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AEO Conference, $$ Awards, AB152

In this week’s Must Know

AEO Conference and Awards

AEO’s national conference, Tilt Forward, will be May 5-8, 2013 in St. Louis, Missouri. 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. The early bird deadline is March 8, 2013!

Another CAMEO member benefit is that we offer professional development assistance for events like the AEO conference. To learn more about our program that can offset some of the costs for this conference, contact Shufina English.

Highlights of the conference:

  • Daymond John of FUBU and “Shark Tank” will share his inspiring story with conference attendees on Wednesday.
  • Conference Tracks include 1) Mission, Money, Markets, Oh My!, 2) Accelerating Business Success, 3) Promoting Local Food Security for Jobs and Micro-business, and 4) The Executive View.
  • And last but not least… enter the 2013 Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards (CMA). Finalists will attend the CMA Luncheon on Wednesday and have the opportunity to win real cash. Your organization can win a $75,000 grant from AEO and Citi and your clients can receive up to $25,000 (Last year a CAMEO member client won!) Find out more and apply for the 2013 Citi MicroEntrepreneurship Awards.

And if you register for the AEO conference by March 1, you can win an invitation to the VIP Reception with industry movers and shakers, Main Street USA champions and Daymond John, FUBU founder and CEO and star on ABC’s “Shark Tank”!

Take Action: Support AB152

As you might have gathered from phone calls and emails, we need your help to pass AB 152, Self-Employment Assistance Program, introduced by Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada and sponsored by CAMEO. We estimate it will create 5,000 businesses and 12,500 jobs and generate at least $400 million in economic activity. To help, go to last week’s Must Know on our website and find everything you need to know to support AB152.

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!

News Item: The White House has broken down what the sequester would mean for California.

News Item: I wrote about alternatives to business attraction strategies for the American Sustainable Business Council blog.

Community Capital Webinars: BALLE hosts a Community Capital series devoted to the most promising new models to connect local businesses with local lenders, investors, and donors to speed and scale impact of these businesses. The next one is on March 5, 2013 at 10:00am PT – Edible Credits: The Credibles Model for Crowdsourced Funding of Local Food Businesses with Arno Hesse, social finance innovator and Slow Money investor.

Attn PRIME Recipients: AEO is soliciting feedback from organizations that participate in the SBA’s PRIME Program. AEO is interested in learning about your organization’s overall experience with the PRIME Program and welcomes any feedback. The survey results and feedback will help advocate for the program’s budget. Please complete the survey by Wednesday, March 13th.

Renaissance Online Business Prep Class: Attention service-starved areas, the webinar-based classes are scheduled from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. PST one evening a week for 12 consecutive weeks, with two optional 30-minute individual telephone consultations. Clients are expected to participate in every webinar and complete about 3 hours of homework weekly. The next one starts on March 13, 2013. Learn more and register for the Renaissance Online Business Prep Class.

SBA Training Opportunity: Attention LA and Fresno members, the U.S. Small Business Administration launched its 2013 Emerging Leaders executive-level training initiative, formerly known as e200, in 27 cities and communities across the country. The seven-month executive leader curriculum includes approximately 100 hours of classroom time per participant and provides the opportunity for small business owners to work with experienced mentors, attend workshops, and develop connections with their peers, city leaders, and financial communities. Local recruitment for the 2013 training cycle started February 1 through SBA district offices, and classes are scheduled to begin in April.

New Report: Our friends at Emergent Research sent us this “FOOD TRUCKS MOTOR INTO THE MAINSTREAM“. Food trucks are expected to be a $2.7 billion industry! It’s a quick easy read on the state of the food truck industry, a must read for all of you with food truck clients.

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.