Wilmington Chamber of Commerce

We help build the community you desire by harnessing vision and energy from local businesses and engaged citizens like you.

We’ve been around the block (it was cobblestone when we started)…and that’s why we work to keep Wilmington an enjoyable balance of historic port and progressive city. Organized in 1853, the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce was the first chamber in North Carolina. We are a membership-based, nonprofit organization of diverse businesses. We are not a governmental entity and don’t receive government funding (mainly because we like to speak our minds as freely as we’d like). A volunteer board of directors oversees policy-making for a membership of 1,200 companies and organizations.

The Chamber’s flagship program is Cape Fear Future (CFF). CFF’s goal is to attract and retain “knowledge workers” to the region. Communities that buzz with entrepreneurial activity, have rich arts and cultural offerings and provide quality of life amenities will be the ones that attract engineers, scientists, software developers and other knowledge workers. Companies are locating where these people live, and CFF is improving our community to help attract them by focusing on three key areas:

Education: improving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in grades K-12;

Entrepreneurship: pulling together our existing entrepreneurial community and creating an environment where more high-growth companies can prosper; and

Quality of Life: identifying and implementing community improvement projects to further advance the Cape Fear region’s great lifestyle.