Last week, I attended the ChallengeHER event in Arlington, VA where I had the pleasure of meeting other females in federal contracting. ChallengeHER events, which are organized by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and American Express (AMEX), are designed to supply women business owners with information and resources regarding the SBA’s Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSB) Program in order to provide more federal government contracting opportunities for small businesses owned by women.

One thing was made clear at the event – federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD), are indeed striving to achieve their goals of awarding 5% of their prime contracting dollars to WOSBs. Ms. Amy Kim, the SBA’s WOSB Program Manager, informed attendees that although federal agencies fell just shy of meeting the 5% goal in FY2017, they did award $20.8 Billion contracting dollars to WOSBs. While this number also includes contracting dollars awarded to WOSBs under other SBA socio-economic programs, it was encouraging to learn that FY2017 saw $723.5 Million in WOSB set-aside contract award dollars, which is a 60% increase from FY2016! Several representatives from the DoD discussed how the number of set-aside contract award dollars can continue to increase.
Continue Reading Reminder to Women Owned Businesses – Take Advantage of Federal Contracting Opportunities!