The West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce was founded in 2003 by a group of Hispanic business leaders and business owners with the goal to support the economic advancement of the Hispanic owned businesses and to assist in the professional growth of Hispanic business leaders in West Michigan.
At first, like many grassroots organizations, the Chamber relied on other established entities for support. Davenport University provided physical space to run office duties. At the same time, the Board hired the first part-time executive director to manage the growing demand for services to members. In 2008 the Chamber reached an important milestone by moving to its own office space at 1251 Century Avenue in Grand Rapids and hired a full time Executive Director and a part-time Membership Coordinator who managed the day-to-day operations of the Hispanic Chamber.
During the year of 2010, Grand Rapids Community College offered space to host the monthly membership meetings. Entrepreneurial workshops were offered in Spanish in partnership with the Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center to Hispanic business owners in the West Michigan community.
The year 2017 brought changes to the organization that includes a new Executive Director, Guillermo Cisneros who had served for the organization in various volunteer capacities since 2012. Since the direction of the new Executive Director, now President and CEO, the Hispanic Chamber has seen unprecedented levels of growth in membership, event turnout, and the overall organization of the Chamber. In 2018 the Hispanic Chamber launched a long-term vision initiative called Transformando West Michigan that focuses on business development for the Latinx business community. In 2019, the WMHCC launched another initiative that focuses on talent development that aims to create a pipeline developing and connecting Latinx college students with area employers. In the last five years, the organization has grown from two full-time staff to seven staff, and it has increased its budget from $200K to $1.4M. #HispanicHeritageMonth
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