L.A. Area Chamber surpassed by Long Beach group.

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, struggling in recent years with membership declines and an identity crisis, has been overtaken by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce as the county's largest chamber in terms of membership.

Long Beach has 1,836 members - 236 more than the L.A. chamber, according to a Business Journal survey.

"We've grown by focusing our efforts on attracting small and home-based businesses," said Randy Gordon, executive director for the Long Beach chamber. "We cut our fees in half for home-based businesses and increased our home-based business membership from 20 three years ago to 275 today."

Other chambers, too, are challenging the long-held supremacy of the L.A. chamber, including: the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, with 1,450 members, the Glendale and Santa Clarita Valley chambers, with 1,300 members each; and the Beverly Hills chamber, with 1,230 members.

All together, the 25 chambers on this year's List have 20,008 members - less than 10 percent of the total number of businesses in Los Angeles County.

"There is now more competition than ever among chambers and business associations," said Mike Feiffer, a management consultant. "It's causing a questioning of the purpose and value of all chambers."

No local chamber has been the subject of more questioning than the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, which has seen its membership fall from 4,000 in the early 1980s to 1,600 today.

Chamber officials note that overall revenues increased in 1997, to an estimated $2.2 million, after bottoming out in 1995 and 1996 at $2.1 million.

The chamber has been able to grow its revenues through events, publication sales, interest, services, rental income from tenants in its building, and a grant from the Economic Development Administration.

But critics say the chamber has lost momentum by failing to assert itself on issues of importance to the business community.

"The Los Angeles Area Chamber has had the potential to really be the business leadership in L.A. for several years now, but they haven't been aggressive. They haven't taken positions and stands on key issues affecting L.A.," said Dori Pye, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Business Council, an advocacy group.

One example of ducking a stance, Pye said, was the chamber's silence on Mayor Richard Riordan's diversion of airport revenues from the Department of Airports to the city's general fund.

"You need to be able to take stands on key issues or your members are going to leave out of frustration," Pye said. "Some of our board members came over to our organization from the chamber because they felt frustrated with the chamber's unwillingness to take many of those stands."

Alison Winter, who will be the chamber's 1998 chairman, said part of the problem has been lack of focus. But she said the chamber is committed to correcting that shortcoming.

"A couple of years ago, we were trying to be all things to all people," said Winter, president and chief executive of Northern Trust Bank of California. "We would focus on 25 different issues that were all over the map - some were local, others were regional. We realized that approach wasn't going to work and that's when we called in the McKinsey Group to help us establish a more narrow focus. We realized we should be focusing on advocacy of broader issues than those faced by local chambers," she said.

Winter said such issues are being addressed by a two-pronged strategy developed in the McKinsey sessions: one, to focus on four to six key regional issues at any given time - such as water supply or the welfare-to-work issue - and two, to increase collaboration with other business groups on such issues.

"Given the fragmentation of L.A.'s business community, we need to get a number of organizations to work together on key issues," Winter said. "No single organization these days can represent the entire business community."

The chamber's coordination efforts started in July when its representatives met with the Economic Development Corp. of L.A. County, the Central City Association, the Valley Industry and Commerce Association and several other groups.

Chamber Membership

                                       Number
Chamber                             of members

Long Beach Area Chamber                 1,800
Los Angeles Area Chamber                1,600
Pasadena Chamber                        1,450
Glendale Chamber                        1,300
Santa Clarita Valley Chamber            1,300

Source: Business Journal Research