From the Restaurant Revitalization Fund to the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program, there have been no shortage of relief opportunities for specific industries over the course of the pandemic, though some of them have been plagued by rollout hiccups and clunky application systems.

Now there's a new kid on the block: the California Venues Grant Program, which seeks to support eligible independent live events venues that have been affected by COVID-19 in order to support their continued operation. Eligible independent live event venues must have a physical address and operate in California, which will be validated through submitted business tax returns. If your business tax returns do not reference a California address, you will be deemed ineligible.

But the grant's availability will be short-lived – it opened on Oct. 29 and ends Nov. 19 – so venue operators have to get on this opportunity fast. Nonprofits and businesses can apply. If an organization already received other funding, they can still apply. 

MORE INFO.

APPLICATION.

APPLICATION GUIDE.

If you need support in applying, GO HERE for help.

Last year, the federal government spent over $145 billion with small businesses, buying everything from construction and lab services to dog food and coffee beans. Indeed, government agencies – including city, county, tribal, and state governments – purchase just about everything.

It can, however, be difficult to get your foot in the door as a small business – that's where the Procurement Technical Assistance Center comes in. Join us to discover the opportunities and requirements of the government marketplace, how to conduct relevant market research, find opportunities, which certifications can improve your success, and where to find resources and assistance.

On Wednesday, Nov. 17, 12-1pm, we're hosting a webinar with the Procurement Technical Assistance Center to help you learn to navigate the world of government procurement contracts.

Webinar Topics Include:

• Getting ready to market your goods and services to the government
• Understanding the basic rules and regulations you must adhere to
• Securing and utilizing government certifications to benefit your business
• Conducting market research and learning basic marketing tips and tools
• Learning about opportunities for government contracting and business support from the Norcal PTAC

Here's a guide to getting technical assistance from PTAC.

FREE REGISTRATION REQUIRED: GO HERE TO REGISTER.

Here's a preview to the webinar:

There's been a ton of discussion in Mill Valley and across the country about how hard it has been for employers to bring back their employees and hire new ones.

Despite an unemployment rate of just 2.5% here in Mill Valley, the job boards for the 94941 are loaded with postings, primarily for service industry jobs, spanning grocery store, cafe and retail clerks to salon, pet care and real estate office receptionists. As with most issues, the real reasons employers are struggling to fill openings are complex and nuanced. 
FULL STORY. 

Our focus at the Mill Valley Chamber remains supporting our members. To that end, remember that if you email us your job postings, we will leverage our blogs and myriad social media channels to get the word out, and we're also partnering with our fellow Marin Chambers on a virtual job fair later this year! EMAIL US HERE.

Here's what's available right now:

​Urban Remedy, with more than 100 locations on both coasts, including in Mill Valley and Marin, is hiring part & full time Retail Crew members for their stores all around the Bay Area:
 
Competitive Wage + Tips
$50 Gift Card at Date of Hire
$100 Gift Card after 90 days of employment
Employee discount on all Urban Remedy products
 
More info and apply at urbanremedy.com/careers.

As businesses in Mill Valley and across the country continue to dig out from the wreckage of the COVID-19 crisis, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has made it clear that relief is still available. And in an surprising twist to many, that relief now has a much higher cap.

The SBA announced major modifications to the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) program this month, including raising the loan cap from $500,000 to $2 million and adding business debt payments to the list of ways businesses can use the loan proceeds. The department said it was implementing the changes to make it easier for the small business communities still reeling from the pandemic, especially hard-hit sectors such as restaurants, gyms, and hotels, to access the more than $150 billion in funding available for loans. 

The following key changes were announced. All are effective immediately:

• Increasing the COVID-19 EIDL cap from $500,000 to $2 million: Loan proceeds can be used for any normal operating expenses and working capital, including meeting payroll, purchasing equipment, and paying debt. COVID-19 EIDL funds are now also eligible to prepay commercial debt and make payments on federal business debt.
• The SBA said small business owners will not have to begin COVID-19 EIDL repayments until two years after loan origination. Payments are deferred for the first two years (during which interest will accrue), and payments of principal and interest are made over the remaining 28 years. The agency previously had implemented an 18-month deferment period for loans made during 2021.
• Establishment of a 30-day exclusivity window: To ensure Main Street businesses have additional time to access these funds, the SBA said it is implementing a 30-day exclusivity window of approving and disbursing funds for loans of $500,000 or less. Approval and disbursement of loans over $500,000 will begin after the 30-day period.
• Simplification of affiliation requirements: To ease the COVID-19 EIDL application process for small businesses, the SBA established more simplified affiliation requirements to mimic those of the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund.

The COVID-19 EIDL program, which runs through Dec. 31, offers 30-year loans with fixed interest rates of 3.75% for small businesses, including sole proprietors and independent contractors, and 2.75% for not-for-profits.
The SBA specifically noted that the Restaurant Revitalization Fund RF received 278,304 applications seeking more than $72 billion in assistance, nearly three times the amount appropriated. Funding was quickly exhausted, leaving 177,300 businesses without assistance. The SNA expanded COVID-19 EIDL eligibility from organizations with no more than 500 employees to businesses in the hardest-hit industries that have 500 or fewer employees per physical location, provided the business, together with its affiliates, has no more than 20 locations.
The new rule allows COVID-19 EIDL recipients to use loan proceeds to make debt payments including monthly installments, deferred interest, and pre-payment on business debt. The same payments, except for pre-payments, are now permitted on loans from federal agencies (including the SBA) and licensed Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs).

COVID-19 EIDL recipients may use loan proceeds to pay debt incurred both before and after submitting the loan application. Previously, the funds could be used only for working capital needed to sustain the business until it could resume normal operations.
​
The SBA did add a new regulation limiting entities that are part of a single corporate group to receive a combined total of no more than $10 million in COVID-19 EIDL loans. For purposes of this limit, entities are part of a single corporate group if they are majority owned, directly or indirectly, by a common parent.

MORE INFO.

Are you “Late to the Party” and “Underdressed” on LinkedIn? 

How strong is your online presence? 

Professional branding is known to establish trust, increase your earning potential, position you for growth opportunities and collaboration, establish you as a thought leader and much more. Are you taking full advantage of it? Learn the key elements of creating your Professional Brand online and off. This virtual webinar from Cowgirl Creative Coaching's Angela Dunz, set for Nov. 3, 12-1pm via Zoom, will prepare you to sharpen your LinkedIn engagement.

REGISTER HERE.
​
Here are the facts:

• 70% of your prospects look at your LinkedIn profile first when deciding to contact you or not
• With 774 million members, LinkedIn isn’t going anywhere soon. It is THE business platform
• 80% of the traffic in the newsfeed on LinkedIn is B2B

This workshop will cover:

1. The Top 3 Converting Elements of your Profile
2. Visibility & Profile Optimization (being found for the right thing by the right people)

1. Business Development on LinkedIn in 10 minutes / day

    
We all do business with people – not glass buildings, not brick and mortar. Your professional brand is your reputation and your community’s awareness of you. Bold Brands attract clients and instill trust. 

Do you want your business to take off like a rocket? Craft a strong online personal brand with a clear message. Ensure your ideal client can find you.

On March 11, 2020, representatives from an array of local food-serving businesses gathered at the Mill Valley Community Center for the latest in a series of Zero Waste Marin forums hosted by the City of Mill Valley and the Mill Valley Chamber, all to discuss the components of the County of Marin’s proposed Reusable Foodware regulations.

The new rules would require the use of reusable, compostable and non-bioplastic foodware materials (e.g., plates, bowls, cups, utensils, and trays) at restaurants, grocery stores and delis, bakeries, carry-out, mini marts, farmers markets, food trucks, and other businesses requiring a health permit. The Draft Ordinance, whose primary goal is reducing Marin’s greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of waste going into our landfills, also prohibits the use of single-use plastic foodware items and proposes a 25-cent charge for disposable cups. The food ware ordinance would also span accessories like napkins, cup sleeves, lids, condiments packets, coffee cup spill plugs, stirrers and more. 

Six days after that gathering, of course, the world ground to a halt as we confronted the COVID-19 crisis that refuses to relent 18 months later.

So after a long pause by county officials, they began reviving efforts in May to obtain Board of Supervisors' approval for the food ware ordinance, which would span all of unincorporated Marin, and subsequently the approval of each municipality within Marin. After a period of education and outreach to local governments and their respective business communities, they intend to take the ordinance to the Board of Supervisors in the late fall/winter of 2021, according to Claire Wilson of R3 Consulting Group, which is spearheading the ordinance.

If adopted by supervisors, the new regulations would apply to all food-serving businesses within unincorporated Marin, with subsequent approvals required from each municipality’s city council. There was a virtual workshop on this subject for food businesses on Sept. 15. If you missed it, we've embedded the video at the bottom of this post.

The ordinance would not be enforced until one year after its passage by the supervisors and the respective municipalities throughout Marin, Wilson said. 

Thankfully, Mill Valley has already taken strides to address the reusability of some food ware, including the CommUnity Cup, an innovative, community-centered pilot program born right here in Mill Valley that seeks to replace single-use café cups with a lending system of reusable cups for Mill Valley’ans and others to enjoy, as well as Dispatch Goods, which provides businesses with reusable containers for take out and is running a pilot program in Marin. Containers are primarily stainless steel and glass.

A few bit and bites:

• Aluminum is recyclable and is allowed.
• Dine-in foodware must be reusable
• The front and back areas of restaurants, including areas in public gathering spaces like the hot bar at grocery stories, would require 3-stream collection containers - organic, recyclable and trash.
• Coffee cup lids are exempt until there is a product option that is viable and available.
• Similar to the plastic bag fee that has been in effect for years, government officials won't have a say in how the 25-cent fee is implemented, only that there would have to ne an additional charge for the cup itself. 
• There are some sensitive issues to grapple with, namely how customers' bringing in their own reusable containers mesh with the health and safety regulations of the county’s Environmental Health Services division. For instance, if a customer brings in a reusable cup or bowl, must business' staff use subjectivity to decide if a cup is clean?
• The county is offering a reimbursement of between $100-$500 for a business that wants to implement the requirements now and receive technical assistance to do so. 

As City of Mill Valley Senior Planner and Sustainability Coordinator said at the March 2020 meeting, “You might have thought you were in the food business, but you are also in the waste business.”

Here's a survey on the ordinance for food-serving businesses.

Here's a list of foodware products that would comply with the proposed ordinance:

Click on the images below to see descriptions and larger illustrations of products that are approved and not approved under the proposed ordinance.

The 411: The County of Marin has proposed Reusable Foodware regulations. And here's a list of foodware products that would comply with the proposed ordinance.
​
QUESTIONS? CLICK HERE TO EMAIL CLAIRE WILSON.

For the past several years, we've put out gorgeouscomprehensive maps of all five of Mill Valley's commercial district, listing all of our member businesses and nonprofits and providing opportunities for advertisers to garner a bigger impact with display ads. Reach a broader audience than ever before!

For the 2021 edition of our map, we're going digital! You can still stand out with a 2” x 2” ad with your logo, link to your website, address & tel prominently featured on the map for three months. Click Here for a map ad – limited # of spots available

And for the first time ever, we're also giving you an opportunity to reach your customers more deeply on our gorgeous, recently redesigned EnjoyMillValley.com website. All brick and mortar businesses will be listed on the map, but you can buy a Premium Informational Box to go deeper and offer more helpful details about your business or organization. Info Boxes will pop up when users click on your icon. Three tiers are available, and each will be live for one year.

Here are the different options in terms of size and data, as you can see in the image above:

• Tier 1: Complementary / Basic Info Box: Business name, address, phone [Free]
• Tier 2: Linked Info Box: Links to social (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, etc.) and website button [$350/year]
• Tier 3: Personality Details Info Box: Storefront photo, business hours, small description [$500/year]

 
Click Here for a map ad – limited # of spots available
Contact Susan Lopes – info@millvalley.org or 415-265-5776 to purchase a Tier 2 or 3 Info Box or with any questions

27th Annual Outdoor
WINTERFEST
Sunday, December 5, 2021

FANTASTIC SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES!

Live and in person this year, to be held OUTDOORS in the Depot Plaza! 

With proceeds benefitting Kiddo! and the MV Chamber, this family community event offers a day of fun-filled holiday activities, a super slide, food and beverages, a visit from Santa, live music and entertainment and tree and menorah lighting ceremonies. Note: we will be taking extra precautionary measures for Covid safety. 

There are many ways to sponsor and display your brand - from Activity Booths where you can engage parents while their kids play, to strategically placed banners, including on our star attraction, the Super Slide. 

Click Here to choose your sponsorship. 
Deadline is Oct. 1.

Virtual Marin County Job Fair

Attention Marin Employers! 

Join us for the Marin County Job Fair (virtually) on Tuesday, August 3rd!

Marin County Virtual Job Fair
Tuesday, August 3rd
8:30-10:30am & 4-6pm

Employers and attendees can choose to participate in the morning or afternoon session, or both!
BUSINESS PARTICIPANTS!​
What to Expect:

• Opportunity to talk with multiple job seekers with the chat function.
• See and act on applications that are posted in real-time.
• Ability for recruiters to initiate a video chat with qualified candidates.
• For efficiency, you may have multiple recruiters working your company booth.
• You will need to sign up to be a part of the CalJOBS system prior to the date of the fair. We can help you! To get started, go to: https://www.caljobs.ca.gov/ 

 
Tips for a Successful Job Fair:

• Make a great first impression! Set your booth up for success!
• Fill in all available spaces!
• Upload a professional headshot to your recruiter profile.

MORE INFO.

​The Mill Valley Chamber has closely tracked the City of Mill Valley's extensive DEI Work Plan, an extensive document filled with items that spanned from housing and police to cultural and recreational opportunities. There were also recommendations that focused on supporting  and expand opportunities for our BIPOC business community.

Here are some updates on that work:

1. A partnership with SCORE.org, a long-standing organization affiliated with the SBA that offers “free business mentoring, low-cost or no-cost business training, and numerous templates and tools” to help entrepreneurs start or grow a business. 10,000 advisors, nationwide. Clients are matched with business experts, most of whom are retired business professionals who advise on marketing, accounting, operations, sales and HR issues. The target audience are businesses and nonprofits. These mentoring sessions are free! Meet their mentors. And sign up here.
2. The Chamber also recently worked with SCORE on a pilot networking exercise with our Board of Directors as a test-run of a facilitated BIPOC business owner/manager roundtable in the coming weeks, allowing attendees to connect and identify ways to work together and support each other. The networking exercise was a huge hit.
3. We're expanding our existing partnership with Marin Small Business Development Center. The MV Chamber already works closely with the MarinSBDC, co-sponsoring ongoing Educational Webinars on key business topics (pre-COVID), and promoting their business relief-related webinars and trainings throughout the COVID-19 crisis and much more. Marin SBDC has 15 “expert advisors” on their team willing to provide individual business development counseling. Chamber will continue to direct BIPOC businesses with financing, educational and business development needs towards Marin SBDC trainings and resources and one-on-one support when appropriate. 
4. In addition to providing the above support to our existing membership, the Mill Valley Chamber extended free one-year memberships to any Marin City nonprofit organization who wanted access to our resources, particularly the power of our promotional, educational and informational, as well as our ability to connect those nonprofits with colleagues in Mill Valley for potential collaboration.
5. The inclusion of our Marin City neighbor nonprofits allowed us to include them in another one of our BIPOC-oriented initiatives, the Marin Independent Journal- and Marin Community Foundation-led WeAreOneMarin.com campaign, which showcases and promotes one Marin BIPOC business every week. (Mill Valley has utilized six slots this year).

Questions? Email us here.

Hoping to have a less turbulent, bug-laden rollout than the Small Business Administration's long-delayed Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program, which went live on Monday, the SBA is set go live on Monday, May 3rd with the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The $28.6 billion program, created as part of last month’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, will offer grants of up to $10 million to replace lost sales for bars, restaurants, caterers and food trucks, among others.

SBA officials told the NY Times the restaurant fund ran a seven-day test intended to help the agency avoid the kind of technical fiasco that plagued the venue program. “Help is here,” Isabella Casillas Guzman, the agency’s administrator, said of the program. “We’re rolling out this program to make sure that these businesses can meet payroll, purchase supplies and get what they need in place to transition to today’s Covid-restricted marketplace.”

The amount each businesses can receive is generally the difference between its 2019 and 2020 gross receipts, minus certain other federal assistance such as Paycheck Protection Program loans.

The major caveat is that the funding is expected to go very quickly. “Everyone should apply on Day 1,” Patrick Kelley, the head of the agency’s Office of Capital Access, told attendees at a webinar last week organized by the Independent Restaurant Coalition, according to the Times. Lawmakers projected at least $120 billion in demand for the restaurant fund, Mr. Kelley said, but provided money for less than a quarter of that amount.

All eligible businesses will be able to apply starting on Monday, but for the first 21 days, the Small Business Administration will approve claims exclusively from businesses that are majority-owned by people who fall into one of the priority groups designated by Congress: women, veterans, and individuals who are both socially and economically disadvantaged. The agency said that latter group includes those who meet certain income and asset limits and are Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-Pacific American or South Asian American.

Publicly traded companies, businesses with more than 20 locations and restaurants that have permanently closed are ineligible for the grants. Applications can be submitted through a Small Business Administration website and some point-of-sale systems. The technology companies Clover, NCR Corporation, Square and Toast are working with the agency to enable applications for their customers.

MORE INFO AND APPLY HERE.

HERE ARE SOME REGISTRATION TIPS:

• if you use Toast or Square, go through them to register for the program
• You do not need to get into the system right at 6am – it will not impact your order for being able to get approved 
• You'll need to have this information to register: email, cell phone, username and password
• If you already registered for a SBA account, you still need to register here - this is a separate portal

APPLICATION TIPS

• Best to use Chrome or a Mac browser – the most up to date platform is best
• If you are a Clover of Aloha customer, they will provide you official documentation for gross receipts  
• Best to have an authorized personnel or your point of sale to help you get the information you need and also verify its accuracy -this will make approval go faster
• Linking your application to a bank account will help get you approved quicker and you won't have to provide bank statements for past 3 months
• Authorized owner title needs to be filled out
• Have the owner sign off on the application do not have a CPA do the sign off for you
• Clarity, precision and organization is key for getting approved quicker
• If you need to correct something in your application you will lose your spot in line and will be put at the end of the line
• All communication will go through the portal – emails will be sent out from this portal to give you status updates
• Helpful to include a cover page to explain how you did your calculations – this will help the person who reviews your application make it all go quicker

MORE INFO AND APPLY HERE.