Date: February 20th, 2010
Location: Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge MA (Map)
Cost: Free

Hosted by: The Cambridge Microfinance Initiative (CMI), a Harvard student organization

Please RSVP at: http://tinyurl.com/cmi-spring-conference

Who We Are:

• We are the area’s and Harvard’s only non-profit organization that provides small business advice and one-on-one client consultations to local low-income entrepreneurs.
• We organize conferences and workshops for local entrepreneurs. Our first conference was attended by more than 70 people.
• We design and teach business lessons including:
  - Pricing - SWOT Analysis - Credit History – Accounting - Competitive Strategy – Entrepreneurship – Trademark and Tax Law – Web Design – Marketing

What You Will Do:

• Work with clients in regular, one-on-one consultations
• Help formulate clients’ business plans
• Learn about small business planning
• Create and make presentations to our clients
• Lead client peer groups
• Guide clients through the process of obtaining loans from $500 to several thousand dollars

How to get involved:

• Info Session: Saturday, January 30th, 4-5PM, Adams LCR
• Application: http://tinyurl.com/cmiapplication2010spring
• Contact: cambridgemfi@gmail.com

No prior experience required!

The talk is primarily open to current CMI clients; as such, we have a very limited number of seats open to the general public. RSVP is strictly required in order to attend this event.

Event: A interactive talk on Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses
Time: 5 - 5:45 pm, Sunday December 6th
Location: Parlor Room, Phillips Brooks House, Harvard Yard (Map)
RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/cmi-talk
Cost: Free

We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting a free web, marketing, presenting, and legal issues conference on October 11, in partnership with Accion Bank and the Harvard Law School’s WilmerHale Clinical Center. The conference will focus on building the skills that entrepreneurs need in order to successfully promote their businesses and market their products, with an additional emphasis on learning about the myriad of web and legal resources that can aid in this task.

Date: October 11th, 2009
Location: Sever Hall 113, Harvard Yard, Cambridge MA (Map attached to the end of this post.)
Cost: Free
Hosted by: The Cambridge Microfinance Initiative (CMI), a Harvard student organization

Schedule:
9:50 - 10:10 Registration
10:10 - 10:20 Introduction to the CMi
10:20 - 11:00 Presentation Skills
11:00 - 12:00 Marketing
12:00 - 1:00 Complimentary Lunch provided by CMI and Networking Session
1:00 - 2:00 Legal Issues
2:00 - 3:00 Basic Web Development

Guest Speakers:
Jim Jacobs, WilmerHale Legal Services Center

Please RSVP at: http://tinyurl.com/cmi-conference

Who We Are:

• We are the area’s and Harvard’s only non-profit organization that provides small business advice and one-on-one client consultations to local low-income entrepreneurs.
• We organize conferences and workshops for local entrepreneurs. Our last conference was attended by more than 70 people.
• We design and teach business lessons including:
  - Pricing - SWOT Analysis - Credit History – Accounting - Competitive Strategy – Entrepreneurship – Trademark and Tax Law – Web Design – Marketing

What You Will Do:

• Work with clients in regular, one-on-one consultations
• Help formulate clients’ business plans
• Learn about small business planning
• Create and make presentations to our clients
• Lead client peer groups
• Guide clients through the process of obtaining loans from $500 to several thousand dollars

How to get involved:

• Info Session: Wednesday, September 9th, 2009, Emerson 305
• Application: Due on Friday, September 11th by midnight: http://www.tinyurl.com/cmi-application
• Contact: cambridgemfi@gmail.com

Make an impact on individuals, and help them succeed!

Cost: FREE (RSVP)

If not for a flier stapled to a telephone pole in Central Square, Anastasia Mathis-Belay might have abandoned her dream of owning a document-processing business. That scrap of paper, posted amid announcements for band gigs and cleaning services, eventually led to a boost in her confidence and her credentials by giving her a resource she didn’t know she could access: Harvard…Last year, Mathis-Belay made just $26,000, $10,000 more than the year before. No bank wanted to give her a loan, the 39-year-old said, though she was proud of the jump in her income. She had been to the federal Small Business Administration and to SCORE, an organization of volunteer retired business executives, for guidance, but neither lends money or assists in applying for loans. “It was getting pretty daunting and discouraging as time went on,” she said. “I wanted to start small and still no one could help me. My friends all thought I was crazy, and my family thought I was unrealistic. But now I have hope.”

Nasrin Imam is CMI’s first loan success story. She and her husband own a Bangladeshi restaurant, the Bengal Cafe, in North Cambridge. She was recently granted about $5,000 to expand her business. Initially, she wanted to expand her delivery service by buying a van and hiring a full-time delivery person, she said. But after meeting with CMI each week and creating a business plan, she saw other changes she needed to make first — such as increasing the menu prices to reflect the cost of materials and labor, and increasing her marketing and advertising.

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