Small Business Development Corporation U.S. SBDC

Have you seriously considered starting a small business? Maybe you have thought of becoming the workforce rather than working in the workforce, yet don't have all the answers necessary to run a fully profitable, protected and informed company.

The United States Small Business Development Corporation is designed to become your eyes, ears and source for products, tools and information regarding business development. The US SBDC began in 2002 as a for profit company later to take a non-profit roll in communities throughout North America.

The US SBDC is the only firm in America to offer over 130 core business services and manages to offer the products for simple donations. Your firm will require a great deal of experience and oversight in order to properly market yourself in a safe way.

Honestly, your business could utilize the Small Business Development Center yet you will simply be given a great deal of information without resolve, implementation nor valuation or research. The U.S. Small Business Development Corporation delivers all the above plus reduces or eliminates that cost involved.

It is not an option of if you need the USSBDC, it is a fiscal duty to any American owned and operated business currently generating less than $30MM in revenue. Without contacting this firm you may never know your true potential...

Social Entrepreneur Redefines ‘CLASSY’ Through Philanthropy and Action

Growing up, Scot Chisholm wouldn’t have considered himself the stereotypical CEO of a philanthropy company; however, his mom getting cancer put him on a different path – one that would ultimately define who he would become personally and professionally.

Fresh out of college in 2005, Chisholm took his Engineering degree from UMass Amherst and moved to San Diego for a fresh start.  After a short stint working at a local pizzeria, he went on to work as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton specializing in operations and Lean Six Sigma.  Despite his early successes, his compassion for his mother’s illness coupled with his eagerness to build his own empire would inevitably catapult him in another direction.

Still a newcomer to the west coast in 2006, Chisholm and his friends organized a social gathering to raise money for the American Cancer Society with the hope of meeting some new people while supporting a cause close to their hearts.  Their initial “StayClassy Pubcrawl,” named after the popular Will Ferrell movie, Anchorman, attracted 200 young people and raised $4,000 for cancer research. One charity event turned into dozens.  By the beginning of 2008, Chisholm and his friends had raised more than $100,000 for local San Diego nonprofits, an accomplishment to be proud of, yet still not a viable business model.

LIGHT-BULB MOMENT
While organizing charitable events as a vehicle for young people to get involved was rewarding, it was working alongside nonprofit organizations that gave Chisholm real insight (almost accidentally) into the different shortcomings of the philanthropic fundraising industry.

“For decades, nonprofits have been forced to select from a limited and expensive set of software options to help manage their organization,” said Chisholm.  “The nonprofit industry was demanding better solutions, and we felt compelled to help them.”

StayClassy morphed into a web-based software platform and became the missing puzzle piece: a one-stop-shop fundraising suite that helped any type of nonprofit manage and grow their organization by leveraging the power of social media to expand their reach.

“From it’s inception, the goal of our product has been to make the act of donating social - a part of the running Internet conversation about causes that people want to share with their friends and family,” explains Chisholm. “Many organizations register with StayClassy as the first step in building relationships with younger donors who are attracted to this level of social interaction.”

StayClassy clients are able to accept online donations in seconds, manage donors, publish fundraising events, sell tickets, and market themselves online. With no setup fee, small and medium sized nonprofits on a tight budget are able to benefit from StayClassy’s services as well.

“Most nonprofits simply can’t afford the products that are currently in the marketplace,” said Chisholm. “We’ve completely rethought the norm, and built an extremely affordable, yet powerful set of tools from the ground up to transform the way fundraising organizations achieve their mission.”

GAINING MOMENTUM
By the end of 2009, Chisholm was named as one of "San Diego's Top 40 Leaders Under 40" by San Diego Metropolitan Magazine and StayClassy was selected by MIT’s Sloan School as one of the top three startup companies in the U.S at their 12th Annual Venture Capital Conference.

Chisholm & StayClassy launched their new platform at TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2010.  Since then, more than 1,400 organizations have registered on their site, attracting 130,000 individuals, donors and supporters, and garnering hundreds of thousands of visitors each month.

Major news outlets like Mashable, the online guide to social media, featured StayClassy in their July “Spark of Genius” series as one of their unique feature startups and then again in September as one of the “Top 10 Ways to Start a Fund for Social Good Online”. Other respected news mediums such as CNN, AOL News, The Huffington Post, and TechCrunch have quoted Chisholm with regard to StayClassy and social entrepreneurism.

In October 2010, StayClassy completed a $1.25 million financing round led by 15 angel investors and is using the funds to accelerate their customer acquisition, expand customer service, and further develop its innovative technologies. The company is also taking steps to add more discovery features to it’s consumer facing website by matching individuals with organizations they may want to support.

The company expects to process more than $20 million in donations from thousands of new customers in 2011.

FULL CIRCLE
Although his mother’s bout with cancer was a horrible ordeal for Chisholm and his family, one of the many, but perhaps the most important, lessons she taught him was how to stare adversity in the face, and prevail.

The traits demonstrated by his mother have not only come to define Chisholm as a person, but have cultivated the friendships he has formed along the way, and the company he took part in founding. Five years later, as a result of that initial inspiration, Chisholm and StayClassy are helping nonprofits across the globe raise millions of dollars for a myriad of causes, including cancer research - all under the same company name, StayClassy.

“When it all boils down, the concept of paying one forward, to me, is what ‘staying classy’ is all about,” said Chisholm.  “Is it a strange name for a company like ours? Could be. But then again, nothing we are doing is ordinary.”


About StayClassy
StayClassy (http://www.stayclassy.org) is the easiest and most affordable way for organizations to raise funds and manage donor relationships online.  Based in San Diego, CA, the company develops easy-to-use web-based fundraising software for nonprofit organizations. StayClassy launched its new platform in May 2010, and has over 1,400 customers and over 130,000 individual subscribers using its services. It’s free to sign up, making it extremely attractive to small and medium sized organizations on a tight budget. StayClassy is also the host of the Annual CLASSY Awards, a national award show that recognizes outstanding philanthropic achievements throughout the world (http://www.stayclassy.org/classy-awards)

Malibu Chamber Board Installation & Business Leadership Award Luncheon

The Malibu Chamber Business Leadership Award is given annually to a business person who exemplifies values through significant achievement in the field of business. The Award recognizes business savvy, respect for free enterprise and fair play, leadership prowess, and a well-developed sense of appreciation for the employees whose caliber and labors have contributed to the Award recipient's success.

Recipients of this award have demonstrated by their personal lifestyle and professional accomplishments that it is possible to become very successful in business while maintaining the highest ethical standards of honesty, integrity, and compassion. They are models of creative ambition, exemplary character, competence, and an outstanding work ethic.

Malibu Chamber Business Leadership Award recipients are leaders not only in the marketplace but in society. They are as much an example of how one should live
successfully as they are how to achieve success. We are proud to present the 2011 Business Leadership Awards to:

Scott Wagenseller, Malibu Patrol-‘Chamber Past Chairman of the Board’
Ron Semler, Malibu Wines-’Small Business of the Year’
Earl Baer, ThisweekinMalibu.com-’Malibu Community Ambassador’
David Reznick, Malibu Bay Company-’Excellence in Leadership’
Mayor Jefferson Wagner, City of Malibu,-’Outstanding Partner of the Year’
Carol & Dan Stark –‘Chamber Volunteers of the Year’

Please join us as we honor the outgoing 2010 Board of Directors and the incoming
2011 Officers and recognize the Members of significance for the
Malibu Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center at the 64th Annual Board Installation & Business Leadership Awards Luncheon on Thursday, February 24, 2011 from 11:30 am — 2:00 pm at Taverna Tony Restaurant, 23410 Civic Center Way, Malibu Country Mart.  

For more information call:  Malibu Chamber of Commerce 310-456-9025, ext. 0

New Community Colleges Selected To Expand Plus 50 Initiative

WASHINGTON – Community colleges around the nation are turning to the Plus 50 Initiative at the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) for help in designing programs for baby boomers, who are increasingly returning to campus for job training and to makeover careers waylaid by the economic recession.

“With President Obama calling on our nation’s community colleges to help unemployed and laid off Americans get back to work, we are seeing increased demand from college leaders for support in structuring effective programs for plus 50 adults,” said George R. Boggs, AACC President and CEO. “This expansion effort will share best practices with more colleges and help them more efficiently work with baby boomers.”

Thirty-two additional colleges will join the initiative, which started with 15 grantee colleges in 2008 and expanded its work to include 12 additional community colleges in 2009. The expansion pairs existing and more experienced Plus 50 colleges with additional community colleges that will become “affiliates” of the Plus 50 Initiative.

Four colleges designated as learning partners will serve as guides to help six community colleges implement plus 50 programs that help baby boomers returning to campus for job training and to improve their skills.

Century College in White Bear Lake, Minn. will be the Learning Partner for Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay, Wis.

Community Colleges of Spokane will serve as a Learning Partner for Shoreline Community College in Shoreline, Wash.

Central Florida Community College in Ocala, Fla. will serve as Learning Partner for Pasco-Hernando Community College in New Port Richey, Fla. as they expand their focus beyond lifelong learning programming to include workforce training and retraining opportunities for plus 50 students.

Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, Wash. will serve as a Learning Partner for the other community colleges in Pierce County, Wash. Clover Park will work with Bates Technical College, Tacoma Community College, Pierce College District 11 which includes Pierce College-Fort Steilacoom and Pierce College-Puyallup.

Four additional community colleges will serve as Plus 50 Initiative Peer-to-Peer Ambassadors or regional conference host working to expand the network of plus 50 colleges by reaching out to additional community colleges. They will share information about how to start and sustain a quality educational program for plus 50 students. They will also invite the new colleges to participate in national discussions on effective programming for plus 50 students.

St. Louis Community College will serve as a Plus 50 Initiative Peer-to-Peer Ambassador with fellow member institutions in the Missouri Community College Association, including Crowder College; East Central College; Jefferson College; Mineral Area College; Moberly Area Community College; Ozarks Technical Community College; North Central Missouri College; State Fair Community College; St. Charles Community College and Three Rivers Community College.

Clark College in Vancouver, Wash. will serve as a Plus 50 Initiative Peer-to-Peer Ambassador for Centralia College, Lower Columbia College, Olympic College and South Puget Sound Community College in Washington state and Clackamas Community College, Mt. Hood Community College and Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

Joliet Junior College will serve as a Plus 50 Peer-to-Peer Ambassador for three other Illinois community colleges including Kishwaukee College in Malta, Parkland College in Champaign and Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville.

Richland College in Dallas, Texas, will host a Plus 50 Initiative Conference for the six other community colleges in the Dallas County Community College District, including the Bill J. Priest Campus of   El Centro College, Brookhaven College, Cedar Valley College, Eastfield College, Mountain View College, and North Lake College.

The Plus 50 Initiative began its efforts to help community colleges faced with an expanding baby boomer student population by focusing on learning, training and career development, and volunteering. The three-year project is sponsored by the AACC with a $3.2 million grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies.

For 90 years, the AACC has been the leading advocate for the nation’s community colleges, which currently number more than 1,173 and serve close to 12 million students annually. Its membership comprises 90% of all public two-year colleges – the largest, most accessible, most diverse sector of U.S. higher education. As institutions committed to access, community service and lifelong learning, community colleges have long-focused on the needs of adults who are already in the workforce, many of whom are seeking new skills and knowledge for changes in their lives and careers.

To learn more about the Plus 50 Initiative, visit http://plus50.aacc.nche.edu.  To learn more about the AACC and The Atlantic Philanthropies, visit www.aacc.nche.edu and www.atlanticphilanthropies.org.