Lynn Parman wants to sell Lawrence to the world.

Now Parman, the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of economic development, has the resources to contact more clients.

A campaign last year raised $1.2 million from 124 area companies to recruit and retain business to Lawrence.

“I think we’re feeling the effects now,” Parman said. “We’re very excited about the partnership.”

The Excellence by Design campaign wrapped up in April 2003. It will increase from $30,000 to $300,000 the amount of money the chamber has to market the city of Lawrence for four years.

The campaign’s goal is to create 2,000 jobs in Lawrence between 2003 and 2006.

Additions to the chamber’s marketing plan last year included:

• Direct mailings to site-selection consultants for companies.
• Participation in the BIO trade show in Washington, D.C.
• A chamber position to oversee business retention.
• A new chamber logo.

Kelvin Heck, a commercial real estate agent with Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group and former chairman of the chamber, said many of the additions were things the chamber should have been doing already but simply didn’t have the funds to complete.

“We worked on a pretty thin budget over there for a number of years,” Heck said. “We needed to do something to move us to be more competitive.”

Parman said Excellence by Design is already paying off for Lawrence. In 2002, her office talked to 45 companies interested in expanding or relocating to Lawrence. In 2003, that number jumped to 119.

Projects funded by Excellence by Design in the next year will include an event for Kansas City commercial real estate brokers, a study for the potential impact of biosciences growth in Lawrence and regional meetings with site selectors across the country.

If the events continue to pay off, Heck said he expected the chamber to have another fund-raising campaign when the four years of money have run out.

“It’s a pretty important time,” Heck said. “We’re laying a good foundation for those activities. We’ll do this again if we’re successful in our mission to create jobs in Lawrence. It makes it a lot easier to go back to investors and ask for more money.”