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Faces Award Winners! Lending Lifecycle Training! Member Kudos!

Faces of Entrepreneurship Award Winners

We are so excited about this year’s Faces of Entrepreneurship nominations. The number and the quality of businesses nominated speaks to the great work of our members. After much deliberation, we came up with our winners. This year we have three winners due to a tie. Congratulations to the following:

These businesses go the extra mile to grow their businesses and contribute to their community. Legislators from the business owners’ districts will present awards at our annual meeting luncheon on June 7.

Speaking of which… Register for CAMEO’s Annual Member Meeting and Advocacy Day – June 7, 2016 at the Sacramento Sheraton. Check out the Annual Meeting webpage for more information.

Lending Life Cycle Part I: Finding Existing Barriers to Loan Growth-Webinar and Peer Call

Join OFN for an introduction to the Lending Life Cycle model, a powerful tool used to analyze the essential aspects of your lending operation from customer acquisition through loan closing to troubled loan management. The webinar will help you identify strengths and weaknesses in your operations, and introduce a process mapping tool to help you diagnose and treat your ‘pain points’ that may be barriers to growth. Small business lenders will share their own experiences with this methodology. Then join the follow-up CAMEO peer call to discuss putting into practice what you learned on the OFN webinar.

For the full schedule of OFN webinars and peer calls, visit the Small Business Financing Webinar Series post on our website.

Member Kudos

BALLE announced their 2016 cohort of Local Economy Fellows. These 36 leaders represent some of the most innovative local economic and community development solutions in the U.S. and Canada, directly serving more than 52,400 local businesses and impacting another 471,000 small businesses through roles in government and policy. Congratulations to two CAMEO members who are among this esteemed group.

  • Anthony Chang, Executive Director, Kitchen Table Advisors, San Francisco, CA
  • Chanchanit Martorell, Executive Director, Los Angeles Thai Community Development Center, Los Angeles, CA (part of APISBP)

Congrats to the California SBDC’s, many of which are CAMEO members. Their free one-on-one advising helped clients access $633.7 million in loan and investment capital last year-an increase of nearly 19% over 2014. In addition, clients created and retained 8,462 jobs in 2015 and launched 1039 new businesses.

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!

Free May Webinars: Wild Apricot has compiled a list of 18 Free Nonprofit Webinars for May 2016.

May is also Small Business Month in California. To celebrate, GO-Biz’s Office of Small Business Advocate (OSBA) is hosting a series of free webinars. To learn more and register click on the webinar title.

Cutting Edge Professional Development: CFED is hosting a five-part virtual Listening & Learning Series Exploring Financial Capability & Access for Entrepreneurs (register for all five at once). The next one is May 10 – ‘Mastering the Know-How: Financial Management Expertise & Advice for Entrepreneurs.’ You can learn more about the series on our website.

Funding Opportunity: JPMorgan Chase is launching Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods (PRO Neighborhoods). This is a $125 million, five-year initiative to identify and support custom solutions for the unique challenges facing disadvantaged neighborhoods in U.S. cities. CDFI’s are eligible to apply to help small businesses develop. Learn more and download the PRO Neighborhoods RFP. The deadline is May 16, 2016.

PRIME Grant Opportunity: SBA has announced that it is taking applications for PRIME: Program for Investment in Microentrepreneurs Act. The deadline to apply for funding is May 18, 2016.

Free Webinar: Small Business Majority and AARP host California Secure Choice ­– Making Workplace Retirement Savings Possible on Thursday,May 19, 2016 from 2:00 – 3:00pm PDT. They will discuss the retirement savings crisis in California, why small businesses face significant barriers when it comes to offering retirement savings programs and provide an overview of California Secure Choice program. California Secure Choice is a portable retirement benefit that small business owners get to offer their employees with none of the administrative hassle.

Funding Opportunity: The U.S. SBA announced the 2016 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, pursuant to the America Competes Act, to identify the nation’s most innovative accelerators and similar organizations and award them cash prizes they may use to fund their operations costs and allow them to bring startup companies to scale and new ideas to life. We understand the amount to be $50,000. For more details on the competition, including competition rules and eligibility, please see the SBA’s announcement. Applications are due by June 3, 2016..

OFN Western Regional Meeting: Save June 29, 2016. The meeting will take place in Los Angeles, CA at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Los Angeles Branch (950 S Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90015).

Take Action: We’re asking all of our members to hold district meetings with their California state representatives to inform California’s small business leaders and elected officials on what good capital looks like. We’ll follow up with meetings in Sacramento at our annual meeting. This is an issue they need to know about!

Survey on Accelerators and Incubators: The National Women’s Business Council is researching women’s participation in business incubation and acceleration programs. They have three surveys: women entrepreneurs, Women incubator/accelerator graduates, Incubator and accelerator managers. Take the appropriate one and pass on to others.