Business Associations: Provide Onvia To Members

Bring your members the latest government bid opportunities in your area

As an executive of a Chamber of Commerce, trade association or union, it's your mission to help your members not only survive but thrive in their businesses, even amid a struggling economy. And what better way to achieve that goal than to assist members in doing more business with what has become an important customer: the government.

By providing our procurement-notification service as a benefit of membership, you can enable members to receive daily notifications of the latest actionable sales opportunities with government agencies in your county or metro area. These notifications can include the descriptions, agency contact information, geographic locations, contract values, and links to available bid documents for the listed projects.

Chambers of Commerce and business associations in such cities as Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Birmingham are providing this service as a benefit of paid membership. And for good reason: Having a sales-lead notification service as a member benefit can be a strong motivator for both new and renewed memberships. In a November, 2009, survey of more than 1,000 users of Onvia's online-procurement service, DemandStar:

• 64% said they would be more likely to join a Chamber if membership included access to government-contracting opportunities
• 73% said that they would be more likely to renew membership if it included this access

To learn how you can bring Onvia to your members, contact Executive Vice President Irv Alpert at ialpert @ onvia.com.