Madison Area Chamber of Commerce Receives Two Communications Excellence Awards

Awarded for their website excellence, and innovative new idea for Ca$h Mob Initiative.

The Madison Area Chamber of Commerce Received two Communications Excellence Awards from the Indiana Chamber Executives Association (ICEA) at the 2020 ICEA Conference in Plainfield, IN. The Conference, which is normally a three-day event, was consolidated into a daylong session in three different locations due to COVID-19. The awards received recognized the Madison Area Chamber of Commerce for their Website Excellence and their Innovative New Idea for their CA$H Mob initiative.
 
            The award for Website Excellence not only commended their website overall but highlighted their Coronavirus information page. The page was created to help the Madison Area Community Members navigate the COVID-19 crisis including federal, state, and local updates, financial assistance programs, employer assistance, unemployment information, resiliency kits, and more. The page was heavily used by the community and was praised at the conference for its ability to help lead community members through the COVID-19 shutdown. Since, the Chamber has focused on revamping the rest of its overall website to be more aesthetically pleasing and as informational and easy to navigate as the Coronavirus page. The new website plans to launch in early August of this year. 
 
            The award for Innovative New Idea, commended the Chamber for their CA$H Mob Initiative. In January of 2020, the Madison Area Chamber of Commerce partnered with Yiftee to create an e-gift card program, to replace the Chamber’s Good Cents Gift Certificate program. This new program allows community members to purchase and shop with Chamber gift card money via their phones all while supporting local businesses. The Chamber then incorporated the community e-gift card into the CA$H Mob program, which focusses on one local business at a time, surprises the business’s owner, and “mobs” the business with cash, meaning locals frequent that store for the event, using their Chamber e-gift card money. So far, the Chamber has completed four CA$H MOBs, with one being virtual, and the local businesses involved had an average of over $700 in sales in the 40-minute event. 
 
In addition to the two awards received, Cassey Higdon, Member Services Specialist for the Madison Area Chamber of Commerce received her certificate of completion from the ICEA’s Hoosier Chamber Academy, a sixteen-hour program of study on Chamber of Commerce management.