C HAPTER 9: B UILDING A N ATIONAL A NGEL O RGANIZATION
NAO SERVICES & VALUE PROPOSITION Prior to the formation of NAO, angels were asked to assign preferences to the following list of services and potential NAO benefits: Angel Investor Summit, Angel Investor Charity Golf Tournament, What’s Hot Breakfast, Deal Flow, Confidential Angel Roster, Public Policy Advocacy, Angel Forum Groups, Industry Trends Information, Best Practices in Deal Structure and Angel Investment Fund. The top three deliverables desired by the survey population were access to the confidential angel roster, participation in the angel summit and current information regarding best practices. The potential bias of this sample was that many of the respondents had been to the previous year’s summit and may have been consequently predisposed to ranking the summit and roster access higher than items that had yet to be delivered. Some of the younger or smaller angel groups were very interested in the potential educational benefits of NAO, and strongly supported the creation of an angel investor fundamentals curriculum. The junior groups were often less enthusiastic about sharing deal flow or their roster. The senior angels were excited about the prospects for exposing their regions and local deals to the rest of the country and other investors. There was also strong support during discussions for public policy advocacy. Although there were differences in vision with respect to the most needed benefits by the various angels, the group was uniform in wanting to have a collective voice that might be heard on important topics relevant
to economic development at all three levels of government. ANGEL INVESTOR HABITS BY GEOGRAPHY
Angel investors tend to invest close to home. An angel might say that he would only invest in companies that he could drive to and from in an afternoon. Although the largest portion of angel investors still invest within their own home cities, a surprising number were willing to venture outside their province and even outside the country. This statistic could be attributed to increasing globalization and also an
interest by angels in focusing their investments in domains of expertise regardless of geography. NAO hopes to track these and similar characteristics within the angel community and identify trends. GOVERNANCE MODEL The group has chosen a non-profit organization structure as a model. Angel investors must meet strict admission criteria. The members elect a board of directors and the board appoints an executive director and staff as needed.
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