Bonita Chamber surveys its membership

The Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce is measuring the pulse of the small business community.

The chamber sent out more than 1,500 surveys recently to figure out what concerns local business owners during a sluggish economy and problems with affordable housing and health care.

“Our intention is to trend some of the impact in the community,” said Nancy Keefer, the chamber’s president. “The results are relative to what's on people’s minds at the time.”

And, members were able to provide opinions on questions about workforce needs, growth issues, law enforcement and business conditions.

“The questions we narrowed down to issues that affect businesses and the topics that continually rise to the top that need attention,” said Keefer about the survey that was put together by a chamber committee. “We do this at the same time of the year with the exact same questions to get good trends.”

The trends the chamber is seeing are what Doug Congress said are good indicators of where the economy is going.

“It’s great because we can get a feel for what’s going on in the local economy directly from small business owners,” said Congress, the chairman of the board.

“I think that message is very consistent that ‘times are tough right now’ and I’d be surprised if I saw the survey come out differently.”

The survey, which is due back from members on July 9, is showing numbers consistent with tough economic times.

“Certainly from last year to this year, we saw a bit of a change in economic conditions,” said Keefer, who received more than 100 surveys back from members within the first hour. “Last year we saw a bit of conservatism in growth patterns and this year we anticipate to see a little more because of the economy.”

The economy, said Keefer, is something businesses seem to be adjusting to all the time.

“We usually have a 15 to 18 percent response rate which is pretty good in relation to the survey,” said Keefer. “What has always impressed me about the business community is that they take the time to provide a lot of comments.”

The comments they provide are left in open ended questions in the survey, which is filled out online.

The results of the survey will be compiled in mid-July and shared with the city, law enforcement officials and even the school board who gets mentioned in a few questions.

Once results come in, the chamber might also re-evaluate the survey questions for next year based on what trends they see this year.

“The economy has changed here so we may turn and focus the survey to get a little more in depth to see what is really going on,” Keefer said. “We committed three years to get results, now that we will have them. We will keep doing a lot of outreach. We aren’t working in a vacuum.”