The U.S. Small Business Administration has launched Destination: HUB, a new initiative to strengthen its HUBZone program.
The program helps small businesses in distressed urban and rural communities by giving them a leg up in the federal contracting process. Destination: HUB aims to encourage more companies to take advantage of the HUBZone offerings.
“The program has had a transformational effect on small businesses all across the country,” SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet said in a release. “SBA’s Destination: HUB will put a spotlight on our underserved small businesses and promote HUBZones as ideal places for government contractors to do business.”
There’s room for the program to improve.
“In our 2013 score card,” Contreras-Sweet said, “we reported that HUBZone businesses only received 1.7 percent of federal contracts—well short of our 3 percent goal. This new initiative is an example of how the SBA is actively working to achieve that goal.”
Destination: HUB is intended to further encourage and sustain HUBZone firms with federal contract opportunities. It will work to make certain that local economic development boards, government officials, federal buyers and prime contractors collaborate to offer additional sole-source and set-aside awards to HUBZones.
Destination: HUB will act in three main ways:
- Provide a thorough assessment of successes and needs in the HUBZone program.
- Analyze optimum situations for fruitful HUBZone teamwork by connecting public-private partnerships and market research to recruit more participating HUBZone firms.
- Launch a wide educational program involving community organizations, faith leaders, local economic development and vital stakeholders to generate participation in and ownership of the HUBZone program both regionally and nationally.
In so doing, Destination: HUB will strive to achieve its overall goal of improving access to capital and closing opportunity gaps in communities of color, with the intended result of increasing employment, social mobility and business growth.
