PITTSBURGH, PA (September 8, 2020) A resolution was presented to City Council today for “Contract Connections: Bids for PGH”, a partnership between the City of Pittsburgh Office of Management and Budget and the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence's Small Business Development Center. The educational program is intended to help local, diverse small businesses learn how to participate in the City and other agencies’ procurement processes in a three-part remote webinar series aimed at diversifying vendors working with the City and promoting the local small business economy.
Contract Connections: Bids for PGH is open to small businesses for training and support in how to gain access to City of Pittsburgh contract opportunities so that they can be better prepared to submit solicitations and proposals for services needed by the City. The trainings will begin September 22, 2020 and will be held every other week throughout October at two different times during the day to accommodate varying schedules of small business owners or managers. The classes will include: Identifying Availability of New Contracts, Responding to Solicitations, and Closing the Deal.
The program is being funded in part by the Living Cities Accelerator grant received by the City of Pittsburgh to enhance accessibility of the procurement and contracting process so that more small businesses- especially minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) - can do business with the City. Other city deliverables of this grant include the Buying Plan forecast of local government agency bids anticipated over the next year so smaller businesses can prepare their proposals or collaborate with other small businesses to submit proposals and the Beacon procurement platform that allows businesses to sign up to receive e-mail notifications for solicitations within their scope of service. The Equal Opportunity Review Commission’s 2019 annual report indicates that initiatives aimed at better accommodating MWBE and small business familiarity with the city’s procurement process have contributed to more contracts being awarded to MWBEs.
“I’d like to thank our Office of Management and Budget and our partners at the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence’s Small Business Development Center for their continued commitment to making our procurement process more inclusive,” said Mayor William Peduto. “Offering the sorts of direct assistance identified by our MWBE community as part of the Living Cities Accelerator program assessment means that we can better equip them to be competitive in our procurement process to get city contracts. When our small businesses and MWBEs succeed, our whole economy grows stronger by increasing sales, creating jobs, keeping jobs local, and investing city funds back into our communities.”
For more information and to register, interested small businesses can visit entrepreneur.pitt.edu/events/bids-for-pgh or call 412-648-1542.
