Funders
Symposium Discusses MED Needs October 27, 2004 Oakland, CA
Robert
Friedman, founder of the Corporation for Enterprise Development,
Inger Brinck, Program Officer for the Women’s Foundation
of California, and Myra Holmes, owner of Star Partners
Security Services and a graduate of the Renaissance Entrepreneurship
Center, at CAMEO’s Funder’s Symposium on Microenterprise
Development.
In October, CAMEO hosted the Funders' Symposium on
Microenterprise Development, an educational program
for organizations seeking to learn more about how to implement
or expand support for microenterprise. Over twenty people
attended and a great deal of discussion was generated on the
funding needs of CAMEO members and how the capacity of microenterprise
development programs could be enhanced. We received a lot
of positive comments from the funders who participated and
CAMEO hopes to hold similar events throughout the state in
order to raise awareness for microenterprise and cultivate
partnerships with funders.
Microenterprise
Training Gets Record Attendance September 16-17, 2004 San Francisco, CA
Marie
Spaulding from Women's Economic Ventures facilitates group
discussions with participants in Operating a Successful
Microenterprise Program
This September,
CAMEO offered two days of specialized training on Operating
a Successful Microenterprise Program in San Francisco.
The training was designed to serve the needs of those starting
a microenterprise development program, board and staff of
emerging programs, and new staff of established programs.
Demand for the training was so high that a last-minute change
of venue was needed (from the Renaissance Entrepreneurship
Center to San Francisco State University) to accommodate 39
participants from California and Oregon.
Marie Spaulding from Women’s
Economic Ventures in Santa Barbara led participants
through the basics of running a microenterprise
program including client screening, assessment and referral,
program funding, marketing and outreach, and developing follow-up
services for microentrepreneurs such as mentoring and support
groups. The training also covered fundraising for microloan
programs, client outreach strategies, data collection for
reporting and program evaluation, and developing programs
and services that cover the entire microenterprise lifecycle.
Several best-practices examples gave participants concrete
tools to help take their programs to the next level.
Those just entering the field were well served by the training.
“As a new person to microenterprise, I found that the
training was a good crash course,” said one participant.
“It gave me a taste of microenterprise development,
and the training will support me as I work to develop our
microenterprise program.”
Attendees gained in-depth knowledge and acquired the skills
to start a microenterprise development program in their community.
One attendee remarked that the “specific information
on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a microenterprise program
was very helpful.”
CAMEO is proud to be able to offer these valuable trainings
and leverage the collective knowledge of California’s
microenterprise practitioners to improve microenterprise programs
statewide. Operating a Successful Microenterprise Program
was made possible by financial support from California Bank
and Trust.
CAMEO’s
Data Collection Learning Cluster Online Training Sessions September 28 and October 5,
2004 Online
In conjunction with trainers from the Aspen
Institute, CAMEO held interactive
online training sessions on two days in the Fall of 2004.
These online workshops were accessible by most computers and
featured leading data collection experts in the microenterprise
field. This program helped participating organizations identify
their data collection and technology needs, form a work plan
to meet these needs, and gain access to the knowledge and
resources they need to implement this plan quickly and effectively.
Data collection is vitally important for nonprofits in order
to provide funders with quantative information on the results
of their programs.
Subjects covered in the conference included: data collection
for microenterprise development; management information systems
including MicroTest and their importance in performance management
and outcomes tracking; and performance measurement.
Elaine Edgcomb and Tamra Thetford served
as trainers for both sessions. Elaine Edgcomb is the Director
of the Aspen Institute's Microenterprise Fund for Innovation,
Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination (FIELD). Tamra Thetford
is Research Associate at the Aspen Institute's Economic Opportunities
Program.
MicroTest is a
project of the FIELD program (Microenterprise Fund for
Innovation, Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination) at
the Aspen
Institute. Its mission is to help microenterprise programs
assess and
improve performance. MicroTest enables microenterprise development
practitioners to assess their effectiveness. It provides practitioners
with a suite of products and services.
Microenterprise
and Big Business Event a Success! July 2004 Fresno, CA Local business and government leaders
hope to create 30,000 jobs in the Central Valley region over
the next five years. Microenterprise will play a huge role
in this effort.
“We know that we're not going to create those jobs by
(drawing) Boeing or Microsoft,” said Fred Burkhardt,
the economic development director for the City of Fresno and
a committee member of the Regional Jobs Initiative.
Burkhardt was a speaker at CAMEO’s July 28 public education
event in Fresno—Microenterprise and Big Business:
A Partnership for Central Valley Prosperity, co–sponsored
by Californians for Family Economic Self-Sufficiency (CFESS)
and hosted by UC Merced Small Business Development Center
Regional Network, Valley Small Business Development Corporation,
Fresno West Coalition for Economic Development, Craig School
of Business, Central California Small Business Development
Center, and California FarmLink.
The early morning event drew 30 people, highlighted ways in
which big business and government can work with microenterprise
development programs (generating several ideas for future
collaboration), and was the subject of an article in the Fresno
Bee.
Microenterprise has been receiving loads of attention due
to the passage of SB 1156 and the tireless advocacy work of
CAMEO members.
Microloan
Training in Burbank March 2004 On March 31, CAMEO and
Valley
Economic Development Center (VEDC) joined forces
in Burbank to produce Microloan Program Basics,
a specialized training on the planning, implementation,and maintenance of a
microloan program. The VEDC team, led by Angela Bautista,
Roberto Barragan, and Vladimir Victorio, guided 35 participants
through program marketing, client screening, scoring and approving
loan applications, servicing loans, collecting on delinquent
accounts, performing annual portfolio reviews, and providing
ongoing technical assistance to borrowers.
VEDC’s microloan
veterans emphasized the need for programs to carefully select
their loan clients and to work closely with borrowers, providing
them with ongoing training to maximize the impact of the loan.
While championing microloan programs as vital to clients who
cannot access capital through traditional channels, VEDC was
quick to admit the challenge of creating and maintaining a
microloan program compared to other small business financing
options.
Attendees
came away with a deeper understanding of the organizational
ingenuity and discipline needed to build and sustain a microloan
program.
One participant
remarked: “Microlending is about being flexible and
creative and working closely with your borrowers.”
Another
offered this advice: “Don’t lend if you don’t
have the guts to do collections.”
