Federal Government Empowers Women as Small Business Owners

Women-owned small businesses are constantly on the rise. This change has helped the federal government award 5 percent of all contracts to them. This is an achievement for the government which is trying to reach this goal for the last 20 years.

The Announcement Made by the Federal Government

Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Maria Contreras-Sweet along with Nydia Velazquez (Congresswoman), Valerie Jarrett (Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama) and two other members made the announcement. They shared that the government has awarded 5 percent of the contracts to women-owned small businesses (WOSB) and the total worth of these projects amounts to 17.8 billion.

The Goal is Still Far Ahead

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Contreras-Sweet also added that the achievement of five percent goal is just a foundation that needs to be built upon. She said that an SBA-commissioned study has exposed that though WOSB employs eight million American workers but still they lag behind in getting ample capital and contracts.

Hence, the SBA has announced to increase its categories. It now has 36 new industry categories where women can have the opportunity to win sole-source awards and set-aside contracts. This step would help expand the women-owned businesses, the jobs and new industries will be created.

Past Initiatives

The practice of empowering women-owned businesses is on the rise. Two key initiatives were launched in this regard. They are called Give Me 5 and ChallengeHER. The latter was initiated in 2013 by the Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP). It aimed to ensure that women-owned small businesses participate in the Federal procurement process. Resources of WIPP, SBA, as well as American Express OPEN, were utilized to promote the initiative.

The other initiative, known as the Give Me 5 Program was a brainchild of American Express OPEN and Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP). This program was aimed to make sure that women business owners get the knowledge necessary for applying and attaining government procurement opportunities.

What is WIPP?

It must be added here that WIPP is a unique national nonpartisan public policy organization that represents about 78 business organizations and 4.7 million business women. The organization works to ensure that working women and their businesses are empowered. It is done by providing a joint model for the private and public sectors. The organization even has a government relations team that helps them to interact with the federal government workers easily.