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Need Your Help! and November in LA

In this week’s Must Know

  • Self-employment Assistance Update
  • November in Los Angeles
  • The Goodies: information on important opportunities like trainings, funding, scholarship programs. This week’s highlight is today’s webinar at 2pm. You’ll learn how California microlenders can work together with ShadeFund to ensure that California’s green innovators have access to the capital they need to grow.

Self-employment Assistance Update

We’ve been hammering out the bill to bring a Self-Employment Assistance program to California. A SEA program would drive more clients to your programs and open up additional funding opportunities through the workforce system. We have an author and we have interest in the legislature – in fact Claudia is in Sacramento today meeting with potential supporters. However, a couple of key players are resistant to implementation. That’s where you come in.

We need to build public support to let those who might not be totally on board that California wants this. Please do the following:

  1. sign the Be Your Own Boss petition,
  2. recruit five colleagues to sign and
  3. really spread the word by downloading the toolkit.
  4. Let me know what your plans are, what you have done to spread the word! A big thanks to Women’s Economic Ventures for recruiting their network to the cause.

November in Los Angeles

Save the dates for two CAMEO events in Los Angeles in November:

  • Think Big: A Women’s Symposisum on November 7, 2012 and
  • Introductory Financial Workshop for Business Counselors the week of on November 12, 2012.

Think Big! A Women’s Symposium: Join CAMEO and become inspired! Think Big! Save November 7, 2012 on your calendar, more details to come.

Introductory Financial Workshop for Business Counselors: We want to give you a heads up that Susan Brown, our trainer extraordinaire, will be in Los Angeles sometime the week of November 12 to lead a great workshop. It’s a one day introductory workshop that will cover the following topics: referring clients, eligibility, underwriting criteria, understanding financial statements, creating cash flow projections, best practices for making microloan referrals.

Staff should attend this workshop to learn how to develop loan-ready microenterprise clients and help business clients successfully qualify for a microloan. We will introduce what lenders want in a borrower, common eligibility criteria and how determine a quality loan referral. It’s not too early to identify the staff members that you’d like to send in order to build financial, underwriting, and lending capacity.

Look for an invitation and registration information for each event over the next week.

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 Webinar:Join CAMEO TODAY at 2:00pm and ShadeFund for a free webinar to learn about a new capital source for natural resource based businesses. Green micro enterprises are critical to the development of vibrant communities, resilient economies, and healthy environments. Unfortunately, these businesses – whether they are a community sponsored farm or a wood products company using sustainable lumber – find it tough to raise the affordable capital they need to grow, especially in today’s economic climate.

Entrepreneurship Education Summit: AEO co-sponsors the free, live broadcast of the Empact Summit on the Future of Entrepreneurship Education on Thursday and Friday, September 27-28, 2012. The Summit convenes top leaders from different sectors of the entrepreneurship ecosystem (government, investors, foundations, education, corporations, media, entrepreneur support organizations, and entrepreneurs) to discuss the most transformative trends in entrepreneurship education (coworking, accelerators, crowdfunding, corporate partnerships, and more). Reserve your spot.

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 September 29, 2012. Learn more and register.

National Encore Entrepreneur Mentor Day: The U.S. Small Business Administration and AARP will team up October 2 to host the first National Encore Entrepreneur Mentor Day. The event is targeted at entrepreneurs over the age of 50 to match these “encore entrepreneurs” with successful business owners and community leaders for advice and assistance. Find a local event near you.

Free Webinar: Attention trainers – this is a great webinar for you and your clients. State Controller John Chiang is hosting The Sole Proprietorship vs. LLC – Determine Which Tax Structure is Right for Your Business on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 from 10:00-11:00am PDT. Learn about the tax implications of each and how to determine which one is suitable for your business. Other topics include key tax filing requirements and additional resources that can assist you in setting up a business. Register for the webinar.

Free Webinar: Credit Builders Alliance Hosts Banking the Unbanked Webinar on Thursday, October 11, 2012 11:00am-12:15pm PST // 2:00pm-3:15pm EST. Looking for tools to help your clients open bank accounts? You’re not alone! 75% of nonprofits practitioners surveyed by CBA expressed dissatisfaction with their knowledge and ability to help their clients open bank account. Register and learn more.

For Your Clients: Fedex is the latest corporate sponsor to host a small business grant competition.

For Your Clients: CARAT offers free online trainings for small businesses through December. Check out their calendar.

New Report: California Financial Opportunities Roundtable (CalFOR) Handbook to Capital Access. Read more about how micro fits into the CalFORS effort on our websites.

Interesting Stats: The Small Business Frequently Asked Questions from the SBA reports that 79.5% of all small businesses are non-employer and it’s an upward trend. The SBA also hosts a number of do-it-yourself webinars on financing your business.