The Veterans Business Advisory Council (VBAC) is now the NaVOBA Regional Advocates Board. Ted Stazak, NaVOBA’s Membership Director, kicked off the meeting by thanking the RAB members for taking the time to discuss how we can move the Veteran Business Movement forward by moving it to “Main Street” America through grassroots efforts in their respective parts of the country. Here is the recap the main items discussed and decided on:

The Board Name     

Regional Advocates Board (RAB)              

Board members will use Regional Advocate on their business cards

The Board’s Mission

Four point:

• Engage Chambers of Commerce in the Veteran Business Movement
  • Present the Buy Veteran message to Chamber Executives and Board Members
  • Assist the Chamber in setting up a Veteran Business task force and outreach program that engages local VOBs
  • Follow-up with Chamber Executives to ensure they have partnered on-line with the Buy Veteran Chamber Partner program
• Share the Buy Veteran message by engaging local media to cover the Veteran Business Movement in their local markets
  • Advocates will act as the primary PR contact for the Buy Veteran campaign in the Advocate’s regional market
  • Advocates will maintain a list of NaVOBA members in the regional market that are willing to participate in media interviews
• Act as a regional spokesperson for NaVOBA
  • Attend Veteran Business Seminars  and speak on behalf of NaVOBA and the National Buy Veteran campaign
  •  Work with regional business development centers (SBDC, SCORE,PTACs) to spread the Buy Veteran message to aspiring Veteran Business owners
• Act as Watchdogs of Local And State Governments
  • Act as NaVOBA’s legislative “Eyes and Ears” in the regional market
    

The Board’s Structure

We have tentatively agreed that we will have a Regional Structure. This structure will consist of Regional Advocates that sit on the Board. The Regional Advocate will develop a network of local advocates to assist in outreach efforts.

Recruitment of Advocates

We will develop a response portal on the Buy Veteran site similar to the Chamber Partners portal. We plan to have this portal operational by 8-27-10

Advocate Toolbox

We will develop an on-line toolbox similar to the Chamber toolbox. The toolbox will contain:

• Press Release for local media announcing they have been selected as a Buy Veteran Regional Advocate
• An implementation checklist for the new Advocate to follow
• Four-page downloadable PDF Veteran Business Movement Buy Veteran overview that the Advocate can use as a presentation piece for Chamber meetings
•  A Buy Veteran Power Point presentation for Chamber meeting presentations
• A special Advocate promotion code that the Advocate can use to offer a 25% discount to veteran business owners they recruit
•  An Advocate e-mail referral tool that can be used to spread the Buy Veteran message on-line

Other

We will develop a national press release that will be released via PR Newswire US1 distribution announcing the Regional Advocates program

We will provide Buy Veteran Regional Advocate Business Cards

We will explore the possibility of creating a recruitment competition between the Regional Advocates

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