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Protecting the Micro Sector and Our Clients; Referral Fees Are Here

  • Protecting the Micro Sector and Our Clients
  • Referral Fees for Successful Loans
  • Attention communications staff: yours truly developed a tool to Find Your Frequent Email Readers Using Excel.
  • The Goodies – This week’s highlight is that comments on the revised Small Business Borrower’s Bill of Rights aka BBoR 2.0 can be submitted by email or via an online survey by Friday, November 18, 2016.

Protecting the Micro Sector and Our Clients

Many people are issuing statements to help people figure out how to think about the results of last week’s election and move forward on working on the issues they care about.

Two of California’s highest elected officials, Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León, issued a joint statement in support of immigrants and important federal funding.

We will be reaching out to federal, state and local officials to evaluate how a Trump Presidency will potentially impact federal funding of ongoing state programs, job-creating investments reliant on foreign trade, and federal enforcement of laws affecting the rights of people living in our state.

Jane Campbell, executive director of WIPP, emphasizes the importance of supporting women business owners.

President-elect Trump has a lot of work ahead of him to help women entrepreneurs thrive. Women business owners face inequality on many fronts. However, they make up a third of all businesses in the country, generate more than $1.4 trillion in revenues and employ 8.4 million people. WIPP identified 10 things the new president needs to know about women entrepreneurs.

CAMEO will work with our partners to protect our federal funding for CDFIs, SBA programs and rural programs and ensuring women business owners’ needs are top of mind for Congress and the Administration. We will work to protect those clients who have come to this country in search of the American Dream (and make great entrepreneurs!) We are concerned about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rulemakings on arbitration and payday lending and will work with our allies to preserve the gains we’ve made.

And so you know what’s in the hopper – here’s a look at President-elect Trump’s 100 day plan.

Referral Fees for Successful Loans

A year ago, Governor Brown signed SB 197 that allows non-profit lenders to pay referral fees to certain entities that aren’t brokers, such as non-profits in the microbusiness sector. Well, that law has now resulted in some action that we hope increases microlending volume and reaches more small businesses.

Opportunity Fund recently launched its Community Partner Program which aims to work with other non-profits who deal directly with small business owners in California. The Community Partner Program looks to supplement the missions and programs of other non-profits by serving as a microloan program for those who do not already have one in place and complementing the services of those who do. Once a partner, you will receive several benefits, including an in-depth look at the credit and underwriting criteria so that you will understand what happens when referring your client. The program provides a 5% commission on every qualified referral booked for loans between $5,000 and $50,000.

Several CAMEO members in SoCal are now participating in the program. If you have questions or are interested, please contact Robert Zapata by email or phone 323.506.3529.

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!

Take Action: The coalition that brought you the Small Business Borrowers Bill of Rights (BBoR) has come up with BBoR 2.0 that incorporates the feedback that BBoR supporters have shared over the past year. You can read a draft of the BBoR 2.0 with new language highlighted in yellow and deleted provisions indicated with the strike-through marks. Your comments on BBoR 2.0 can be submitted by email or via an online survey by November 18, 2016.

Happy Global Entrepreneurship Week

For Your Clients: The U.S. SBA and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced enhancements to Money Smart for Small Business, a resource that provides practical guidance for starting and managing a small business.

Funding Opportunity: The U.S. SBA Office of Veterans Business Development (OVBD) announced a $300,000 funding opportunity for women and veteran-owned businesses through its Women Veteran Entrepreneurship Training Program. Successful applicants will be organizations with a demonstrated history of providing successful entrepreneurship training to women veterans, women service members, and women spouses of service members and veterans. Applications must be received by December 12, 2016. A Q&A conference call will be held on November 30 at 12noon PST // 3:00pm EST. To join the conference call, dial 1-888-858-2144, using access code: 5817583#. All questions must be submitted no later than November 16 to Janet Moorman.

For Your Clients: Join Go-Biz for California Competes Tax Credit Workshops throughout the state during November and December. Webinars are also available. Each 45 minute workshop/webinar includes an overview of the program, program goals and evaluation criteria, and step-by-step instructions through the application process. All businesses are encouraged to attend. The online application can be accessed starting January 2, 2017.

Small Business Saturday: November 26 has become the day when communities everywhere show their love for small businesses. Help to spread the word and create excitement leading up to the day by leveraging your brand reach and social media channels. Your clients can customize materials on the Shop Small website or download ready made collateral, such as posters, email templates and social media posts. Of course for us, every day is Small Business Day!

For Your Clients: Small Business Majority hosts Access to Capital 101: Funding Options to Start and Grow Your Business every other Wednesday, the next one is November 30. They present an overview of alternative lending options including community development financial institutions, SBA’s loan guarantee program and reputable online options, key questions to consider when seeking funding, the Small Business Borrowers’ Bill of Rights and helpful tools and resources.

Free Webinar: U.S. DOL and Small Business Majority host “Workplace Benefits and High Road Employer Practices for California Small Businesses”, a webinar about high-road employer practices, including equal pay, paid leave and a host of workplace benefits programs and policies impacting California small businesses. Register for the webinar on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 from 9:30-10:30am (PST).

Federal Reserve Micro Study: They need your help in distributing an important national survey of small business credit to your loan applicants and business assistance clients. When you register (click on the link), The Federal Reserve System will then send you the communications tools you’ll need to invite small businesses to participate. The survey has an extended deadline and will be open now through December, so sign up, get the toolkit and communicate with your clients

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.

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.

For Your Clients (and all trainers!): NerdWallet recently released a special report on the merchant cash advance industry and a new MCA educational portal.

For Your Clients: According to AB 2883, beginning January 1, 2017 all business workers’ compensation insurance policies, including in-force policies, will be required to cover, among others, certain officers and directors of private corporations and working members of partnerships and limited liability companies that may have been previously excluded from coverage. Insurance companies are required to identify and provide notice to each employer that may have employees that were previously excluded from coverage and are affected by the new law.