Women’s March
According to a couple of professors, between 3.3 and 4.6 million people marched on January 21 in 550 U.S. cities to support women’s empowerment. Claudia and I were among those as was Marsha Bailey of WEV. If anyone else went – THANK YOU! The sky might have been grey, but the vibe was brighter than the sea of pink hats. And we are motivated, inspired and excited from the energy that the mass gathering generated.
Whatever your politics, we believe there is one issue that is a true bi-partisan win-win: empower Linda McMahon, the nominee to head the US SBA, with $100 million to harness the entrepreneurial energy of our nation’s 10 million women entrepreneurs. That’s more than five times the present budget for Women’s Business Centers.
McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment President and CEO, testified at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday in front of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. Says Ann Sullivan of Madison Services Group in her blog post “10 Things You Should Know From the Linda McMahon Hearing“:
Given the contentious nature of other confirmation hearings, it was unknown what tone McMahon’s hearing would take. But the hearing went well. Senators were polite and McMahon was responsive to concerns. With so much partisanship in Washington, it was positive to see McMahon’s interest in working with the committee—both sides.
President Trump and McMahon can score a political win by strongly supporting 1) re-authorization of the WBCs and 2) significantly increase current funding for women’s entrepreneurship.
This ‘Invest in Women’ strategy will be on our policy agenda for this year.
Self-Employed Entrepreneurs: The New Era Workforce
Many people focus on the disruption that the technology platforms have brought to markets. In our symposium last week, we focused on the needs of the entrepreneurs who are doing independent work, whether to supplement their income to start a business or as a career path and a way to find clients.
The symposium was content-rich, so we are sharing The New Era Workforce symposium resources with a bit of context. We encourage you to check out the presentations and use the information with proper citation. We will post videos of the morning when they’re available. A big thanks to Intuit who co-hosted!
For the short version, check out the Carolyn Said article “Entrepreneurs thrash out future of flexible work” that was in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The symposium is the beginning. CAMEO will use what we learned from to guide us in our future endeavors.
Along the same lines, Stanford Social Innovation Review hosted a webinar – The Gig Economy – on Wednesday, January 25, 2017. You can listen online.
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: Aspen Institute published a new white paper – “Bridging the Divide: How Business Ownership Can Help Close the Racial Wealth Gap.” Tweet it out!
New Report: CFED released “Administrative Actions to Close the Ever-Growing Gap.” This document describes seven administrative policy proposals President Trump could take that would help solve the problems of financial insecurity, wealth inequality and the growing racial wealth divide.
New Report: The US SBA’s Office of Advocacy released “Explaining the Emergence of the Immigrant Entrepreneur.” This report found an explanation for the growth in the number of immigrant entrepreneurs. Put simply, age is related to self-employment, and immigrants are getting older. In addition, as the native-born Baby Boomers age and retire, the number of self-employed will decline.
For Your Clients: The future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the health insurance marketplaces is an unknown. In California, a lot of confusion and misinformation about what this means for the state’s health insurance marketplace, Covered California, and enrollment options for 2017 is floating around. Small Business Majority sets the record straight on healthcare in California with a few key points to keep in mind. In a nutshell, if you signed up for 2017, you’re covered for 2017.
CDFI Conference: The CDFI Coalition will hold its 2017 Institute on February 28 and March 1 at the Capital Hilton Hotel, 1001 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C. The agenda will include speakers and topics of interest and importance to the CDFI Industry. Panelists will include federal agency leaders and industry experts with topics ranging from the 115th Congress and Trump Administration priorities, to the CDFI Fund and other federal resources, as well as private sector sources of capital for CDFIs. The early bird rate deadline is this Friday January 27, 2017.
Organizational Development: Join CAMEO member Catherine Marshall for a one-day workshop – One Page Business Plan for Non-profit Organizations Workshop on February 22, 2017 in Sacramento. Spend an afternoon to clarify your leadership plan and guide your mission’s work.
Funding Opportunity: The SBA’s Aspire Challenge is a $1.2 million prize competition that will award up to 16 awards of $75,000 to organizations across the nation who can deliver entrepreneurial training to individuals who have been formerly incarcerated. The application deadline is February 12, 2017 with winners be announced no later than March 14. An informational webinar will be held on Tuesday, January 31 at 11:00am PT // 2:00pm ET.
Funding Opportunity: The Local Crowd pleased to announce an opportunity for up to 10 U.S. rural communities to become Demonstration Sites that use crowdfunding as an economic development tool. This will be the fourth and final RFP to become a demonstration site. Local economic development organizations are invited to respond to the Request For Proposals. These responders may be local or regional economic development groups, SBDCs, chambers of commerce, Main Street programs or other organizations. Deadline to respond is February 1, 2017.
For Your Clients: Join a global community of impactful entrepreneurs with Stanford Ignite, a transformative program where innovators with military backgrounds learn core business skills such as prototyping, marketing, accounting, leadership and much more. Applications are due March 2, 2017.
For Your Clients: The U.S. SBA opened the third year of the InnovateHER: Innovating for Women Challenge (the Challenge), pursuant to the America Competes Act, for entrepreneurs to create a product or service that has a measurable impact on the lives of women and families, the potential for commercialization, and fills a need in the marketplace. Organizations that wish to host a local competition as part of the initial round of this Challenge must send a request to the SBA no later than March 10, 2017. (Click on first link in sentence and scroll half way down the page.)
Advocacy Day: This year, OFN’s Advocacy Day will take place on May 16–17, 2017. During Advocacy Day, your voice is needed to make the case to members of Congress and Administration officials about the importance of funding for the CDFI Fund, the industry, and our communities.
Funding Opportunity: Opportunity Fund recently launched its Community Partner Program. The program can supplement the missions and programs of other non-profits by serving as a microloan program for those who do not have one and complementing the services of those who do. Partners receive several benefits, including an in-depth look at the credit and underwriting criteria and a 5% commission on every qualified referral booked for loans between $5,000 and $50,000. If you have questions or are interested, please contact Robert Zapata by email or phone 323.506.3529.
microTracker Relaunches: FIELD at the Aspen Institute is thrilled to announce the new microTracker.org, their nationwide database on US microenterprise development organizations. MicroTracker gives you the ability to explore, analyze, and compare data on microenterprise programs across the country. The new site is updated to give flexibility, better navigation, and more ability for downloading analysis.
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