Make a Donation to Dive Industry Foundation
by Gene Muchanski, Executive Director
Dive Industry Association, Inc.

Step 9 to uniting the diving industry is to make a donation to the non-profit organization Dive Industry Foundation. Dive Industry Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3), charitable organization dedicated to promoting economic development in the worldwide diving community.  The Foundation maintains a full time office in Melbourne, Florida.  It sponsors DIVE LOCAL, conducts industry surveys, exhibits at diving trade and consumer shows, and conducts business improvement seminars and workshops for dive business owners and their employees.  It is establishing a Business Reference Library with books and magazines from the diving industry.  The Foundation has sponsored three Regional Summit meetings (Dallas, Chicago, Secaucus) and conducted two industry luncheons in Tacoma, WA.  Dive Industry Foundation has held fund raisers to donate money to a Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles and two dive industry families during their time of need.  The Foundation has no paid employees and uses only Volunteers.  It operates on donations from individuals and businesses.  Their web site is www.diveindustry.org and they maintain a Facebook Page and post to Twitter.

Donating funds to the Dive Industry Foundation is very important for the growth and survival of the diving industry.  Every dive business and industry professional should make it their responsibility to fund this organization that works to research, analyze, advise and promote our industry.  The tasks and projects the Dive Industry Foundation takes on are detail oriented, time consuming and non-income generating in the short term.  The long-term benefits of having a research, educational, promotional and unifying organization in the industry is priceless.  An outside consulting firm can never do what needs to be done in our industry.  We must gather and use the collective wisdom, knowledge and experience of Dive Industry Professionals who have had successes and setbacks in their life-long profession.  Think of the Dive Industry Foundation as an organizer, mentor and guide that will assist the diving business community in dealing with its own internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  I am confident that the dive industry can correct itself.

As an organization with its primary goal of “Unify the Diving Industry” the Dive Industry Foundation has accepted the responsibility to define, analyze, advise, unify, promote and increase the economic impact of the diving industry.  Working within the parameters of these six steps, I believe the industry will be able to understand the complexities of its makeup, work to end the fragmentation of the market,  and increase the opportunities for all industry professionals.

Define:  The Diving Industry, as we currently know it, does not have one unified source of data that defines our market.  First of all, because we are not an industry at all.  We are actually in a niche market.  An industry is a government classification for a group of like minded companies that produce a common type of product.   The United States Government created NAICS Codes (North American Industry Classification System) that group similar businesses together.  An NAICS Code has six digits that identifies the main industry and its sub categories.   The Retail Industry is # 45.  The Retail Industry – Sporting Goods Stores are 451110.  All of the demographic and geographic information we need about this industry is laid out in the U.S. Census.  So now we know that Retail Dive Centers, or Dive & Adventure Stores as I like to call them, are not dive shops in the diving industry.  They are retail stores in the Retail Industry, that specialize in diving and adventure travel.

A Market is defined as a place where Buyers and Sellers meet to do business.  The Sellers come from many different industries, depending on what they manufacture or produce.  The Buyers come from many different recreations, hobbies, professions or interests.  Where they meet to do business doesn’t matter.  That’s a business model decision.  They are both seeking a successful outcome.  A successful outcome is an exchange of products for a fair compensation.

Defining and understanding our industries and market is the first step to unifying the diving business community.  Dive Industry Foundation has begun the process by creating the DIVE LOCAL program.  This is a big job in that it will take a significant amount of time, money and manpower.  that’s another reason to donate and support the Foundation.  Our World Directory is being listed on our website at  https://divelocal.wordpress.com  You’ll notice that our directory is divided by territories.  Each territory, is in fact, its own community.  It’s at the community level where people get interested in diving, take lessons, buy their gear and go diving.  It is also where the local diving community needs to create ways to stay active in our recreation.

The Dive Industry Foundation is writing a whitepaper on Uniting the Diving Industry that can be viewed in its progressing form on https://divelocal.wordpress.com/whitepaper/  It is in this whitepaper where we will address the issues on how the Foundation can analyze, advise, unify, promote and increase the economic impact of the diving industry.

Donations can be made to Dive Industry Foundation using our DIVE LOCAL Web Page at https://divelocal.wordpress.com/donate/