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October 19, 2020
Distribution: All Active Volunteers
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What's Happening with Engage?
For new volunteers who may be unaware, SCORE Engage is our brand-new CRM system that will be fully implemented by the end of 2021 in all SCORE chapters (replacing CORE).
Change Management
The Volunteer Trainers now have access to the Sandbox and are actively familiarizing themselves with all key mentoring processes in Engage. Their feedback will help us further optimize training materials as we prepare to resume the roll-out in January.
CSMs are actively working with January go-live chapters ensuring they are on track in completing their readiness checklist items and helping to support them by answering any questions that arise.
Product Development
The product development team is actively working on the highest priority list of enhancements communicated during the Engage roll-out pause. The following is a breakdown of the team's progress so far:
- There are 9 enhancements that have been pushed to Production and are currently available in Engage.
- There are 2 enhancements that will be made live in Engage in November, after the Enhancements Webinar.
- There are 10 enhancements that are either being tested in the staging environment or are in the development process. These will be pushed to production in November after the Enhancements Webinar.
- Finally, the remaining 5 enhancements will be pushed to production in November/December and will be available prior to the January go-live.
Upcoming Webinar - Enhancements Review
The Enhancements Review webinar is scheduled for Monday, November 9. As a reminder, this webinar is for chapters already live in Engage to refresh their memory on requested Engage enhancements and outline when they can expect to see each one live in the production environment. Invitations for the webinar will be sent directly to attendees.
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Monthly Engage Resource(s)
Each month we will highlight a resource (or multiple) that will assist chapters in their preparation for Engage. Please take some time to review the highlighted resource each month and reach out with any questions or concerns you may have.
There are two resources that we want to highlight this month:
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SCORE Engage - Business Readiness Webinar: As part of helping chapter leaders, Engage Facilitators, and Engage Training Coordinators prepare themselves to guide their chapters through the onboarding process to Engage, we held a webinar titled "SCORE Engage Business Readiness". This webinar communicated vital information about how SCORE will be operating differently and better within SCORE Engage, focused on business rule and process changes that will have the greatest impact on chapters. Viewing this webinar recording is required for the Chapter Chair, Engage Facilitator, and Engage Training Coordinator for each chapter prior to its SCORE Engage roll-out date.
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Chapter Success Managers (CSMs): As part of the training process enhancements implemented during the Engage roll-out pause, we have added the role of Chapter Success Manager. The CSM is the chapter’s direct, personal connection to a member of the SCORE team who is focused on their transition to Engage. The CSM will be the chapter's primary point of contact that serves as a conduit to SCORE training and resources.
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Engage Recognition - Thank You!
There are 30+ chapters that remained on the new Engage system as we paused to add the necessary enhancements to the system.
We wanted to take a moment to thank them for their continued feedback, testing and efforts to adapt to change to better help clients and engage our volunteers. We understand that it has been challenging, and we greatly appreciate your patience and flexibility throughout this process. Your feedback has made a positive difference in the system and at SCORE.
Below are the chapters who are currently live on Engage:
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Central Region - Chicago, Akron, Madison, Fox Valley, Decatur, Fox Cities, West Central Wisconsin & UP of Michigan, N Suburban Cook & Lake Counties
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Mid-Atlantic Region - Richmond, Central Jersey, Metro New Jersey, Monmouth, NE NJ, West VA, Princeton
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Midwest Region - Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St Paul), SE Minnesota, Central Minnesota, South Central MN
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New England Region - Buffalo/Niagara, Portland, Bangor, Oxford Hills
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Southeast Region - Charlotte, Memphis, Nashville, Volusia/Flagler, Chattanooga, Greater Knoxville
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Southwest Region - NW Arkansas
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West Region - Central Coast
Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do for Engage, for SCORE, and for the clients in your communities!
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PwC Client Engagement Survey FY20
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The 2020 Client Engagement Survey with PwC was distributed to clients on October 12. Please encourage the clients in your chapter to provide their feedback.
If any volunteers are mistakenly included in the distribution list, apologies for any confusion or inconvenience. Please do not complete the survey, and instead, unsubscribe from the distribution list to prevent receiving follow up emails from PwC.
Key dates listed below:
- October 12, 2020 - Survey Launched
- October 27 through December 1, 2020 - Survey Reminders sent each week
- December 4, 2020 - Survey Close
- Late January 2021 - Survey data available in online portal
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SBA and Treasury Announce Simpler PPP Forgiveness for Loans of $50,000 or Less
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On October 8, the U.S. Small Business Administration, in consultation with the Treasury Department, released a simpler loan forgiveness application for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans of $50,000 or less. This action streamlines the PPP forgiveness process to provide financial and administrative relief to America’s smallest businesses while also ensuring sound stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
Click here to view the simpler loan forgiveness application.
Click here to view the instructions for completing the simpler loan forgiveness application.
Click here to view the Interim Final Rule on the simpler forgiveness process for loans of $50,000 or less.
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WOSB Resource Partner Training Opportunity
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To help resource partner mentors like you understand forthcoming regulation changes to the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) certification process, the Covid-sb.org Business Advisor Learning Center is hosting office hour sessions with experts from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development.
In addition to explaining and answering questions about the regulatory changes going into effect October 15, 2020, these experts will describe the resources available to help you assist women entrepreneurs who are pursuing certification with the WOSB Federal Contracting Program.
Register for WOSB office hours by completing this secure Google Form with your name and preferred email address.
You will then receive a Google Calendar invitation to attend a 60-minute virtual office hour session at 1 p.m. ET on whichever date below is most convenient for you:
- Tuesday, October 13
- Tuesday, October 27
- Tuesday, November 10
Thanks in advance for helping us better serve and prepare women entrepreneurs.
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Upcoming Live Webinars for Small Business Owners
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Lifelong Learning Series Webinar - October 2020
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Interested in using Slack?
Join us for this month's Lifelong Learning Webinar featuring Whit Ford from the Portland, ME Chapter. Whit will walk us through how his chapter is using Slack as a key communication platform for their chapter and district. Learn how this tool has helped to improve communication flow for Maine, and how it can do so for you chapter and district.
Join us on Thursday, October 22nd at 1 PM EDT
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October Networking Event - Women's National Steering Committee
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All volunteers and staff are invited to the monthly networking meeting brought to you by the Women's National Steering Committee.
The next meeting is this Friday, October 23 at 1 PM ET. This month’s topic: Our SCORE Vision is that every person has the support they need to thrive and our core value is that our clients' success is our success. So let's share how we have helped our clients by sharing the valuable tools and resources. SCORE mentors have effectively helped our clients start and succeed and have created over 26,681 new businesses this past year.
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SCORE Social Media Program FY21 Updates
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SCORE HQ has been providing chapter social media marketing support for 4 years now, with the goal of driving awareness to SCORE chapters and local volunteer efforts. We are happy to share that we will be continuing our commitment to this in FY21.
In FY21, all SCORE chapters will be provided with social media support through this program. These services are fully funded by SCORE HQ and are provided without any local chapter expense.
Note: This does not include additional (optional) paid ad campaigns that will be charged at chapter expense.
There are 26 chapters that are not currently in the social media program which will be on-boarded into the program to receive base-line services; including location data management assistance, client review monitoring and response management. To find out if your chapter is one of these 26, click here.
For more information on the exact services provided to chapters in FY21 and the metrics measuring the program’s success, please visit the Support Center here.
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With the new SCORE Company Store providing SCORE branded materials and swag, we would like to know if there is interest for the following items: calendars, masks and flash drives. These items must be ordered in advance for SCORE and would need to be purchased with personal or unrestricted funds.
Please let us know if you would be interested in purchasing any of these items by completing the form here.
If you are interested, please submit a form by 11/30/2020.
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Please work with your district director to finalize your budget before it is submitted following your district director’s instructions. You may want to check out the updated FY21 Chart of Accounts for more classification options, available here.
Your chapter may choose whether to have an annual budget or a monthly budget in Sage Intacct. Please fill out the appropriate tab on the template available here.
Budgets may be submitted at any time during the year, but our goal is to get the files by October 30, so that we can upload them for you by November 9. Chapters may wait until the national allocation is finalized before submitting. We will upload the budgets periodically as received.
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Resources for Clients
SCORE is collecting resources to answer client's critical questions during the COVID-19 pandemic—and afterward. Updates are being made regularly.
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Volunteer Toolkit
These resources provide the latest communications and notifications around SCORE’s policy and guidance during this trying time.
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1165 Herndon Parkway
Suite 100
Herndon, VA 20170
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Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.
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