here. They do so much business with the community. One of the local banks once told me, he's a very large bank. He said, "And 80% of our loan portfolio is with Chaldeans." And my immediate response was, "You're not giving us enough support." But those corporations have been very supportive. We do get some state funding as it pertains to providing health and human services. And then there's also a lot of foundations that have provided us support.

We're one of only 11 organizations out of a hundred that were initially selected, then down to 30 that receive funding from the Michigan Central Station Children's Endowment Initiative. It's a million and a half dollars, but it's to provide services to youth and children. And we do that through our early childhood program and everything else.

But the foundation really now helps feed a lot of the activities of the chamber because we have the resources at the foundation. We have 100 employees, 85 work for the foundation, about 15 for the chamber.

Ted Wind: Wow. And as far as kind of measuring the impact of a foundation, I think one thing that's often intimidating for chamber leaders as they're growing and expanding their foundations is impact is a little bit harder to measure, especially when a lot of the foundations programs take just so much longer and the time horizons are just really spread out there. How do you go about effectively communicating that both to your members but also to your board?

Martin Manna: I learned at a young age, you may have known or heard of Senator Carl Levin and Carl Levin was probably one of the greatest senators in this country. I remember sitting in front of him at a young age with who was then the godfather of the Chaldean community. And I went with him to a meeting to see Senator Levin. And I said, I was talking about the challenges Christians were facing in Iraq, specifically in some of our historic villages. And Senator Levin looked at Mike George at the time, and he told him, "Is this the new guy? Is he going to be the guy?" And I didn't know what was going on. And Mike's like, "Yeah, this is going to be the guy."

And he looked at me, he said, "Son, right after this meeting, I'm going on to another one." He goes, "I see people every 15 minutes." He goes, "So when you come to see someone like me, one-page memo of what the problem is and what you want me to do to help." And I learned at that point.

So here we are 20-some years later, Ted, and I'll show you. I should pull them up for you. The foundation has a one-page infograph. How many people we serve, the impact we've made to the region, how much money we've been fundraising, what our economic impact is.

The chamber, the same thing. how many members we have, how many people attend our events, what's the economic contributions this community is making. All of those numbers are very simple. It's front is the impact, the back is the summary of those programs and activities. If you want to read more,

Ted Wind: I love that the KISS kind of metaphor, right? Keep it simple, stupid, right? Like the more clearly you can easily show impact value. A lot of times we see chambers do this on your kind of renewals, right? You attach a little PDF documents. It's that similar infograph. So I think that's super valuable there. We covered a lot of great stuff on today's episode, Martin, but I just want to bring it back for the smaller chambers that are listening. We talked about a lot of these incredible programs and I think that's so inspiring. But a lot of chambers hear that. all of these different programs, all of the money you've raised, the size and scale of the team here, and it's just like there's no way we could ever do something like this at our chamber. For the smaller maybe geographic chamber staff that's listening, they're considering launching a foundation, where should they get started?

Martin Manna: Yeah, we have um we just help the Albanian Chamber of Commerce get started. Every 3 or 4 months a different group comes in to see us and we'll spend as much time as we can supporting them.

But you have to understand what's your impact going to be. I was 5 6 years ago sitting with our most esteemed members of the community, our biggest supporters, right? Chamber members really have a lot of influence in the Chaldean community. And I thought we were doing great as a chamber. And they said, "You know what, Martin, you're not thinking big enough." And I was like, "Holy crap, I was thinking too much of myself really."

And it was that conversation that said, you know what? We now have to solve the major issues that are impacting our community. And we've solved pretty much all of them except Iraq. No one will ever solve the Middle East.

So, I think we get a free pass there. But if I'm a new chamber, what is the issue first? What are you trying to solve? What problems are you trying to solve? And if you're a geographic chamber, what kind of impact can you make?

I see a lot of these chambers that are just kind of in this circle mode, right? They'll have a networking event. They'll have a ribbon cutting. Those are the smallest parts of our business. You know, we look at this as a business and every event that we have, it's always backed immediately. Why was this event important? How did it improve the lives of our members? Did they make meaningful connections? And if they didn't, we'll have a different type of event. We're always reinventing ourselves.

And in this day and age with AI and all this technology, we have to get ahead of the curve. Now, we're really focused on making sure our members stories are being told. Social media is free. Bring in a social media guru, put them everywhere. You know how valuable that is. But I could tell you, it's about making sure that you're impacting the businesses that you're serving or the municipality that you're a part of, right?

And so if I'm a regional chamber or I'm a local chamber, maybe your whole stick is getting the business community to support a walking path or doing something else. I don't know. But you have to look at what will have meaningful impact and for the membership that you're actually serving.

Ted Wind: Mhm. 100%. I couldn't agree more with you, Martin. I think being unafraid to take risks and innovate and you know not just the same 10th anniversary gala or ribbon cutting over and over again. It's the reason why the show is called Beyond the Ribbon Cut is we want to help promote stories of more chambers doing things like that. So I think that is just incredible incredible advice. That of course brings us to the last question of every show. I think you know what's coming here Martin. What's one last piece of advice you'd give to the other chamber leaders listening in at home?

Martin Manna: Collaborate as best as you can because when you collaborate, you're learning what is the best from others. And for us, I never ran a chamber. I never ran a foundation. I was never involved in a nonprofit. And the buildings that we have built, all I did was take the best from all the others. So look at what others are doing and let that become your best practice. Right? What our organization is really is you look at our foundation. We look at what other wonderful organizations that have been successful and as we're incorporated that it's okay to emulate something that's successful and tailor it to your specific community.

Ted Wind: I love that. Absolutely. And I think if there's one takeaway from today's episode, it it is that kind of core piece and the core throughline that we touched on throughout just making a impact in your community, making an impact for your members, not being afraid to innovate, going beyond the ribbon cut, right? I think that's so incredible. Like I said, the work you've done through the foundation is, you know, we've had a lot of we've had a lot of chamber guests on the show. It's really, really incredible stuff.

So, it's been an honor to have you on the show, Martin. Thank you so much. And to everyone listening, thanks for tuning in to Beyond the Ribbon Cut. We'll see you on the next one.