The Chamber Nonprofit and Business Partners Council is an information and networking organization with a goal of strengthening collaboration to build capacity of non-profits, and to showcase their impact on the economy and quality of life in the Lehigh Valley. 

Through networking, training and other programming, the group brings together the non-profit sector and business partners so that relationships can be formed, information can be shared, and everyone can benefit. There are more than 450 chamber member non-profit organizations and more than 6,000 businesses with over 200,000 employees that are all members of the chamber.  The Chamber Nonprofit and Business Partners Council is the largest in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and seventh largest in the United States.

Many businesses have employees that volunteer and/or are board members of these NPO's. The council has volunteer leaders representing for-profit and for-good organizations, both big and small, with geographic representation, diverse skills and experience, as well as organizational representatives from the arts, education, environment, health and human services. 

Monthly events help to nurture relationships, and introduce new ones -- the group often partners with others to present expert advice on subjects such as ethical giving, social responsibility, impact hubs, partnerships and mergers, EITC tax credits, 990 preparation, best practices for hiring interns, marketing and board development.

The group also presents an annual Collaboration Award during a conference held in the spring.  Previous winners were the Volunteer Center and Building 21 Allentown.  Let the council know of individuals or groups who have shown exemplary collaboration so that they can be highlighted. This signature event brings together an audience of elected officials, businesses and non-profits, with presentations from a nationally recognized speaker as well as local experts. 

The council is excited to bring keynote Vu Lee to the Lehigh Valley on April 25, 2018. Vu Le ("voo lay") is a writer, speaker, vegan, Pisces and the executive director of Rainier Valley Corp., in Seattle.  His passion to make the world better, combined with a low score on the Law School Admission Test, drove him into the field of non-profit work, where he learned that we should take the work seriously, but not ourselves. 

There's tons of humor in the non-profit world and someone needs to document it. He is going to do that, with the hope that one day, a TV producer will see how cool and interesting the field is and make a sitcom about non-profit work, featuring attractive actors attending strategic planning meetings and filing 990 tax forms. Known for his no-BS approach, irreverent sense of humor, and love of unicorns, Le has been featured in dozens, if not hundreds, of his own blog posts at nonprofitwithballs.com. 

For more information or get connected contact Lorie Reinert, staff liaison for the Chamber [email protected].