New San Diego County pilot programs aim to help small businesses land contracts

A pair of pilot programs aim to make it easier for San Diego County small businesses and nonprofits to prepare for, navigate and land government contracts.

One pilot is the Compliance, Operations, and Readiness Education (CORE) program, which helps businesses with bookkeeping and compliance support. The other is the Bonding and Underwriting Insurance for Local Development (BUILD) program, which helps participants get ready to apply for contracts, access bonding and insurance and navigate requests for proposals and government contracts.

The larger goal for both is to boost economic mobility for these entities, with a target of supporting more than 100 small businesses and nonprofits over the next year.

“The development of pilot programs like CORE and BUILD is a direct result of our commitment to creating a more equitable, accessible, and inclusive procurement process,” San Diego County Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Monica Montgomery Steppe said in a recent news release. “These initiatives are significant investments in the future of our regional economy. I’m proud to have played a key role in launching these programs, and I look forward to seeing them grow and thrive.”

Both pilots are the result of a partnership between the County of San Diego and Founders First Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit whose mission is to “solve the economic equity gaps that impact growth in small, employer-based businesses by providing training, funding and resources to support their growth to their communities,” its website says. Its backers include Capital One, U.S. Bank, Citibank and the MacArthur Foundation.

“Many small businesses struggle to build and maintain the financial health needed to grow,” said Kim Folsom, the founder and board chair of Founders First. “Through our CORE Program, we provide hands-on bookkeeping and financial reporting support so owners can accurately track performance and demonstrate contract readiness. Our BUILD program helps companies secure required insurance and bonding and meet California labor-compliance standards to compete for County opportunities.”

The pilots align with a goal of the county to carve out 25% of its $2.2 billion annual contract spending for San Diego small businesses. The county also recently announced additional programs that will attract small business contract bids, including “(raising) the small local business preference from 5% to 15%, meaning a proposed bid price will be evaluated as if it were up to 15% cheaper, helping them better compete with larger companies” and making more use of requests for qualifications (RFQ) instead of requests for proposals.

Small businesses and nonprofits based in San Diego County can learn more and apply here: https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/cao/edga/small-business.html or https://foundersfirstcdc.org/sd-county-program.