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Two St. Charles organizations merge to strengthen 'community brand'

St. Charles officials know a community's brand is crucial to its success.

That's why two long-standing organizations have merged to create a stronger, more efficient marketing and tourism group: the St. Charles Business Alliance.

For years, the Downtown St. Charles Partnership and the Greater St. Charles Convention and Visitors Bureau have acted as the city's promotional arms, each with its own niche for driving commerce.

Both work out of the St. Charles Municipal Center and receive annual financial contributions from the city. But while the partnership aimed to preserve the character and enhance the economic viability of the downtown, the bureau marketed the area as a destination for getaways, conferences and major events.

Those functions frequently overlap and are all essential to the city's vitality, said alliance director Jenna Sawicki, who previously ran the Downtown Partnership. By joining forces, she said, the two organizations are able to leverage their individual strengths while "singing from the same songbook."

"Ultimately, it unifies the St. Charles marketing efforts - the community branding - under one voice and has a lot of efficiencies," Sawicki said. "We're able to work better and smarter because we're under one team."

The merger was approved this month by the Illinois secretary of state's office. The staffing structure was reorganized, with two boards combined into one, and a new set of bylaws was adopted last week, Sawicki said.

In a preliminary vote Monday, St. Charles aldermen unanimously supported providing the Business Alliance with $524,700 for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends April 30. If the city council ratifies the decision, about $329,700 will be funded by hotel/motel tax dollars, with the remainder coming from downtown special service area funds.

"I'm pleased the organizations have gotten together after all these years," Alderman William Turner said.

To cover a three-month gap before the merger was finalized, aldermen in May approved allotting $109,900 to the Convention and Visitors Bureau and $65,000 to the Downtown Partnership.

That brings the city's total 2019-20 contribution to $699,900 - about $50,000 less than the Business Alliance's initial funding request in February. At the time, officials advised organization leaders to lower their budget and bring back specific metrics that could be used to evaluate their progress.

Brand development, hotel engagement, marketing strategies and sales successes were among the goals added to the alliance's service agreement with the city. After seeking community feedback, the organization also decided to change its proposed name from "One St. Charles" to the "St. Charles Business Alliance."

"We went back and sharpened our pencils," Sawicki said. "We all want that (return on investment). We all want to be beneficial to the community."

Alliance leaders have already hit the ground running on creating new volunteer groups, including one for Scarecrow Fest and another for hotel outreach. They'll also be working with hotels to provide guests with a list of recommendations for restaurants, events, live entertainment or other "authentic St. Charles experiences" during their stay, Sawicki said.

"We're learning so much. Every day, we discover something else that needs to be done," she said. "We're really looking forward to serving St. Charles and making it a destination even more than it is."

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