New Address: Two Embarcadero Center, 8th floor, San Francisco, CA 94111     

New Federal Micro Bill!

  • Federal Micro Bill – Community Lending and Small Business Jobs Act of 2013
  • CAMEO Opportunities – Survey and Communications
  • The Goodies – This week’s highlight includes a job announcement. CAMEO is hiring a committed, creative, and well organized consultant with deep connections to the California veterans’ community and knowledge
    of small business development issues, to drive our Veterans Micro-Business Development Program.

Federal Micro Bill

Micro has a new bill – the Community Lending and Small Business Jobs Act of 2013.

Last week during National Small Business Week, Representative Cedric Richmond (D-LA) introduced an expanded version of the bill he introduced in the last Congress – which AEO and CAMEO supported. Our guy in DC, Martin Feeney, writes that the bill keeps provisions from the original bill:

…to allow PRIME grant recipients to use grants funding to advertise their services in “print, electronic, and other media”; increase the LMI community requirement from 50% to 60%; and allow the SBA Administrator to reduce or waive PRIME matching requirements; create a “Microenterprise Coordinator” at the SBA; create and maintain a publicly available list of all micro programs across government; and create an office of youth entrepreneurship at the SBA.

The bill also includes a new provision that would shift unused and repaid funds from the Small Business Lending Fund to CDFIs that lend to small businesses. Rep Judy Chu (CA-27) is a co-sponsor. Stay tuned on how you can help advocate for this bill and to keep funding for PRIME!

CAMEO Member Opportunities

We can’t emphasize enough how critical your impact information is to our policy work on your behalf. So if you haven’t already, gather your data and fill out the microTracker census. Our deadline for the annual survey is July 31, 2013. Many, many thanks to those of you who have already filled it out

We offer two communication benefits for our members this year. We are opening up our online calendar to our members to enter their events and classes. And we continue to offer our press release service. Download this document to learn more.

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!

CAMEO in the News: Small Business File quotes Claudia about the importance of business technical assistance. Watch from 3:25 to about 4:35.

Member Kudos: El Pajaro’s Community Kitchen is open for business. Listen to the report on their local NPR station – Kitchen Incubator Looks to Create Jobs.

For Your Clients: Two trainings are available thanks to Jefferson Economic Development Institute in collaboration with Arcata EDC, CAMEO, North Coast SBDC and West Company: Inspired Marketing, How to Creatively and Consistently Communicate to Your Ideal Customers and Working Smart, How to Understand Your Profit and Loss Statements to Increase the Bottom Line.

Grant Opportunity: The USDA is seeking applications from qualified organizations to provide technical assistance to rural businesses to help them expand and create jobs. The application deadlines for Rural Business Opportunity Grants are June 30, 2013 for partnership funds and June 28, 2013 for all other requests.

For Your Clients: Specialty Food is holding a story contest. Winners win an ad campaign and a trip to San Francisco. Deadline is July 12, 2013.

Grant Opportunity: PG&E is piloting an Economic Vitality Grant Program to invest up to $200,000 in programs designed to enhance local economic vitality—ranging from business incubation and growth to workforce development. Deadline is July 31, 2013.