Way back in 2019, the SBA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on the SBA’s (then named) All Small Mentor Protege Program. At that time the SBA OIG found that the SBA didn’t create effective controls to ensure mentor-protege application reviews and evaluations were made in accordance with the regulations and SBA did not make sure such reviews and evaluations measured program success. The SBA OIG gave the SBA a list of recommendations at that time to fix those issues. At the end of September 2026 (after giving SBA a seven-year window), the SBA OIG revisited its 2019 inspection of the SBA’s Mentor-Protege Program (MPP) and found there were some improvements, but still some issues with the MPP, especially regarding protege business plans.
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Counting the Hours: SBA Adding More MPA Requirements
The SBA’s Mentor-Protege Program (MPP) continues to be one of the most popular programs at the SBA. The MPP is a great way for federal contractors to grow and learn from more experienced contractors, in a way that is shielded from size affiliation risks. Historically, the Mentor-Protege Agreement (MPA) between a mentor and protege was a flexible document that allowed the parties to make sure their participation in the program truly fit their processes and aims in their own words. However, in recent years the SBA’s MPA reviews have seemingly taken stricter stances on the format and content of the MPA, leading to confusion among contractors on what they are supposed to draft in their MPA. Recently, we have become aware of the SBA implementing more requirements on MPAs that contractors are not warned about prior to applying to the MPP.
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