Micro’s Reason for Support of Immigrants and Refugees
Elsewhere in DC
Renew Your Membership or Join CAMEO before February 15 (extended deadline) to be included in CAMEO’s Member Directory.
The Goodies – This week’s highlight is for your clients. Register for “Escape the Bootstrap Trap” on February 8, 2017 at 5:00pm PST (scroll down for more details.)
Micro’s Reason for Support of Immigrants and Refugees
CAMEO stands for our members and their clients. Five of our members serve refugees: Anew America, Fresno CDFI, IRC, Opening Doors, and PACE. And almost all members serve immigrants. We perceive the executive order put into place by Trump last week as unconstitutional and unethical, and effectively constitutes a ban on Muslims. “Economic Opportunity” is part of our name and that is not possible unless our country is fair and inclusive.
CAMEO stands with refugees and immigrants.
Immigrants are
almost twice as likely as U.S.-born people to start their own business. Immigrants started 21% of all new U.S. businesses even though they were 13% of the U.S. population.
Immigrants are crucial for the success of our our country. They have a propensity toward entrepreneurship. They look at their new home and see different opportunities than a native-born will see.
Data aside, braving new frontiers, taking the risk to support your family, owning your own business, creating your own job, building community – they’re all part of our entrepreneurial spirit and national identity. And entrepreneurial immigrants have played a large role in our collective heritage.
Other business leaders agree. You may have heard of Lyft’s $1 million donation to the ACLU or Starbuck’s promise to hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years. Those in the
banking sector also came out against the ban.
American Sustainable Business Council started a
petition from the business community in support of immigrants and refugees.
As American business leaders and employers we too are committed to ensuring America remains a great country with a strong economy. Immigrants are now, and have always been, a guarantee that this vision is realized.
Apropos of the topic of hand, check out the SBA’s Office of Advocacy’s report – “
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.
Elsewhere in DC
On Monday,
President Trump signed an Executive Order that changes the way agencies issue regulations. For every new regulation, the agency must retract two existing ones. The Order also requires that the new regulation can not be made at a cost to the government. This tightens the grip on the regulatory process by giving each agency an annual quota of regulations through the federal budgeting process.
The details and impact are vague. You can read the
transcript of President Trump’s remarks while signing the order.
Linda McMahon passed her first hurdle to becoming the next head of the SBA on a 19-0 vote by the House Small Business Committee. The next step is a full Senate vote on her confirmation expected early next week.
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!
CAMEO in the News: “
Entrepreneurs thrash out future of flexible work” as published in the
San Francisco Chronicle.
On the CAMEO Blog: Read the recap of Self-Employed Entrepreneurs:
The New Era Workforce.
For Your Clients: Funding your business from your savings or credit card can trap you in a downward spiral of scarcity. Insufficient capital is one of the leading reasons for business failure, not to mention burnout and stress! Learn how to escape the bootstrap trap with a free online training offering by Jenny Kassan, attorney and business funding coach. Register for “
Escape the Bootstrap Trap” on
February 8, 2017 at 5:00pm PST.
Funding Opportunity: OFN announced their
NEXT Fund for Innovation, a pilot that will provide flexible capital in amounts ranging from $500,000 to $2 million to CDFIs with innovative ideas. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis now through
June 30, 2017. The fund is open to all qualifying CDFIs, including non-OFN Members and past NEXT Awards recipients. For more information,
join OFN on Thursday,
February 9, 2017, 10:00-11:00am PST // 1:00-2:00pm EST.
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.
Free Webinar: Credit Bureau Alliance will share the results of a new survey of CBA’s Reporter members about the benefits of reporting client loan data to the three major credit bureaus.
Register for the webinar on
February 16, 2017 at 11:00am PST // 2:00pm EST. This webinar is open to the public. Feel free to share this invitation.
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.
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.
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.
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.]]>
