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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiatives

The Chamber’s mission is Building Community Through Business. Our core functions are stimulating economic growth, through recruitment of new businesses, retention of existing businesses and support of entrepreneurs; influencing public policy as the leading voice for business, providing a forum for relevant community discussion and policies impacting business; and supporting business growth through idea sharing, network building, marketing opportunities and the development of relationships.

One of Chamber’s guiding principles is “Perspectives,” and we seek to foster trust and mutual respect as well as better decision making by seeking out diverse views. The Chamber’s leadership recognizes the strength diversity provides communities and as such, is doing a number of things to be more inclusive.

Click through these different areas to learn more about what the Chamber is doing:

Economic Mobility & Workforce Development

AVL Greater is an open-sourced community visioning process. AVL Greater was convened to identify a few “guiding stars” that organizations and government can all work toward in the next 20 years. We deliberately invited a broad cross section of participants in the process and followed it with a community survey that had almost 1,000 responses. The results of that visioning process include a number of factors that address barriers to employment and economic mobility. The results have also informed the AVL 5×5 2025 economic strategic plan.
NEXT AVL, our workforce development program, engages local college students with local mentors in an effort to retain them in Asheville. We recruit students of color, students who are first in family to go to college and those from diverse backgrounds who need better connections in the business community.
Inclusive Hiring Partners is a resource to close the opportunity gap by connecting Buncombe County residents experiencing significant barriers to employment with available jobs in growing industries. Currently, there are over 60 organizations participating in Inclusive Hiring Partners. We are community-based organizations providing wrap-around social services and employers offering living-wage jobs and supportive work environments.

Supporting Diverse Businesses

Our online business directory is searchable by several categories of business ownership and leadership including minority-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, woman-owned and veteran-owned. Members self select the categories that apply to their business.
Our People’s Community and Inclusion program provides membership for businesses owned by people of color. Underway since 2019, the People’s Community and Inclusion program established a committee of community leaders in spring 2020 to guide the Chamber’s commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion. This group is actively working on ways to support businesses led by people of color.
Latin American Business Council convenes Latin American business owners, leaders and professionals for networking and business support.
The Asheville Impact Micro Grant , a program of Venture Asheville – our high-growth entrepreneurship initiative, provides funding for early stage start-ups. Special efforts are made to increase the diversity of our applicants. To date, 55% of our 11 grantees have been female and 18% are people of color.
Our Marketplace Membership provides an entry-level membership for the Asheville Shop for small businesses, specifically so we can stock more products made by historically underrepresented businesses.
Young Professionals of Asheville supports young adults with professional development and opportunities to connect. Service projects connect young professionals to a variety of community nonprofits.

Community Engagement

WNC Diversity Engagement Coalition: We are the fiscal agent for the WNC Diversity Engagement Coalition, a network of organizations founded in 2013 that are dedicated to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace while also supporting the professional development, engagement, and inclusion of multicultural people. We were a founding member of the WNC DEC. We continue to participate regularly and routinely share their events and opportunities through our communications channels.
Community Outreach Events, held in partnership with local faith-based organizations and housing communities, connect jobs seekers in disconnected communities to opportunities with local employers.
Community Involvement: We collaborate with a variety of organizations including Western Women’s Business Center, Blue Ridge Pride and United Way and our staff participate in a variety of community activities including Buncombe County Community Remembrance Project, YWCA, the Asheville City Schools’ Equity Collaboration Committee, the City of Asheville’s Economic Inclusion Summit, and the County’s Early Childhood Committee.

Attention to Place

Creating a welcoming Visitor Center: We strive for the Asheville Visitor Center to be welcoming to all visitors as well as representative of our community.
- Display highlighting community festivals and special events.
- Work by photographers and artists of color
- Hood Tours, presenting tours on the African American experience in Asheville, depart from the Asheville Visitor Center.
- We commissioned three sculptures from local artists that represent diverse backgrounds
- We have encouraged members to seek more diversity in their promotional materials as well.

Organizational commitment

Feature diverse speakers and offer programming on diversity, equity and inclusion topics to our membership in programs like our WomanUP series (a program to support women in business with professional development, connections and inspiration) and our Smart Series.
Diverse representation on boards and committees: We strive for our boards and committees to represent the broad array of businesses and business people in our community. In addition, our Board of Directors Executive Committee includes a Chair of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
Staff Training: We have on-going DEI training for staff, including past participating in the Whiteness at Work webinar by The Adaway Group and The Courage Principle with Aisha Adams, and as individuals we seek to expand our personal understanding of how racism impacts our society.