The Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce is marshaling its resources to assist minority owned businesses with an outreach campaign targeting small chambers of commerce. These "little chambers" represent disparate sectors of the business community. Because it can offer economies of scale, as well as timely seminars and speakers who command pricey honoraria, the Seattle chamber has much to offer small and minority businesses.

Minority chambers of commerce seem enthusiastic about the opportunity. Here's a sampling:

-Mike Sotelo is a founder of Plaza Bank and president of the Washington State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which boasts more than 220 members statewide. He sees the alliance with the Seattle chamber as a "huge networking opportunity. Hopefully, we're going to bring as much to the table as they offer to us."

And what might that be? Sotelo proudly points out that the Latino community has the lowest unemployment rate of any ethnic group in the United States. Latino businesses are also the fastest-growing segment of minority businesses, both in Washington and the country as a whole. "What we're able to bring to the table is economic growth and a good strong work ethic," he says.

Like all groups, the Latino community has its own specific problems, Sotelo says. He's pleased that "there's going to be an effort to unite persons of color to become a stronger influence in the business community," but adds, "We've recognized that the only way to do that is to lower our high school dropout rate, and lower our out of wedlock birth rate. You can't have people in boardrooms if you have 60 percent of your kids not graduating from high school.

"It's not always racism," he says. "Sometimes it just takes hard work."

-Like the Hispanic chamber of commerce, the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) wants to promote the growth of the regional economy as well as its member businesses. Yet this group primarily represents lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender businesspeople (LGBT for short).

"I think that we've been around long enough so that people don't think we're just a group advocating for social issues, but that we're effective businesspeople as well," says Louise Chernin, GSBA's executive director. Yet, she adds, "We definitely have a social component among our priorities. We're about combining business development, leadership and social action."

What does Chernin mean by social action? "I'm hoping that as we get involved in committees and more mainstream chamber activities, we will eliminate some of the biases that exist in some of the more conservative groups," she says. "We've been invited to sit around the table in the last year - a table to which we've never been invited before - so I believe that business can be a vehicle for progressive change."

Chernin believes that corporations may help to eliminate discrimination and bigotry more effectively and even more quickly than social justice organizations relying on values-driven methods of persuasion.

"The corporations are actually starting to influence local governments that might have been reluctant, say, to offer benefits to same-sex partners," she says. "There's a good domino effect from this, because economics still plays a part in every aspect of society."

-The Filipino Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest represents about 75 businesses. Its president, Alex Borromeo, says his chamber is looking forward to improving contracting opportunities, becoming part of new networks, and perhaps even gaining access to new sources of capital.

"And that's why the idea of tying up with the chamber if commerce is very important to us, to connect with some of the mainstream organizations," he says. "It's important to reach beyond your local community, because you expand your business opportunities."