Dear SBAIC Members and Friends,

This newsletter features SBAIC member activities in democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG). We also highlight several SBAIC initiatives and successes very relevant to member businesses. As we completed work on this issue, a significant threat to continued small business participation in USAID DRG programs surfaced, described below.

It was great to see a lot of you at USAID’s annual small business conference in May, and to mingle afterwards at the networking reception hosted by SBAIC. Many thanks to our many members who sponsored this very well-attended reception, now known at USAID and among small business as an annual event not to be missed!

We are seeing a remarkable uptick in small business language in USAID’s procurements, and we take real pride in the success of our advocacy around making meaningful small business inclusion a standard feature of acquisition. I appreciate those of you who have taken the time to share such language with me and the joy in this achievement.

We are thrilled USAID is shifting to an SBA-negotiated small business target in 2016, from a small business performance indicator at the mission level. SBAIC has long advocated for concrete recognition of the original commitments to small business in the key strategy document underpinning USAID FORWARD. That goal is being met. This has major implications for your respective firms.

We greatly appreciate the improvements to USAID’s business forecast, but note with dismay the continued lack of small business set-asides. This undercuts USAID’s objective in meeting small business targets, particularly at the mission level. Early designation of small business set asides will help missions meet their new targets and provide small business the time needed for producing the kind of high quality bids that USAID wants.

At USAID Management Bureau’s Partners’ Day on March 3, SBAIC gained deeper appreciation of the need to amplify the small business message within USAID, especially at the mission level. We had an excellent meeting on May 1 with USAID Acting Administrator Alfonso Lenhardt, a major supporter of small business. Our key ask was for him to repeat his message of support to small business as often as possible. We want to ask that of our members as well. In June, when in Uganda working on a USAID project, I asked and was granted the opportunity to speak to USAID mission staff about SBAIC. The meeting was exceptionally well attended and effective. I encourage all of you to do the same in your travels. Here’s the PowerPoint I used.

One of the many great outcomes from Partners’ Day for SBAIC was meeting Steve Tashjian, Chief of USAID’s Cost, Audit and Support (CAS) Division. We subsequently invited him to speak at our SBAIC Membership Meeting in early June. He came with two senior USAID colleagues, James Davis who oversees NICRA issuance and David McNeil who supervises audits. We had a superb meeting, with about 70 members attending either in person or virtually. As a result, Mr. Tashjian’s office is addressing some key small business issues. For example, SBAIC raised the issue that “audited financials” is typically required in solicitations in lieu of a NICRA when only “compiled financials” are required, posing a major barrier to entry for small business. Mr. Tashjian agreed and his office is currently working to correct this language in USAID RFP templates. SBAIC also raised the issue that prime contractors bidding on large procurements in full and open competitions often state that fixed price subcontracts are not permissible under cost reimbursable contracts. This message also comes from USAID contracting officers. Mr. Tashjian has since corrected this misinformation in USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA) weekly newsletter, "At a Glance." We are extremely appreciative of these actions which are critically important to the small business community.

This month our priority is addressing potentially disastrous language for continued business support to USAID’s democracy and governance programs in the FY15 Senate appropriations bill (see p. 125), we realize how timely this focus is in our newsletter. It would be truly unfortunate for USAID to lose the benefit of having small, medium, and large development companies involved in its D&G programs. We believe there’s a critical role played by a range of entities in this space, development companies and NGOs alike. SBAIC is working hard on the Hill and with other associations such as PSC/CIDC to remove this language from the Senate bill, and we encourage members to contact your Senators with the same message.

I personally invite every one of you to get engaged in SBAIC’s activities and help move the dial even faster. We have many other initiatives underway to promote small business participation in supporting USAID’s global objectives. We are proud of our many achievements, which result from the steady presence of SBAIC and its members doing a great job and collectively pushing for specific issues and changes. As we go to press, we are 175 members strong – which means we are really succeeding in helping achieve USAID FORWARD’s objective of increasing the partner base among small businesses!

I hope we will see you at our next bi-monthly Membership Meeting on August 4 from 10 am to noon. We are delighted to have USAID’s OSDBU Director, Mauricio Vera, as our guest speaker for an update and discussion on key small business issues. As always, I close in sending thanks, on behalf of SBAIC’s leadership, for your continued support.

Warm regards,

Betsy Bassan
Chair, SBAIC Board of Directors
President and CEO, Panagora Group