National Iranian American Council

I am proud to be a member of NIAC - You should all be!

I am an Iranian American citizen and also a small business owner. NIAC has achieved a lot despite all the unease going toward Iranian Americans in recent years, I believe it is a moral responsibility of each Iranian who lives in US to become a member of this great organization. Their membership starts with as low as $40 a year and up.

I am telling you these kind of organizations are necessary for minorities like us or else the big lobby guys would walk all over us.

Oh one more thing on WOB

In order to be certified as a WOB, 51% of the business has to be woman owned.

In a case of a divorce, if you make it 51% WOB you loose control as a whole and if your wife doesn't know how to run the business then it is loosing the company (alimony) for both sides! It's not like general divorces where things are split 50/50. That 1% is all a divorce lawyer need to know!

Midwesty jan

I know you were being sarcastic but I don't know how many actually know about this 8(a) thing. As for woman-owned business there aren't any (much) WOB set-aside procurements. But there are tons of SDB set-asides and winning them isn't as difficult as SB set-asides.

But overall and a note to your sarcasm there is a reality to face. I think we should think in terms of doing things individualy and then build bridges than can bring IAs together.

For example, look at NIAC and what it is trying to do with IAs. People like Fred attack them left and right (BTW where is he in this blog?!). Same is true for other "community leaders".

So after 30 years of not getting together I think we should try our luck separately and look for items that perhaps would benefit us as a whole in the end.

LLP jan,

or we can just put our spouse's name down as a board member and make the business a woman owned business then we won't even need a petition or a law suit to bid for a gov. cont. However there is fun in doing things together. The catch 22 of money-outreach is a well-known struggle that all grass-root organizations face. I was just being sarcastic about it.

Midwesty

In this case we (Iranian-Americans) don't necessarily need members, money, organization and all that. One Iranian-American can submit a petition or a lawsuit (depending on the case) that as a business owner s/he would like to be considered as a "Small Disadvantaged Business" (8(a)) so it can submit a bid for a SDB set-aside procurment.

NIAC is already doing that and knowing them I'm sure they won't give up easily and will pursue this issue no matter how long it takes. As long as they are NIAC and exist in the good old US of A.

NIAC jan,

Your outreach program lang mizaneh dadash! In order to forge better dadash you need to get more support from the community. To get more support you need to advertise and raise awareness and show how its cost versus benefit impacts the community. To do that you need money, to get money you need more members...to have more memebers you need to raise awareness, to raise awarenesss you need money...to get money you need...well...you know what? I got to go now...

NIAC should be planning regime change instead

And join the long list of losers and leftovers! Is there only ONE group of Iranians doing something positive for our people?

JJ 8(a) thing doesn't have

JJ 8(a) thing doesn't have anything to do with Iranian-Americans not wanting to be categorized as a minority. Some other minorities who are qualified under this program doesn't want to be called a "minority" either. Those people don't even know what is the 8(a) program. I hope you do and if you don't, don't be shy to ask :-) In your case as an Iranian-American business man, if it is approved by SBA it won't affect you unless you decide to bid on Govt contracts.

And who are our "community leaders"?! Did we have leaders here that we didn't know about?!

The 8(a) program has to be certified by SBA and it is a long process. NIAC has been pushing this cause for a long time and as they state SBA has denied their petition because we are not discriminated against enough and discrimination is not "chronic".

That means our discrimination claims are made up. What discrimination they say! Would you agree?!

Hey Saman With your Connections on VOA ...;0)

Hey Saman Why isn't Trita never accepting Invitation to speak on VOA ?

Weren't You even Awarded by WAALM recently or is it Someone Else ?

VOA - PNN Visual Journalist, Saman Arbabi :

//waalmawards.com/page2.html

Congrats by the Way.

Looks Like a Taghouti Award doesn't it ? Why did you Accept ?

LOL

Solid organizations

You have NIAC and someone like Trita Parsi ... and then of course we have Reza Pahlavi ... or Maryam Rajavi! I think I'll go with NIAC.

Good idea

For years I have thought that Iranian-American small business owners should be qualified for this program. My impression has been that Iranian-Americans don't like to be categorized as a minority and therefore community leaders made no effort to be included in this program.