As part of the Obama Administration’s efforts to promote small businesses in federal contracting, the Small Business Administration (SBA) recently announced the ChallengeHER Campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to educate women business owners about federal procurement opportunities and introduce business owners to acquisition decision-makers in order to increase the percentage of federal contracting dollars awarded to women-owned small businesses (WOSBs).
In the coming months, SBA plans to host ChallengeHER events in Phoenix, Seattle, New Orleans, Denver, Atlanta, San Francisco, and New York. At these events, SBA will play “matchmaker” by connecting WOSBs with contracting decision-makers on both the national and local level. SBA will instruct WOSBs on how to register with the System for Award Management (SAM) – the government contracting portal for small business owners that want to work with the federal government. And SBA will provide information regarding the eligibility requirements for WOSB set-aside contracts. Follow SBA’s website for coming details about these events.
This campaign is only the latest in a series of government actions taken to increase WOSB participation in federal contracting. Over the past 40 years, the percentage of small businesses owned by women has increased from 5% to 30%. Yet SBA has still not achieved its goal of awarding 5% of all federal contracting dollars to WOSBs. In 2011, WOSBs received only 3.98% of federal contracting dollars. In the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress eliminated the cap on contract awards for WOSB set-aside. SBA hopes that without this limitation, WOSBs will have greater access to contracting opportunities.
Katie Calogero is the attorney responsible for the content of this article.