- Register for WOVEN – Women Veteran Entrepreneurs Network on November 4 in Santa Ana.
- Supporting Small Business – Small Business Saturday and State Policy
- Read CAMEO and Opportunity Fund’s op-ed on SB 197 in the Sacramento Bee
- The Goodies – This week’s highlight is Academies for Social Entrepreneurship’s Social Entrepreneurship Venture Challenge. Applications are due by October 30, 2015.
Women Veteran Entrepreneurs Network
Register today for WOVEN 2015!
November 4, 2015
8:30am – 5:00pm
The Delhi Center
505 E Central Avenue
Santa Ana, CA 92707
This event is designed to help you reach and serve women vets in your region while, at the same time, providing excellent professional development opportunities. View the exciting WOVEN agenda!
What you’ll find at WOVEN:
- Expand your program by reaching women veterans who want to start and grow their own businesses.
- Learn how to find more power, negotiate better and create win-win results.
- Transform your career when you use your uniqueness.
- Find, understand, and serve your perfect customer – must know info for your clients.
- Pick the brains of our colleagues at the Jonas Project about lessons they’ve learned from working with vets; and for them to find out what you do to further encourage referrals. (Members-only session)
Register today for WOVEN 2015!
Supporting Small Business
Be a Small Business Customer: The most direct way to support small business is to do business with them, be a customer. It’s that time of year to join CAMEO and be counted among the hundreds of organizations supporting small businesses across the country on Small Business Saturday, November 28th. Join the Small Business Saturday Coalition to support the campaign. As a member of the Coalition you will have access to special communications tools and be listed on www.ShopSmall.com.
Support Micro Business Policies: CAMEO supports small and microbusiness by promoting data and good policies that invest in local businesses and the Do-It-Yourself economy. Good Jobs First, a national policy resource center that promotes corporate and government accountability, surveyed 39 small business organizations in 25 states and found that small business advocates want local investment. Also, this week they issued a report – Shortchanging Small Business: How Big Businesses Dominate State Economic Development Incentives. The report asks whether or not states are investing economic development
dollars in ways that most benefit small companies, those that are creating the jobs and establishing the foundations of communities. And the report comes to much of the same conclusion as we have – incentivize small and microbusiness growth.
As a policy solution, we do not recommend a simple reallocation of deals and dollars. Incentives such as those analyzed here often mean little to small businesses… we recommend that states reform their incentive rules by narrowing eligibility to exclude large recipients. One could call it means testing corporate welfare…. At the very least, states should substantially reduce the total amount of subsidy dollars flowing to big businesses.
Finally, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (NH) lays out several ways to help women business owners – “Women in Small Business: Cracking the Glass Ceiling” – that include access to capital and re-authorization of the SBA’s Women Business Center program. She also includes some good stats.
The Goodies
New opportunities for training, conference information, funding, scholarships, and other information that have crossed our desks since the last Must Know. I have posted a running tab of current Industry Goodies on the CAMEO website that lists items that were in past emails. Check it out to make sure you’re not missing anything, like grants whose deadlines are still alive!
Professional Development: CFED, with the support of the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, is launching the Platforms for Prosperity Fellowship. This 10-month working Fellowship will engage six senior workforce development leaders in effecting change in their communities by integrating financial capability services into their organizations’ programs. Applications are due October 26, 2015.
For Your Clients, Webinar: Our friends at the SBA and Small Business Majority are helping businesses navigate the changes and opportunities in health care through the Affordable Care Act 101 webinar series this fall – What the Healthcare Law Means for your Small Business. Upcoming webinars are October 29 and November 12 in English and November 17 in Spanish.
Opportunity: Betsy Densmore of Academies for Social Entrepreneurship announces the Social Entrepreneurship Venture Challenge. The program will bridge the gap between venture philanthropists seeking financial and social impact AND well-vetted social enterprises that can deliver double bottom line returns. Contestants may be for-profit, not-for-profit or hybrid early stage social enterprises. Applications are due by October 30, 2015.
2015 OFN Conference: Register for the conference, November 9-12, 2015 in Detroit. This year’s curriculum offers sessions across 14 tracks reflecting the breadth of the CDFI industry’s financing sectors and issues, including small business. Contact CAMEO to apply for a scholarship to help cover expenses.
Veteran Event: Disabled Veteran Business Alliance (DVBA) 2015 Veterans Day Breakfast is on November 13, 2015 from 8:00-11:00am (PST) in Beverly Hills, CA. This celebratory event honors the service of all veterans past, present and future as well as others who have made significant contributions towards helping our veterans.