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Alliance Small Business Programs

If you're a small business, you'll feel right at home with the Portland Business Alliance - 80 percent of our member businesses have 50 or fewer employees.

Helping small businesses prosper is a key part of our mission. We offer a rich array of programs boosting your business, saving you money, raising your impact and cultivating a business environment that supports job creation, retention and growth.

Small Business Council

The Small Business Council (SBC) is a group of small business owners and service providers who act in an advisory capacity to the Portland Business Alliance. The SBC presents an organized voice on issues impacting the Alliance's small business members. In recent years, the SBC has worked on the following projects and issues:

• Small Business Education series
• City Business event series
• PDC's Neighborhood Economic Development (NED) Strategy
• Business License Fee and Business Income Tax
• Small Business Bill of Rights (pdf)
• Small Business Prosperity Strategy

Council Members:
Membership on the Small Business Council is closed to Portland Business Alliance members only. Three levels of council membership are available - active, standing and informed. Below is a list of active members who have made a commitment to the council. Active members are small business owners, operators or professionals that serve small businesses. Standing spots are reserved for non-profit/public agencies that serve small business. Informed members are invited to attend all meetings however they have not made a formal commitment.

Small Business Council Leadership

• Debbie Kitchin, InterWorks, LLC (chair)
• Ben McKinley, Cascade Web Development (chair elect)
• Charlotte Shinn, Oregonians Credit Union (Venture Portland liaison)
• Jeff Bodie, Jeffrey C. Bodie, P.C. (Small Business Advisory Council liaison)
• Tom Birch, Michael Allen's Clothier (Education Series liaison)
• Tony Dal Ponte, Samuels Yoelin Kantor LLP (Recruitment chair)

Small Business Active Members

• Brian Tanz, Hodges and Hart, LLC
• Dan DeAutremont, Lile Moving & Storage
• David Hill, Amplus Corporation
• Denny Shleifer, Shleifer Marketing Communications
• Eric Maher, Northwestern Mutual Financial Network
• Jan Walker, Inform Restaurant Accounting
• Jon French, Regence
• Jonathan Blashner, Playworks
• Lauren Davis, Xenium HR
• Layman Harang, The Karmann Group
• Matt Kolasinski, Portland Timbers
• Max Lopez, Everest College
• Michael Smolak, Dimension Resources
• Peter Lennon, Peter N. Lennon & Associates
• Tina Lyons, Double River Forwarding
• Tom Weed, The Legacy Group

Small Business Education Series

A three-part event series for business owners, operators and decision makers at companies smaller than 50 employees.

If you have an engaging presentation for small businesses, and would like to be a presenter at future Education Series events, please submit a speaker application form. If your presentation is selected you will be contacted by a member of the Small Business Council's Education Series Subcommittee.

Join the planning committee
Topics, speakers and logistics are all planned for the SBC Education series by a group of Alliance members. This ad-hoc committee determines its own meeting schedule and helps make the event series a success. To join the committee contact Jason Little at 503.552.6759 or jlittle@portlandalliance.com.

• For upcoming events check out our event calendar

The Small Business Council of the Portland Business Alliance, Venture Portland (formerly the Alliance of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations) and the City's Small Business Advisory Council (SBAC) have partnered to bring our passionate, committed leaders together to communicate and promote small business with a combined voice.

Part I: Making Sense of Portland's Bureaus, Budgets & Support Organizations
City Business: Part I is designed as a crash course on making the most of Portland's business support infrastructure to help your business and strengthen the impact small business and neighborhood business districts have on Portland's economy.

View slides from the presentation (pdf)
Acronym guide (pdf)

Part II: Turning Information into Action
Taking what was learned in Part I, our aim is to identify and define key issues impacting Portland's small businesses, catalyze action around these issues and ultimately impact public policies.

If you are interested in participating, or would like more information, please contact Jason Little at jlittle@portlandalliance.com.