Happy New Year: Meet CAMEO’s New CEO and Reflecting on 2017

• Welcome to CAMEO’s New CEO – Carolina Martinez
• Reflecting on 2017
• Give Your Org the Gift of Membership: Gift your organization a year of training, advocacy and connections – renew your membership or join!
• Register for the Microlenders Forum on February 13, 2018 in San Francisco.
• The Goodies – This week’s highlight is that the Early Bird rate of $350 for AEO’s annual conference ends on January 15, 2018.

Welcome to CAMEO’s New CEO – Carolina Martinez

Happy New Year to everyone! We start out the new year with a bang. Oscar Dominguez, our board president, wrote the following to announce our new CEO, Carolina Martinez:

On August 1 of last year, Claudia Viek stepped down as CEO of CAMEO to focus on outside projects and spend more time with family and on volunteer commitments. In the 10 years Claudia was at the helm, she made considerable contributions to the organization and our field. CAMEO is a stronger and more relevant organization because of her incredible leadership and vision.

While Claudia can never be replaced, as the humble president of the board, I am very happy and excited to announce the result of our recruitment efforts. The board and staff are extremely grateful for the support from members and stakeholders during this search and look forward to a successful transition.

On January 2, Carolina Martinez began her tenure as the new CEO of CAMEO. Carolina brings much to the table. Her experience includes: owning her own consulting business, coaching small businesses, and serving as a coordinator then an executive director of a community development corporation, director of an SBDC in Pennsylvania, and a program manager at an international business development center. Our new CEO has a very strong foundation and understanding of the needs of CAMEO’s members.

Carolina is meeting with members all over the state, key supporters/funding partners and learning the ropes. If you haven’t heard from her yet, you will. Nevertheless, I encourage you to attend our upcoming Microlenders Forum in February and our Annual Meeting in June to meet Carolina.

Please join me in welcoming Carolina.

On behalf of the board and staff, I wish you and your organizations a very Happy New Year.

Gratefully,
Oscar Dominguez

You can email Carolina or call her at 415.992.4482.

Reflecting on 2017

We thank our members and stakeholders for being an active part of the CAMEO family and wish you a prosperous and healthy new year.

As we move forward into 2018, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we accomplished in 2017, and what remains to be done. CAMEO’s commitment to capacity building has never been stronger.

• We continued our successful programs such as the Microlenders Forum and our annual member meeting, where we introduced members to new technology.
• We convened farmers and specialty food makers for a record attendance at our third Go-to-Market gathering in partnership with the Specialty Foods Association, in Central Valley’s Reedley.
• Susan Brown developed and delivered the Microlending Essential course that teaches best practices in underwriting microloans; this training is part of our Microlending Academy, and will include training and materials to help lenders develop a rigorous loan policy manual.
• Mark Quinn joined us as a senior advisor and his first effort was to help the SBDCs in Northern California deliver disaster services to the area’s small businesses affected by the fires.

CAMEO also took leadership on promoting the New Era of Independent, Self-employed Entrepreneurs with a symposium sponsored by Intuit in January and a fall legislative briefing in DC on how tax reform would affect gig economy workers.

Our main challenge remains the current political reality. The news cycle doesn’t sleep and events demand that we participate more fully in the state and the federal legislative processes — if we want to work toward economic justice and close the wealth and income gap. We’ve pushed for federal dollars for the SBA, CDFI, USDA and CDBG and are waiting for Congress to pass a FY 2018 budget so we can see the results of that effort. We’ve advocated for immigrants rights (twice as likely as US natives to start their own business), net neutrality (necessary for small business owners), and the self-employed (a new era workforce with old institutions).

There is so much to do, and so much opportunity to make a difference! We’re well rested and look forward to 2018. Happy New Year!

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!

New Report: The Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey released “Report on Rural Employer Firms” while we were on holiday. Highlights include: Firms in rural areas are more stable and face less financing constraints; and small banks play a bigger role in rural areas.

New Report: The Tax Policy Center analyzed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act and how it will affect households in different income brackets. In general, higher income households receive larger average tax
cuts as a percentage of after-tax income, with the largest cuts as a share of income going to taxpayers
in the 95th to 99th percentiles of the income distribution. On average, in 2027 taxes would change little
for lower- and middle-income groups and decrease for higher-income groups. Compared to current law,
5 percent of taxpayers would pay more tax in 2018, 9 percent in 2025, and 53 percent in 2027. The key question is: how will this affect the budget and the things that taxes pay for like roads, public education, and other services.

New Report: Asset Funders Network released “Income Volatility: Why it Destabilizes Working Families and How Philanthropy Can Make a Difference,” to help grantmakers understand the enormous challenges income volatility presents in America and provides an array of strategies for philanthropy to leverage both investments and leadership to empower families to protect themselves from volatility’s worst effects.

Annual Micro Census: Download the 2016 Annual Micro Census.

New Resource: The SBA’s SF District Office has launched a slack channel – The Business Support Network – that you are invited to join. Feel free to announce events and voice questions about where to send clients, how to handle specific types of businesses, find funding (for clients or yourselves), shape programming to serve business owners, and more.

For Your Clients: Do you know a small business owner with an amazing success story to tell? If so, submit your nomination today for the 2018 National Small Business Week Awards. All nominations must be mailed or hand delivered to the nearest SBA Office no later than 3:00 pm ET on January 9, 2018. Consult the Awards Guidelines for details.

Moving Main Street Forward: AEO’s microbusiness and microfinance conference is a must-attend event for professionals providing capital, technical assistance and other forms of trusted guidance to Main Street and microbusiness owners. The agenda will be packed with inspiring keynotes, thought-provoking plenaries and compelling breakout sessions designed to engage attendees in bold and provocative conversations on using inclusion, innovation and investment to move Main Streets across the country forward. Register at the Early Bird rate of $350 by January 15, 2018!

For Your Clients: The Specialty Food Association is offering your clients a 25% discount to attend its educational workshop, The Basics, being held at the Mission Bay Conference Center prior to the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco on January 20, 2018, 8:00am-5:00pm. The Basics offers actionable insights on the specialty food industry through sharing valuable business advice from successful industry veterans. It’s a must-attend event for anyone who is learning about the specialty food business, new to Fancy Food Shows, or looking for some fresh insights to enhance their success in the industry. With this offer, the price for The Basics is reduced from $199 to just $149. Offer good for CAMEO members and their clients only. Contact us to get the code for your clients.

Professional Conference: Registration for the 2018 CDFI Institute is open. The 2018 Institute will take place on February 28 and March 1 at the Renaissance Hotel, located at 999 9th Street NW in Washington, D.C.

New Report: The SBA Office of Advocacy released a report on the impact of microbusiness on the national economy. Microbusinesses, defined in the fact sheet as firms with 1-9 employees, are the smallest of the smalls but they are the most common type of small business and exhibit an oversized role in employment.

New Report: The fourth annual Freelancing in America study shows what many freelancers know intuitively: The freelance workforce is growing rapidly and adapting quickly in a fast-changing economy. The Freelancers Union projects that independent workers will be a majority of the U.S. workforce in just a decade.