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Busy Spring! Bills, Conferences, Kiva

In this week’s Must Know

  • Busy Spring
  • Question of the Week: Infrastructure for Independent Workers
  • The Goodies: This week’s highlight is several opportunities to help answer questions you or your clients may have on healthcare – April 2, April 3 and April 18.

Busy Spring

The CAMEO office is abuzz with activity these days, so I’ll get right to it.

1. On Tuesday, April 2, we are launching the CAMEO-Kiva statewide collaboration which will build the foundation of the new economy. Congrats to our first cohort: Fresno CDFI, Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment and Working Solutions. Watch our MicroBizCA Facebook page for updates of activities and how to invest in our own backyard. If you’re interested in participating in the next cohort, contact Shufina.

2. Our Appropriations hearing for AB 152 is likely to be scheduled for Wednesday, April 10. Our target for outreach is members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. If your assembly member is on the committee, and you haven’t sent a letter of support, then please do so and copy me. Also if you are able to go to the hearing in Sacramento, also let me know.

3. AB 285, a bill that will integrate entrepreneurial training into local Workforce Investment Boards, will be heard in its first committee on Tuesday, April 9 and yes, Claudia is testifying. This is a step toward having local WIBs contract with their local entrepreneurship training program, i.e. CAMEO members. If this bill passes, we would expect more Workforce resources coming your way. Send your letter of support for AB 285 to Assemblymember Brown (fax: 916-319-2147) and the Assembly JEDE committee (fax: 916-319-2190). Don’t forget to cc: CAMEO with an email copy.

4. Are you going to the AEO Conference? If so, let us know so we can invite you to the CAMEO member dinner. If not, we’d love to see you there! Tilt Forward is May 5-8 in St. Louis. If you’re not an AEO member, CAMEO members receive a $75 discount with the code SMA2013. If you’re an AEO member, registration fees are 50% of the full conference price – another reason to join the national network. CAMEO can offset some of the costs for this conference; contact Shufina English. Early bird prices are available until March 31. Three pre-conference sessions are being offered in coaching skills, designing a revolving microloan fund, and rural policies and programs.

5. Last but not least, save the date for the Annual CAMEO member meeting in Sacramento on June 5-6. Registration information will be coming in a few weeks, but make your plans to attend now.

Question of the Week

As part of our transforming the larger issues we’re facing into smaller bites (see Must Know on Zeitgeist), we’re starting a new feature called Question of the Week. Our second question was inspired by an article about how the Freelancers Union is tackling healthcare for the self-employed. So the question is…

‘What infrastructure needs to change in order to support self-employment and independent workers?’

We’re providing a forum for discussion on CAMEO’s Facebook page. Please share your thoughts and concerns. If you have an issue that you’d like to bring up for discussion, please let us know.

The Goodies

New opportunities for trainings, 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 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!

Extra, Extra: Claudia talks about microloans with the AARP.

Healthcare Info: Thanks to Small Business Majority for healthcare resources. Small business owners and the self-employed need to know how the Affordable Care Act will bring down costs, create a greater choice of insurance options, and the opportunities it offers to expand coverage. Also there are several teleconferences to help answer questions you or your clients may have on April 2, April 3 and April 18.

For Your Clients: Thank You Small Business offers a variety of free webinars to small businesses. They’ll find everything from brand building to collections. Check ’em out!

Contracting Opportunity: Attention consultants and other orgs, CDBG microenterprise program in the City of Williams, Colusa County is looking for a contractor to administer the CDBG grant, underwrite microloans and provide technical assistance or subcontracting to a qualified service-provider. Contact the City of Williams for more information.

2013 Women in Leadership Conference: The Berkeley-Haas School of Business hosts Path-Bending Leadership – the type of leadership that helps drive business towards a better, more sustainable, healthier, and more just future. The conference offers opportunities to hear from and connect with women leaders who have achieved both personal and professional success. Register for the conference on Saturday, April 6, 2013 from 8:30am – 5:00pm at the Berkeley-Haas School of Business.

CDFI Re-Certification: The CDFI Fund has extended the deadline for filing certification or re-certification applications for certain groups from April 1 to April 8, 2013(read the Fund’s full notice). The stated reason for the extension is the fact that the Fund’s website has been inaccessible off and on late last week and through yesterday.

Economic Development Conference: California Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA)’s annual teaching and learning conference is in San Francisco on May 9 at the Hilton. Registration fees are $75 for members and $90 for non-members Scholarships are available, contact CAMEO for information.

Micro Census: FIELD released the comprehensive program and performance data collected last year during its U.S. Microenterprise Census campaign. More than 200 organizations responded to the Census on microtracker.org, contributing their FY 2011 data to a rich data set that is now available online. Stay tuned, next week, FIELD will launch the 2013 U.S. Microenterprise Census to collect FY 2012 data.

New Report: FIELD has just released a new report, Microenterprise Development as Job Creation. The report draws on surveys conducted with nearly 2000 entrepreneurs who received assistance from 23 microenterprise organizations in 2009. A teaser: The average number of jobs per business, including the owner, was 2.9.