PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The City of Philadelphia is offering a series of monthly educational workshops to help minority business owners learn how to compete for big-city contracts.
The goal of the Office of Economic Opportunity workshops is to share pathways toward generational wealth for minority, disabled, and women business owners.
“It takes a certain level of sophistication, back office operation and capacity to take on city contracts,” said Anne Nadol, City Commerce Director. “And that has been the focus of OEO now, to really grow those businesses. That's how we're going to be able to move the needle.”
Lynn Newsome, Deputy Commerce Director, says the workshops evolved from the city’s annual Minority Business Development Week to what she calls a “more meat on the bones” approach, giving businesses more education.
She said it’s not enough to just know how to keep a business afloat, but rather how to become prime contractors.
“We realize that there's some tools that they need, and some education that they need that might have been missing,” Newsome said.
“They're very good at their trade, but they might not know the business end in order to grow their capacity … And that's where there was a gap between minority businesses and their counterparts.”
Each year, the city tries to reach at least 35% participation from minority owned enterprises on its contracts.
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Nado said the opportunities for people to partake in these contracts and get government work are going to increase, but there's a runway for getting the companies to be able to participate.
“So now is the time to invest in all of this training and all of these resources.”
They offer virtual workshops, like Doing Business in the City and Business Development, which run twice a month from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. January through June and September through November.
More information on their workshops can be found here.