Downtown Council of Kansas City – Why You Should Get Involved

September 5, 2013 / in General Information / by Jason Terry

Post written by Jason Terry, Entrepreneur | Social Coach | Web Developer | Scuba Instructor | Guitar Player | Cruise Traveler | Lego Collector

We have been doing business with the Downtown Council of Kansas City for years.  We created their current website.  We trained their entire team on LinkedIn, WordPress, social media best practices and more.

We help them execute their weekly blog posting.  We meet with them on a monthly basis to work on new projects online and offline.

But that is the Downtown Council for us as a client…

Getting Involved In The Downtown Council of Kansas City (DTC)

We joined the DTC this year and I wish we would have done it sooner.  If downtown Kansas City is important to you, whether for business or personal, you should seriously consider getting involved.  If it’s for business reasons, your company should be happy to cover the annual dues out of their sales and marketing budget.

To learn more about being a member, check out the Become a Member page on their website.

Board Meetings – July

At the DTC Board Meeting in July, I learned a ton about the streetcar initiative.  I also heard some crazy statistics… did you know that housing in the downtown area is at 97% occupancy???  Things are growing so quickly downtown that people are having a hard time finding a place to rent!

I met Scott Rowe with Arvest Bank on the elevator as I was leaving.  We followed up with a coffee meeting and now Blue Gurus is doing LinkedIn training for a group of Arvest producers in September.  There is no question that the board meetings are a great way to stay connected to downtown businesses.

Board Meeting – September

Today was the second board meeting I have attended.  (It is held in the Commerce Building on the 15th floor downtown every other month.  Yes, it starts at 7:30am, but we are talking about six times per year, so get up and show up.)  I sat with Dave Scott with Avid Communications and Meghan Buum with the City Market.  Both are current or past clients.

There was a presentation by Eric Rosen with the Kansas City Repertory Theater about their great programs and the revenue they bring into downtown KC at their Copaken stage.  I am a huge fan of what Eric has done in 6 years at the KC Rep, and it was fun to see him share that success with other business leaders.

I met Samantha Harlan who is the membership director for the Kansas City Club.  Did you know they have a monthly speaker series?  The next event is 9/26 at 11:30am featuring Craig Hakkio from the Federal Reserve.

Quarterly Business Recognition Event at the Jones Pool

Okay, this event was HOT… but worth showing up for.  Free drinks, good conversation and a great venue.  Ann with the DTC introduced me to Taylor Stucky with Encompas and there is definitely an opportunity for us to do business together.  I wonder how many people will tell me that I look silly (or worse) in the picture below… as you can tell, I am a reserved person that has trouble socializing at these kinds of events.

In Closing…

I wrote this article for a lot of reasons.  The Downtown Council is a great organization that I think more people need to know about.  There are lots of opportunities to connect with other business in downtown Kansas City.  There are educational opportunities where you get an insider view into major downtown initiatives.  In other words, there is something there for everyone.  Are you a member of the DTC?  Want to try it out by coming as our guest?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!