Guiding Values

Written By: Kaye McHan | Issue: 2021/08 – August

The Highlands Chamber of Commerce serves the community as a network of business people, and as Visit Highlands, NC, your destination advocate. We have strong operational values to guide our organization: passion, awareness, transparency/inclusion, and engagement.

Our passion for Highlands expresses itself in a fondness for small-town charm. We settled here for the love of living in a small community. We value our neighbors who nestle-in and share our natural world. 

Staying aware and well-informed is the key. Taking interest in our history, people, and development of our Town preserves the quality of life we deeply treasure. We are involved in town planning, county economic development, and civic organization promotion that serve our community well.

Remaining open, answering questions, maintaining visibility, listening to our constituents, residents, and visitors are part of a transparency and inclusion tradition. See last month’s Laurel for the FY 2021/2022 approved budget. There, online (or at the Welcome Center),  you’ll find Highlands upcoming events and programs.

Engagement is best explained by Thomas Ehrlich of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He says, “Civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and nonpolitical processes.”

Destination engagement is a subgroup of civic engagement. Visit Highlands, NC is focused on making a difference in our community, through the power of travel. We define this engagement as the process of informing and listening to people within Highlands to address issues affecting the wellbeing of the community and promotion of the destination. 

Visit Highlands, NC’s front-line ambassadors, advocates, and beneficiaries of our destination promotions are our very own residents. Visitors are valued guests that provide critical resources that improve our community as well as providing sparks of excitement and inspiration that improve our quality of life.

Values for the Chamber of Commerce and Visit Highlands, NC provide our standards of competence and morality, and they govern the way we behave, communicate, and interact with our community. Thank you for working with us to keep Highlands, NC as our small-town home by welcoming the community through our shared goals and beliefs.

For more information, call (828) 526-5841.