New Opportunities For Federal Contracts
 By Terry M. Blair

Small-business owners could get an inside track to federal contracting opportunities thanks to a new government-wide initiative.

In August, Gary Locke, secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Karen Mills, administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA), announced a plan to help small businesses gain access to contracting opportunities. Under the plan, federal agency procurement officials intend to hold or participate in more than 200 events this fall to share information on government contracting opportunities.

The initiative is aimed at all small businesses, including minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses.

As part of the initiative, the SBA and Department of Commerce will expand their outreach to fellow contracting officials across the federal government, passing along best practices for outreach and education to every agency to ensure they have the tools they need to meet their annual contracting goals.

In addition, Locke and Mills will promote small-business contracting opportunities in events and discussions with small business groups across the country, including minority, women and veteran groups.

The Department of Commerce and the SBA will support, monitor and track the impact of these efforts going forward to help ensure the administration is maximizing opportunities for small businesses.

President Obama reaffirmed the administration’s support of the plan when he said, “Small and minority-owned businesses must play a significant role in our efforts to restore economic growth. Small businesses employ half of the nation’s private sector workforce, create a large share of the nation’s new jobs, and introduce many groundbreaking ideas into the marketplace. It is essential that we provide our nation’s small businesses with maximum practicable opportunity to participate in federal government contracting.”

The government contracting opportunities include those available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, said Vice President Joe Biden. “In these tough economic times, the Recovery Act is providing billions of dollars in opportunity and incentives to help businesses grow—and the president and I are committed to ensuring that small- and minority-owned businesses are part of our economic recovery every step of the way,” said Biden.

Find A Contracting Opportunity
Small-business owners can find out about federal contracting opportunities by visiting www.fedbizopps.gov.

At the site you search by multiple factors, including:

• Contracting date
• State and ZIP code
• Set-aside codes, such as veteran-owned small business or emerging small business
• North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
• Classification code, such as social service, equipment, etc.
• Keyword
• And more

You can even search the database without registering or providing any information about your small business.

Local officials from the SBA and the Department of Commerce are also available in local offices across the country to assist small businesses interested in contracting opportunities. Contact information for local offices can be found www.commerce.gov and www.sba.gov.

Need Help?
If you’ve got questions about contracting with the federal government, the small-business consultants at AFS ProTalk can answer your questions. And AFS Members have unlimited access to the team of ProTalk consultants included in the cost of their membership.

Get these and other contracting questions answered:

• Does my business qualify for a federal contract?
• How do I determine my NAICS code?
• How will my business get paid for the work?
• When will my business get paid?
• Are there drawbacks to contracting with the federal government?

(Posted September 2009)

>>More Owner's Manual Articles