Make Mine a Million $ Business® Award

Get a powerful package of money, mentoring, marketing and technology opportunities to set you on your way to owning a Million $ business.

Targetgov's own Gloria Berthold is among the mentors in this program and urges you to apply.

The Make Mine a Million $ Business program encourages applications from any business that is at least 50% woman-owned, at least two years old, and demonstrate high growth potential.

Make Mine a Million $ Business, founded by Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence with founding partner, OPEN from American Express®, is designed to help women entrepreneurs surpass the Million $ revenue mark.

Award Recipients Receive

• One year of mentoring from a “dream” team of coaches and business experts from Count Me In.
  
  
• Up to $50,000 in financing from OPEN from American Express® and Count Me In.
  
  
• Services and consulting from AIG® to help with work/life balance, small business insurance needs and financial planning.
  
  
• Smart Business Communication network from Cisco Systems valued at up to $20,000 for select awardees.
  For more info:  www.cisco.com/go/smb
  
  
• Discounts from FedEx select shipping and office and print services.
  
  
• Easy-to-use business and financial management software from Intuit as well as expert consultation, education, training and resources.
  
  
• A marketing consultation from QVC.
  

Click here to apply.

WIPP INVITATION to the September Powerful Policy and Politics Conference

POWERful Policy and Politics ~ September 17-19, 2007 ~ Renaissance Mayflower Hotel ~ Washington, DC ~

POWERful Policy and Politics is almost here. If you haven’t registered yet, or made your hotel registration, it is not too late. There are plenty of good reasons to attend but here are some of the top benefits:

1. You will meet incredible women from across the country – women just like you who are smart and successful – and want to make a difference!
   
2. You will learn a lot about the legislative issues that make a difference to small businesses from the best political strategists in Washington!
   
3. You will learn how to be an effective advocate and lobbyist for the issues that make a difference to you!
   
4. You will meet your elective representatives and staff on the Hill, in their offices!
   
5. You will meet the federal procurement representatives you need to know to gain entry into the federal contracting arena!
   
6. You will meet, sit with, talk to and get to know top corporate leaders!
   
7. You will hear THE top 2008 Election outlook from the best in the field!
   
8. You will learn strategies to build a multi-cultural organization and meet the top corporate, entrepreneur and agency leaders in the country – and learn how strong diverse leadership strengthens our economy!
   
9. You will meet 5 young entrepreneurs, competing for the Elizabeth Dole Young Entrepreneur Scholarship Award!
   
10. We’ll have special receptions and a Gala – not to be missed! Click here for the agenda and registration.

DoD to Change Vendor Payment System--Will it Speed Payments?

The Defense Department plans to stop using commercial electronic data interchange (EDI) systems to process payments and instead will require contactors to use the Department’s Web-based Wide Area Workflow - Receipt and Acceptance system. The department said it anticipates that the use of Wide Area Workflow will fully automate its payment process, significantly improve the timeliness of payments and reduce interest charges on late payments.

In 2004, Defense had $206 billion in contract payments subject to the Prompt Payment Act, according to a May 2006 Government Accountability Office report. Out of a pool of some $24 billion in payments the GAO studied, Defense was late in paying an average of 10 percent or $2.4 billion, of the payments to large vendors, while late payments to small vendors ran about 14.5 percent or over $3.4 billion, according to the report.

Defense wrote in an Aug. 14 Federal Register notice that neither the American National Standards Institute X12 EDI nor the Web Invoicing System cannot process all Defense contract payment requests and cannot be made available to all government offices and organizations.

According to the Federal Register notice, the change in Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations requiring use of Wide Area Workflow will require about 1,000 small businesses to switch to the system – a relatively low number compared with the 20,000 small companies already using it. (Contracting officers can allow the use of other payment systems if they choose.)

Wide Area Work Flow is the only system that can process all payment types. According to a fact sheet from the Defense Business Transformation Agency, it uses a virtual folder that contains the three documents required to pay a contractor: the contract, the invoice and the receiving report. The Wide Are Workflow helps eliminate lots of paper documents, which also can be misplaced, and compresses the contract payment process from weeks to days or minutes, according to the fact sheet.

Defense said it will take comments on the proposed rule change until Oct. 15.

Since it takes only one hour to learn how to use Wide Area Workflow, according to the Federal Register notice, it seems the new change in rules can be a boon to small vendors, even though I have yet to encounter any computer program that can be mastered in an hour. (Original story by Bob Brewin)

Note: See WAWF training course available at http://wawftraining.com Source: Original story by Bob Brewin through the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers at http://www.aptac-us.org/new/Contracting_News/index.php?articleID=83

Response from the Hill to SBA Announcement

Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, responded to SBA's announcement Aug. 16 by criticizing the Bush administration's failure to meet the small business contracting goals. "Year after year, the federal government has failed to reach their small business contracting goals and this year is no exception," Velazquez said. "Once again, the government has neglected to take advantage of the innovations and quality products offered by small firms, resulting in billions of dollars that instead went to large government contractors."

Velazquez also said the latest data show "the clear need" for the Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act (H.R. 1873), approved by the House this year, which "will ensure that small businesses are able to compete for billions of dollars in contracts that will help them expand and proper within their communities."

WIPP Update Notice

Call for Public Participation in Examining Small Business Regulations

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report documents the need for more public participation and transparency in federal agencies’ review of their existing regulations. Reexamining Regulations: Opportunities Exist to Improve Effectiveness and Transparency of Retrospective Reviews also finds that agencies are not getting it done when it comes to measuring the impacts of regulations on small businesses – mandated by section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA). The report points to a lack of clear standards, insufficient public participation and comment, and inadequate communication of the results to stakeholders. A new program by the SBA Office of Advocacy, Regulatory Review and Reform (R3), promises to address these issues by offering agencies guidance and training on how to implement section 610 of the RFA; soliciting recommendations from the small business community on rules that should be reviewed; and, providing public updates on the status and results of agency retrospective reviews.

Download the GAO report, Reexamining Regulations or learn more about the SBA Office of Advocacy's R3 initiative.

© 2007 The Public Forum Institute and the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde.

SBA Scores Small Business Procurement Efforts

Seven of 24 Federal Agencies Meet Small Business Contracting Goals

In an effort to increase the transparency and accountability in small business contracting, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) today released its first-ever Small Business Procurement Scorecard. The Scorecard will help agencies measure their achievements and progress in making contracting opportunities available to small businesses, improve the accuracy of contracting data regarding small businesses, and provide the public the opportunity to assess agencies' performance in meeting these goals.

Seven federal agencies; the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and SBA itself, met their small business contracting goals.

"SBA's and the agencies' commitment to small business contracting results is unprecedented," said Clay Johnson, Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget. "With clear, outcome-oriented goals, clear, realistically aggressive plans to achieve them, clearly defined accountability, and frequent tracking of performance, SBA and the agencies are saying they want to be held most publicly accountable for contracting with small business at desired levels."

SBA's Scorecard builds on a series of administration initiatives to improve small business access to federal contracts. At the request of the White House's Office of Federal Procurement Policy and SBA, federal agencies spent months reviewing 11 million contract actions from the last two years to cleanse the database of miscoded contracts. On June 30, federal regulations were changed. Contracts awarded to small companies acquired by large corporations will no longer count towards federal agency small business goals -- even if the acquisition took place before the rule change.

"These changes -- increased accuracy, transparency and accountability -- provide a real window of opportunity for America's small businesses," said SBA Administrator Steve Preston. "Almost $5 billion in misreported contracts have been cleaned out of the small business database. To meet their goals in 2007 and beyond, federal agencies know they will have to place more new contracts with small businesses. SBA is also increasing its staff and technical assistance to help our federal partners meet their contracting needs."

Small Business Goaling Report

After working with federal agencies to identify miscoding and anomalies in the contracting database, SBA released the annual Small Business Goaling Report for FY 2006, and revised the FY 2005 report. The Goaling Report shows that $77.7 billion in federal contracts were awarded to small businesses in FY 2006, up $2.7 billion from the previous year. The revisions reduce the share of contracts awarded to small businesses in 2005 $4.6 billion from the previously-reported 25.4 percent to 23.4 percent. For 2006 the figure is 22.8 percent, just short of the small business procurement goal established by law at 23 percent.

Administrator Preston cited the progress federal agencies have made towards meeting the five targeted sub-categories for small businesses procurement, as an example of what can be accomplished when agencies track progress towards small business goals.

"While only the target for small disadvantaged business has been met so far," Preston said, "SBA is encouraged by the real gains made in every category in 2006." Contracts to companies owned by service-disabled veterans increased by 50 percent, from $2 billion to $3 billion; contracts to women-owned businesses increased by a billion dollars; contracts to 8(a) companies rose by $700 million, contracts to HUBZone companies were up $1 billion. "We still have more to do to reach our targets," Preston said, "but these are accomplishments that our federal partners can be proud of."

About the Scorecard

SBA rates 24 agencies green, yellow or red, both on whether they reached their annual small business contracting goals and on their progress on efforts to make contracting opportunities available to small businesses. To achieve a green rating a federal agency has to meet its overall small business contracting goal, as well as the goals for at least three of four subcategories. For their current status, seven agencies were rated green, five yellow, and 12 were red. In the second category, under "progress," 12 agencies were rated green, eight were yellow, and four were red.

Each federal agency has a different small business contracting goal, determined annually in consultation with SBA. SBA ensures that the sum total of all of the goals exceeds the 23 percent target established by law. The Scorecard will be updated every six months and is publicly available on the SBA website at http://www.sba.gov.

"Small businesses play an important part in growing our nation's economy, and this Scorecard will help the agencies achieve contracting results that will keep our small businesses strong," said Administrator Paul Denett of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). "This new tool, along with better data in the goaling reports, will enable us to identify where we are strong and where we need to improve."

With more than 5.5 million contracting actions each year, miscodings and errors will not be completely eliminated from the contracting database. By publicizing the reports, and providing new tools to facilitate public review of the database, SBA and OFPP will enlist affected businesses and other stakeholders in the effort to continuously improve the accuracy and integrity of the procurement data.

The goaling reports released today by SBA are available at http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/goals/index.html.

SOURCE: U.S. Small Business Administration
Tiffani Clements of the U.S. Small Business Administration, +1-202-401-0035

Dept. of Energy’s Business Opportunity Sessions

The Dept. of Energy’s (DOE) Business Opportunity Sessions Scheduled for Aug 28 and Sept 26

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Director of the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Theresa Speake, announced an upcoming monthly Business Opportunity Sessions (BOS) to encourage small business contracting and further the Department’s mission.

The Business Opportunity Sessions begin with an overview on “How to Work with DOE,” followed by presentations from program experts seeking to develop small business participation through current or pending contract opportunities. The next Business Opportunity Sessions will be he held at DOE’s Forrestal Building, and are scheduled for Tuesday, August 28, and Wednesday, September 26, 2007. Space is limited, registration is required. To register, contact the DOE OSDBU office: Lee Avila, Lee.Avila@hq.doe.gov or call (202) 586-7377. To reserve your seat, please email your name, company, country of citizenship, a contact phone number and an email address. Also include a brief description of what services or products your company provides. Some of this information is required for our office files and some for the DOE security logs. Space is limited. Only two individuals per company, please.

The sessions provide a forum for federal acquisition officials to meet, in-person, with small businesses that may not be familiar with DOE’s contracting opportunities, and that DOE might not necessarily identify through traditional market research. BOS aims to further President Bush’s Small Business Agenda by increasing small business participation in the Department’s contracting opportunities.

“The Department of Energy strongly supports contracting with small businesses to help drive economic growth, and to advance our mission,” Director Speake said. “Small businesses have played and will continue to play a key role in DOE’s many successes. Encouraging DOE’s program officials to meet with small business representatives, in-person, allows the Department to continue to bring cutting-edge technology and improved business practices to our entire complex.”

Last month, Secretary Bodman issued a policy statement on DOE’s small business priorities, reiterating the Department’s commitment to pursue contracting opportunities with small businesses.

In Fiscal Year 2006, DOE awarded approximately $1.2 billion in prime contracts to small businesses. Additionally, through its Management and Operating contractors, $3.5 billion in subcontracts were awarded to small business. DOE strives to maximize its commitment to small businesses in 2007 and in subsequent years. Read more information on contracting with DOE.

Delay Implementation of 3% Contract Withholding

Committee Passes Legislation to Delay Implementation of 3% Contract Withholding Requirement For One Year

Last week the House Ways and Means Committee passed H.R. 3056, Tax Collection Responsibility Act of 2007 which includes language to delay by one year a 3-percent withholding requirement on government payments to its contractors that is set to take effect in 2011. If enacted, the 3% withholding will not go into effect until the start of 2012. The bill now moves to the House floor for consideration. WIPP strongly supports permanent repeal of the withholding provision because of its adverse effect on small business contractors. The 3% withholding requirement applies not only to federal contractors, but also state and local contractors. WIPP will continue to press for repeal of Section 511 of the tax code.

To view the letter signed by WIPP and other business associations to the House Ways and Means Committee on H.R. 3056, please click here.

WIPP asks that you write to your Members of Congress to urge them to support legislation that will repeal the provision. Two bills introduced will fully repeal the 3% withholding requirement. In the House, HR 1023 has been introduced by Reps. Meek (D-FL) and Herger (R-CA). The Senate bill (S 777) was introduced by Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID). Please click here to visit the WIPP Instant Impact site to take action.