To level the playing field for women business owners, the Federal Government limits competition for certain contracts to businesses participating in SBA’s Women-Owned Small Business (“WOSB”) Federal Contracting Program. Ideally, those contracts are for specific industries where WOSBs are historically underrepresented. And in fact, the Government even has certain WOSB contracting goals to encourage such set-asides. So, its easy to see why the WOSB Program can be a great opportunity for small businesses to get a leg up in the federal contracting world. But don’t let the name fool you, it takes more than just woman-ownership to get in–and stay in. Let’s take a closer look at SBA’s requirements for becoming certified under the WOSB Program.
Continue readingTag Archives: WOSB third-party certification
Newsflash: The Final Rule Implementing SBA Certification for WOSBs Is Here!
Update 5/14/2020: Since this post was originally published, SBA’s website has clarified when SBA Certification will be available and when Self-Certification will end. The post has been updated to reflect this information.
On Monday, the Small Business Administration will publish a Final Rule updating the certification methods for businesses applying for and participating in the Women-Owned Small Business program. The new Rule will also impose new thresholds for demonstrating economic disadvantage, impacting applicants not only for the WOSB program, but also the 8(a) Business Development program.
Continue readingGAO Highlights SBA Oversight Issues with WOSB Certification and Lack of Use of WOSB Set-Asides
This is our second blog on GAO’s recent report on SBA’s management of the Woman-Owned Small Business program. Here is our initial post.
In the report, GAO analyzes SBA’s oversight of the current certification program, and reports on its study of why contracting officers don’t use the WOSB set-asides as much as one might think.
Continue readingGAO to SBA: Please Address “Ongoing Oversight Issues” for the WOSB Program
GAO recently issued a report on several ongoing issues with SBA’s management of the Woman-Owned Small Business program. Because of the number of issues in the report, we’ll summarize it in a few posts.
In this post, we’ll provide some background on GAO’s review of the WOSB program and address how (and whether) SBA has implemented the changes required in the WOSB program by the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. Long story short, SBA has still not done all Congress has asked of it in the 2015 NDAA, particularly with regard to eliminating WOSB self-certification.
Continue readingThe Mysterious Case of the Missing SBA Women-Owned Small Business Certification Program
On December 19, 2014, then-President Obama signed the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act into law. The 2015 NDAA eliminated the statutory basis for federal agencies to award women-owned small business set-aside contracts to self-certified companies. In essence, then, the 2015 NDAA effectively eliminated WOSB self-certification.
Flash forward almost four years, and the SBA has not yet implemented a WOSB certification program. In fact, the SBA hasn’t even proposed rules to implement such a program. Instead, although the SBA continues to license a few third-party certifiers, the SBA also continues to say that WOSBs “can self-certify directly at certify.sba.gov by answering questions and uploading documents.”
So where the heck is the mysteriously missing SBA WOSB certification program? And is it even legal for the SBA to continue allowing WOSB self-certification?
WOSB Third-Party Certification: Which Certifier To Use?
Women-owned small businesses are increasingly seeking to become certified through one of four SBA-approved third-party WOSB certifiers. But which third-party certifier to use?
There doesn’t seem to be any single resource summarizing the basics about the four SBA-approved certifiers, such as the application fees, processing time, and documents required by each certifier. So here it is–a roundup of the key information for three of the four SBA-approved WOSB certifiers (as you’ll see, we’ve had some problems reaching the fourth).
WOSB Certification: SBA Seeks Public Comments
A year after Congress surprisingly eliminated WOSB self-certification, the SBA is asking for public comment on how to certify WOSBs.
In a notice published today, the SBA states that it intends to draft regulations to address the statutory change, but “seeks to understand what the public believes is the most appropriate way to structure a WOSB/EDWOSB certification program.”