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Congressional Summer Visits

Vote for Claudia for the Small Business Influencer Award – and vote everyday! She’s in the top 10. Let’s keep her there!

  • Congressional Summer Break = Time to Visit Legislators
  • Member Kudos: Congrats El Pajaro!
  • The Goodies – This week’s highlight includes a Guide to Going Local posted by BALLE.

Summertime Visits to Legislators

You, our members, have said what you value most about CAMEO is our advocacy. Now is the time, as part of your regular work flow, to engage with your legislators. Federal elected officials are on their summer break from August 2nd through September 9th, otherwise known as August District Work Period. They are on vacation from DC, not from work.

CAMEO members need to let their representatives know what our priorities are. CAMEO and AEO’s Policy Team has been hard at work in Washington advocating on behalf our policy and funding priorities. Our policy agenda focuses on the development of strong and effective micro-business initiatives to assist underserved entrepreneurs in starting, stabilizing, and expanding their businesses. Now it’s your turn. For example, CAMEO has a meeting scheduled with Women’s Initiative for later this month with a representative interested in women’s economic issues.

CAMEO’s priorities are:

  • Funding for SBA Micro programs, WBC’s and SBDC’s
  • H.R. 2474 Community Lending and Small Business Jobs Act of 2013 (Richmond, D-LA)
  • Securing a Republican co-sponsor for The Entrepreneurial Training Improvement Act (Capps, D-CA)

Details for the above can be found in the micro-business policy briefing that AEO gave earlier this week. Note that the USDA budget has passed the Senate and not the House.

Resources live on our Advocacy Toolkit page such as information on how to advocate, a webinar on District Meetings, talking points and a CAMEO brochure to take with you. And if you don’t know who your Congress people are go here: House of Representatives, Senate.

Let us know if you schedule a visit and what the outcome is. Email me!

Member Kudos: Congrats El Pajaro!

On Monday, the CAMEO staff took a field trip to Watsonville, to celebrate the opening of El Pajaro’s Kitchen Incubator. It was great to see CAMEO members Teresa Thomae of Central Coast SBDC and El Pajaro board member, Andrea Nield of CSUMB SBDC and and Congressman Sam Farr. Congrats to Carmen Herrera (pic left cutting the ribbon surrounded by local elected officials), her staff and her board for the realization of a dream. We look forward to meeting all of the new business owners the kitchen cooks up.

And ALBA was feature on NPR in a story about their program of helping people become farmers and become their own boss.

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!

Free Guide: BALLE posted the Guide to Going Local. It’s full of ideas and advice on how to strengthen the local economy in your town: through buying local, highlighting new entrepreneurs, instilling local pride, investing locally, and more.

Healthcare Info: The Small Business Administration and Small Business Majority are launching the Affordable Care Act 101 weekly webinar series. Small business owners can learn the basics of the Affordable Care Act and what it means for their company and employees, including insurance reforms, the small business health care tax credit, the new health insurance marketplaces, and employer shared responsibility provisions. Each week, SBA representatives will walk through the key pieces of the law so that small business owners can understand the facts and make the best, informed decisions they can about providing health insurance for their employees. The Affordable Care Act 101 will take place every Thursday from now (next ones are August 1, 8) through the opening of the marketplaces in October. Go to their website to register for The Affordable Care Act 101.

For Your Clients: Our friends at CFED are working to help small businesses reduce vulnerability and position themselves for growth by studying their needs. Please send the following message to your clients (Business owners who take the survey will be entered in a drawing to win a $100 MasterCard rewards card, which can be used for online purchases wherever MasterCard is accepted.):

Please take this 5-minute survey to learn more about your business’s financial strengths and vulnerabilities. When you complete the survey, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a prize in the form of a reward card, issued by MasterCard, with a value of $100. The reward card can be used for any purchase and transactions wherever MasterCard is accepted. If you have any questions about this survey or the study, you can contact: Kasey Wiedrich or
Lauren Williams.

For Your Clients: On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 Whole Foods Market will be hosting its second Local Vendor Summit at the Fort Mason Conference Center in San Francisco from 8:00am- 5:00pm.

Free Webinar: Increasing demands to meet the needs of underserved local communities, CDFIs are re-assessing of how they build their pipelines and produce results. More and more CDFIs are finding it necessary to build a mission-driven sales culture. Register for this webinar on a mission-driven sales culture for CDFI’s, hosted by Friedman Associates on August 22, 2013 at 11:00 am PDT // 2:00 pm EDT.

For Your Clients: Intuit is giving one lucky small business the opportunity of a lifetime: an ad in the Superbowl on 2/2/14. They are taking business stories now until the end of September. Learn more on Small Business, Big Game.