Small Business Owners -- Choose Your Movement!
By Carol Tice Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Small business owners are up in arms. They've had enough! Of course, different entrepreneurs are fed up with different things. But whatever you're het up about, there's a groundwell of other business owners you can join. Here's an overview of the entrepreneurs' movements that are blossoming around the country:
The newest kid on the block is Small Business Saturday, a movement to help encourage shoppers to visit local shops. Some 20 organizations are sponsors, including Count Me In, NAWBO, Facebook, SCORE and Yelp.
Also on the shop-local bandwagon is Independent We Stand, which kicked off in September. This one has support from many local Chambers of Commerce. This one seems more aimed at consumers than at networking entrepreneurs together, though.
Then there's the movement to establish a National Entrepreneurs' Day on November 19. Supporters are still pursuing approval from President Barack Obama on that to make it an official national day of recognition. In the meanwhile, The Kauffman Foundation's Global Entrepreneurship Week, which includes that date, will celebrate National Entrepreneurs' Day for the first time this year.
Taking another tack is The Innovation Movement, which is anti-deficit and pro-immigration and pro-free-trade. Their videos describe their point of view -- cracking down on immigration is strangling American innovation.
Finally, I've written in the past about Build a Stronger America, the Kauffman's movement to strengthen the small-business sector by coming together to create legislative change. They were a healthcare-reform supporter. I just checked in to see what they're up to, and last month they became the Entrepreneurs' Movement, which can be found at a new site, Entrepreneurship.org.
Maybe at some point there'll be a merger of some of these movements into one big movement. We'll see, as they seem to go across the political spectrum. But you'd think it would be more impactful to be a bigger movement.
I find all this movement-creating interesting because so many business owners tend to be lone wolves, or Type-As who work at their business 24/7. Who has time to join a movement? Will business owners, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, want to be members of a movement that would let them join?
If you're part of one of these movements -- or maybe another one -- weigh in with a comment and tell us about what you've joined and why.
UPDATE: President Obama approved National Entrepreneurs Day on Nov. 15 -- it's official!
