Chamber membership director who rewrote the value story for small businesses
Imani Castellanos leads membership for a metropolitan chamber of commerce in Central Florida. She helps chambers and associations describe their value in terms prospects recognize.
Imani Castellanos spent eight years in local television news before moving into chamber work in 2015. As membership director for a metropolitan chamber with about 2,100 member businesses, she oversees recruitment, renewals, and the chamber’s public communications.
Her work focuses on the gap between what organizations say about themselves and what prospects hear. After interviewing 120 businesses that had declined to join, she replaced the chamber’s benefits brochure with short profiles of individual members, each describing one specific result. New member applications rose 23 percent over the following two years, and first-year retention improved from 71 to 80 percent.
- Savannah 2025 — Southeast Chamber Executives Conference
What Organizers Say
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We cut our brochure from twelve pages to one and added three member stories. Our sales staff stopped apologizing for it.
Ray Hollister President, county chamber of commerce
Track Record
- Interviewed 120 declined prospects to rebuild chamber messaging 2021
- Regional Chamber Professional of the Year 2023
