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

Annual Meeting Less Than Two Weeks Away

  • CAMEO’s Annual Meeting
  • Faces Award Winner Abraham Lopez
  • The Goodies – This week’s highlight is reminder that the USDA and PRIME grant applications are due within the month. Scroll down for details.

CAMEO’s Annual Meeting

Register today for our Annual Member Meeting. It’s less than two weeks away!

Join us in Sacramento to advocate for microbusiness issues, learn about business pollinators, and look into the future to reimagine business assistance services.

June 9, 2015
8:30 am – 6:00 pm
Sterling Hotel
1300 H Street, Sacramento

You have three homework assignments for the meeting:

  • Schedule morning legislative visits (see the event webpage for details) to discuss three crucial issues: a bill to help small businesses be more aware of capital resources offered by microlenders; the need to support business assistance program; and the importance of women’s business ownership in closing the wealth gap.
  • Read AEO’s white paper on Understanding the State of Technical Assistance for the afternoon discussion.
  • Get excited for Michael Shuman! He’ll give you what you need to convince your local economic development staff that microbusiness is more effective than business attraction in creating sustainable jobs and local economies.

The evening before, we’ll honor Karen Firestein, the new USDA Business and Cooperative Program Director for California, at an invitation-only dinner. Karen’s been a great partner and we’re thrilled to celebrate her new responsibilities.

Faces Award Winner Abraham Lopez


We’re thrilled to announce our Fifth Annual CAMEO Faces of Entrepreneurship Award winners!

Congratulations to Toni Ricci, owner of Elite Dance and Performing Arts Center, who was nominated by VEDC, and Abraham Lopez, owner of YucaTech Technology Systems, who was nominated by Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, Marin. Read Abraham’s story. Here’s a teaser:

He loved to fix his own gadgets and has a passion for technology, so he promised his 10-year old son, Johny: “Someday, we’re going to open an electronics business.” For an immigrant from. Yucatan, Mexico, with little English at the time, no formal technical skills or money, it was a tall order.

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: From Best Cities for Minorities: Gauging the Economics of Opportunity – “Today, the small business environment has become increasingly reflective of the country’s changing demography, with all three large ethnic groups expanding their entrepreneurial presence faster than the Anglo population…. Self-employment represents one of the clearest paths for minorities to improve their status…their share of firms and revenues still greatly trails that of Anglos.”

For Your Clients: Our friends at Small Business California are co-sponsoring a free webinar that will help your clients answer the question: “Is your business ready to comply with California’s new sick pay law?” on June 8, 2015, 3:00-3:30pm PT. The new California Sick Pay law becomes effective July 1, 2015. Almost all employers, even those with just one employee, will be affected by this new law. Feel free to invite your clients and your trainers.

Industry Conference: The 13th annual BALLE Conference is shaping up to be one of the most exciting and inspiring yet. The leading lights of the local economy movement will gather June 10-12, 2015 in Phoenix to inspire, learn, and connect around What’s Working — tangible solutions that are paving the path to real prosperity for all people. CAMEO followers will receive 10% off current price when they use the discount code BETTERTOGETHER when registering for the BALLE Conference.

Funding Opportunity: The USDA has opened two funding opportunities: Rural Business Development Grants (RBDG), formerly known as RBEG and RBOG, and Value Added Producer Grants (VAPG). RBDG is a competitive grant designed to support targeted technical assistance, training and other activities leading to the development or expansion of small and emerging private businesses in rural areas that have fewer than 50 employees and less than $1 million in gross revenues. VAPG program helps agricultural producers enter into value-added activities related to the processing and/or marketing of bio-based, value-added products. Deadlines are June 19, 2015.

Funding Opportunity: The U.S. SBA’s PRIME grant announcement is out. Applications are due on June 29, 2015. The official one-liner: “The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has issued Program Announcement No. PRIME-2015-01 to provide training and capacity building grant programs to microenterprise development organizations (MDOs).”