A Procurement Path to Equity

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welcome everybody hihi so my name is kisha buenge iam the senior community building managerfor this open contracting partnershipand welcome welcome welcomethank you for joining our virtual reportlaunch for a procurement path to equitystrategies for government and thebusiness ecosystemi will be introducing the rest of theorganizers and the panelists in just aminutebut first i wanted to welcome all of youand encourage you to of course keepintroducing yourselves in the chatwe can already tell there’s a lot ofdiversity of folks in the roomwe’re excited to have city governmentrepresentatives some business leadersand advocatesothers from the philanthropic field andthe wider ecosystemand we really think this conversationwill speak to each and every one of younot only in what role each stakeholdergroup has to play but alsoand how we can collaborate acrosssectors across cities and acrossdifferent stages of the procurementcycleas many of you may have seen mycolleague kate will start sharing thelink to the report so you can all startdownloading it and diving in right afterwe hear from our amazing panel speakerstodayso we’re all here because we believethat good procurement is equitableprocurementand this recent spike in cases over thepast few weeks adds even more urgency tothis worknot only is it about recovery but it’sabout response right nowit’s about how we cannot afford to waitif we want to keep small minority andwomen-owned businessesas well as the neighborhoods around themthriving because locally owned smallbusinesses matterthey reduce inequality they stimulatejob creation and they support socialcohesionall things that i think we can agree weneed more than ever through this crisisand in his powerful forward to thereport randall woodfinmayor of birmingham alabama whosecolleague coriate is here with us todayon the panelemphasizes that small minority-ownedbusinesses matter and thisis the time to make change and show upfor them for many of us working in thisspace we know that solutions thatadvance equityalso advance efficiency and transparencyand value for moneyso governments rightsorry sorry so governments have so manyreasons to open up their procurementuse accessible and timely data adoptuser-friendly and outcomes-basedcontracting reforms and engage vendorsand residents to solve real problems onthe groundright now and there’s a lot ofopportunity herewith local governments in the u.scollectively spending 1.6 trilliondollars that is correct1.6 trillion dollars per year oncontracts there’s so much potential forprocurement to behonestly absolutely transformative forour cities and statesbut historically and long before thepandemic as we know minority and womenowned small businesses have been lockedout of opportunities to contract withgovernmentsand of course the current crisis hasdisproportionately impactedmany of these very enterprises and mweand wbes across the board are rightfullyworried about their ability to survivethe economic downfall from covet 19.in a poll completed this summer by theu.s chamber of commerce66 of mwbe respondents said that theyareconcerned about having to permanentlyclose their businessesbut there is some hope we have seen thisyear folks rally and organizewe have seen city leaders innovate wehave seen philanthropy stepup to the plate and we have seen smallbusinesses support each other and theircommunities in unprecedented waysthis report builds on the work of thosealready making change on the groundwe turned to our community ofprocurement reformers and gatheredinsights from 35experts working to improve our citiesthrough equitable and open contractingand we asked how do we actually gettherewhat procurement reforms can reallychange the game for local governmentsthat are trying to implement moreinclusive policiesfrom setting goals for contracts awardedto minority-owned businessesto reducing barriers to entry throughflexible requirements andmany many more things as you can see inour solutions chart here this is all inthe report so get excitedopen contracting reforms and strategieshave so much to offer and can be acrucial step on the path to buildingfair and equitable citiesand lucky for us we have brought fourleaders working with city governmentsand small businesses into thisconversation with us todayand um they’re going to provide theirinsights and help us take a deeper diveinto how we can all collectively breakdown systemic barriers to economicinclusionfor minority and women-owned businessesum a few bits of housekeeping before westartwe are recording the webinar and we’llsend it to everybody uh once it’s livealso we’ll keep folks on mute but pleasekeep introducing yourselvesshare your questions share your thoughtsthroughout this conversation in the chatkay will be collecting your thoughts andleading the q a session in just a bitawesome so to introduce our moderatorsagainmy name is kisha buenge senior communitybuilding manager at the open contractingpartnershipi’ll be moderating the first half ofthis discussion and really getting intoa conversation with our panelistskay as i mentioned will be moderatingour q a session and she’s alsoauthor of the report thank you kay andjennifer bradley uh from the aspeninstitute center for urban innovationthey’re our lead partner in this reportshe’s the founding director and will beclosing us outso last but not least our lovelypanelistsso we have coriate hauser joining usfrom the city of birmingham he is themanager of neighborhood investment andbusiness diversityelizabeth reynoso associate director ofpublic sector innovation from livingcitiesjennifer geiling is the deputy directorof policy and partnerships at themayor’s office of contract services forthe city of new yorkand carl brown is the executive directorof the dc small business developmentcenterthank you all so much for joining ustoday i’m going tostop the screen share so that we can seeall of our facesso hello welcome welcome umso we have a question for all of youthat we just kind of want to open upwithand we’re wondering what are your goalsfor open accessibleand equitable contracting this comingyearuh let’s start with coriateuh well good good morning to uh somegood afternoon to others uhbut uh very simply put i think the goalfor usin the city of birmingham is to do whatis in our core value which is betransparent and be accountablewe have core values here uh we we titlethem as cetacustomer service efficiencyeffectiveness transparency andaccountabilityuh and i think the last two oftransparency and accountability reallywork well for us when we talkabout uh procurement open and equitableuhyou know procurement and that’s one ofthe things that we’re really focused onfor this upcoming year is not only beingaccountable but being transparent withwhere we spend our money uh particularlywith wmdbesthat’s excellent thanks so much coreyokay elizabeth what are you guys workingonat living cities yeah well we areinterested in one obviously our ownorganizationsum work in uh our own procurement andhow we use our dollars we are anon-profitum national organization but then wealso work as a collaborative withphilanthropyso together we’re looking at our ownprocurementdollars and where they’re spent but inparticular with citiesi’m looking to ensure that lessonslearned from the cities thatare featured on this panel as well ascities that we work on um theirstrategies can be shared with everybodyno matter whether you have a legalenvironment that you can where you cando race contrast programming or notawesome excellent jennifergood afternoon first i’d like to saythank you to open contracting and aspeninstitutefor inviting the city of new york andthe mayor’s office of contract servicesto be part of this conversation and forelevating procurementand procurement professionals there’snot enough of thatso thank you and for bringing it intothis context ofmwbes the city of new york believesstrongly that technology is a vehiclefor inclusion and accessibilityand with that goal we are pursuingdigital contracting acrossthe city of new york we have been onthat missionfor several years now and just had amajor releaseof our online procurement system calledpassportthis past summer which is enabling over21 billion dollars worth of annualpurchasingevery year across all of our industries41 city agenciesand includes about 30 000 vendorsso our hope for 21 is that we continuealong this trajectorylooking forward to releasing a fourthmajor enhancement of the system thatwill allow foronline financial management as welljanuarythat’s awesome and congratulations onlaunching passport i know that’s beenuh years in the making and carl what areyour plansgood morning everybody good afternoondepending on where you areuh i want to first thank the aspeninstitute andopen contracts for inviting us to be apart of thiswonderful panel what we’re working on isuh working with the vendors that areactually going afteryour opportunities so we’re working withthem toget their social economic certificationsor get on a day schedule or a gsaschedule um working with them on theirmarketing collateral theirobviously all of the information theywould need tobe a good vendor and be a fit for yourorganizationso we’re a little different uh and ihave a 30-year procurement background soi know what you guys are looking for sowe are putting our vendors right on thatpath to uhsuccess here in the district of columbiawe’re gonna spend about two two billiondollars and we’re looking forward touh our vendors getting a lion’s share ofthat moneythat’s awesome thank you all for sharinggiving us alla little bit of something to lookforward to in the coming year inaddition tohopefully a vaccine but this is all suchimportant and in vital work as wecontinue to deal with the pandemic umelizabeth so i wanted to ask youyou know the movement to includesmes and mwbes is not new and withliving cities you’re working with manydifferent local governments across thecountry and we’re clearly anunprecedented times but what do youthink specifically makes this momentdifferent and why have certain barriersremain persistent how are we going toovercome them nowyeah i love that question um why thismoment why nowand i’ll share like what i’m hearingfrom all of the cityprocurement professionals that i workwith folks in racial equity offices toothey’re saying that um their work nowum their everything they’ve been workingon um to create more transparency and tocreate moreaccountability now has greater attentionbecause it’s not just their teamsor you know their leaders umthat are asking for this but it’s theircommunities who have always been askingand so now they feel that they don’tonly have to be the champions withintheir cities but thatbecause that their leaders are alsobeing asked to as well so i think thatthere isum that but in like local many morelocal government folksare also folks who are coming from thecommunity and like have seen the factthatthis is the reason why they wanted tojoin and work specifically onprocurement because they saw the needsof their residents who are alsoum business owners who are alsoemployers of many of their neighborsand now they’re seeing that there ismore attentionto this work and more will and theydon’t want it to just be performativeit’s not just like let’s support blackbusinesses it’s likewell let’s show the dollars how do we dothat and somany of them have been doing prosperitystudiesor um or some of them their owncommunities have been asking for it sonow they say yes so let’s put some teethbehind this not justdo the disparity study but actually putsome policies and let’sask the community to hold us accountablesowe have folks in local government nowthat are coming from these communitiesthat have folks who have come from thebusinessthey’re like i got in here to try tochange the system and i’m working withinthe city andand there’s so many legacy systems wehave to change but there is a waythere’s a willso i think that is also part of thechange in this moment so that there isone there’s likegreater willingness to be accountableand absolutelyperformative and also that i’m seeingthat cities are sayingyou know look at what we’re doing and wealso have a roleas a model or an or to learn from oured’s in our meds you know the anchorinstitutions as welland so when a city like new orleans doesa disparity study and says this is whatit looks like for usbut then says look at what the receiptsarefrom the private sector and it’s lessthan two percent in a community like neworleansthat means private sector you’ve got tostep up and so they’ve been able to makesome um strides there because thecommunity asked forthis data and now they’re saying let’slet’s work with the private sector andlet’s see what kind of commitmentsthey’re willing to make that’sincredible workand coriate i know the city ofbirmingham has similarlyreally brought the private sector onboard to step up and and make some ofthose commitmentsyou’ve been driving some of thispolitical will uh and trailblazing someinnovative measures to build aninclusive economy and explicitly makebirmingham a hub for women in minorityowned businesses before covidso building on that what innovations orstrategic commitments are you mostexcited about that you guys are runningyeah um by far it’s our program calledvitalit’s our inclusive procurement programuh it stands forvaluing inclusion to accelerate and liftand soin that it started with uh within cityhallwe needed to understand where our spendwas how we spent our dollarswhere the opportunities lie but we alsounderstoodthat the private sector could play arole in community building as welland so we extended that challenge or themayor extended the challenge toabout 12 of our largest corporationshere alabama powerblue cross blue shield of the likes andso where their procurement dollarreally matters uh in these neighborhoodsand communities you’re talkingbillions of dollars that they spendwithin the communityand so they were able to sign on to thischallenge to saywe’re going to start with a baseline wewant the community to know that we’rebeing transparentand we’re being accountable to thecommunity that we serve inand so in january of 2021 we’re excitedto say that those companiesuh who signed on will pre we will beproducing a spinreport that spin report is going to showwhere they’re spending their dollarsand most importantly it’s going to showthe opportunities and developmentfor those small businesses wmdbesto be able to obtain those dollars in avery strategic wayand so while that’s um you know comingin january 2021that’s not where the work ends that workactually begins atthat point that is the very baselinethat we are uh putting out for ourcommunity to say heywe’re being transparent now hold usaccountable to make surethat in five years that this numberincreases by whatever it may bethe beauty of vital for us is that it’snot prescriptiveevery company is not going to look thesame we do wantsome of those you know sort of corevalues to beyou know entrenched through all of thembut the beautyof vital is that each one of thecompanies will be able to tailor thatreportto how procurement works for thembecause it becomes an educational toolfor small businessesto understand where those opportunitieslie uh where the coaching lieswhere the development lies for smallbusinesses uh within that so that reportis going to encompassthe very first iteration of that andwe’re excited uh to be able to partnerwithour private sector in that way uhreally never been done before soobviously there are some challenges thatcome along with ituh but we’re hosting our very fourth uhconversationuh with these company ceos and seniorprocurement professionalsbecause we’re getting them ready forthat transparency piece which can bescary fora private sector but uh thankfully ourceos in birmingham hasgracefully allowed us to really dig inand understand that their commitment tothe communityis way more than just putting themission statement out that they’re goingto support small businessesbut we’re putting action with this bysaying here’s our dollar spentand we’re going to attach opportunitiesfor coaching and development as wellthat is excellent yes transparency beingscary is definitely one of theyou know major barriers that we seeacross government and the private sectorand it’s great that you all areworking to to work past that workthrough that alongside partnersum carl i wanted to turn this to youcoreyi just mentioned the coachingopportunities for for small businessesand educational opportunity that comeswith an initiative like thisyou have been really on the front linesof supporting small businesses throughthe crisiswhat what are they looking for what whatare the coaching opportunitiesthat they seek that you’ve been able toprovide and the biggest challenges thatuhmwbes and smes are facing in this timewell obviously they’re looking fordifferent uhrevenue streams because if they werebrick and mortarand they had to close then they have topivot and go somewhere elseand we’ve seen a lot of success andwe’ve seen some familyso we have to be mindful of that butwhat what we’re trying to help them withis to understand how to get into thisnew market ofonline sales it’s just not you knowputting up a website because you have tohave contenton your website or else who’s going togo and bother eventrying to buy anything from you if theydon’t feel as though you’reyou can provide what they want you knowwhat they’re actuallylooking for now with just productsthat’s one thing but alot of our contractors are governmentservice providers so they’re you knowyou have to tellthe government what you do whatsolutions you can bring to themuh and what makes you different thanyour competition and so we’re workingwith them on that we’re working withthem on theircapability statements and their othermarketing collateralas well but we’re also coaching them ondoing videos because that is a new wayuh people want to they want to see youthey want to hear from youso we’re coaching them on videos how tobe how to make the presentation i meanlike i said before i have won the time along time soyou know it’s all about presentation andas a government contractor you have toconvincethat buyer that contract officer thatyou can do that workand if you can’t do that they’re notgoing to mess with you because there’srisks and no contract officer wants tobe the onethat brought on the company that totallyfailedi’ve never met a contract officer yetthat hey i don’t careyou know we are all you know we want tomake sure that our vendorsare successful and the city state or thefederal government is successfulin getting what they’re paying forbecause ultimately we have torespond to the citizens who are payingusthis money through their tax dollars toget the job done right absolutelyand you uh just mentioned earlier youwere a procurement officer you do haveall of this contracting experience andyes i’m sure you were nottrying to be the person bringing onorganizations that couldn’t succeed nowbut how has that experience enabled youto better support small businesses andwork with local governmentsspeaking of engaging with vendorsopening up data at the local levelwell obviously knowing what i neededin each vendor has helped me to look atthe vendors that comeinto us and they’re saying well i wantto go into government contractingbut or they want to go get on gsascheduleor 8a and then we evaluate where theyareand then if we federal government mightnot be the first step for youlocal government might be the first stepthen we try to identify the agencywithin the government on which oneshould youum you know try and sell your servicesor your products tobecause i bought everything fromammunitionfor police department to constructionyou know so it’s all different you knowif you’re trying to sell meconstruction and all i’m worried aboutis buying guns and police carswe’re not even talking the same languageand so youhave to identify the people in whichyou’re trying to sell your products andservicesand the federal government has what theycall asda boozewhich is the office of small business uhdevelopment utilization and you go inthereand talk to them and they know each andevery procurement officerfor that federal agency and they cantell you who’s buying whatand so you’re not wasting folks timebecause time is very criticaland very short right now we’re allworking virtuallyabsolutely um that brings me to youjennifer speaking ofhelping save vendors time and helpingsend government timeas you mentioned you all have havelaunched the new passportsystem e-procurement system and also newyork city has really driven some effortstomake sure that government performance isis matching what is expected of vendorsand 80 of health and human servicescontractwere ready for registration on time andone of our game changingsolutions in the report is making surethat vendors are paid on time sohonestly how did you do it in thelargest city in the u.s no lessthank you yeah no we’re very proud ofthe work that we’ve done withour non-profit partners over the pastfew yearsi think it’s attributed to a strongworking relationship with the sectorand the commitment by the administrationreally across the boardwhether it be omb whether it be cityhall us at mocks our agenciesreally committed to strengthening thatrelationshipthere are three primary drivers i wouldsayto realize impact and change in thisspaceagain it’s establishing those channelsfor communicationso in the human service space we havesomething called the nonprofitresiliencycommittee we have another set ofconversations around some of the workthat we’re doingwith budgeting and invoicing and we haveanother set of conversations happeninginside the moxwith our nonprofit partners for thedevelopment and deployment of passportso it’s having those channels whereyou’re really listening folks are comingin and sharing their experiences on theground their challengeswe as a city are listening to them umand then we’re working to try to makechange and that’s the second piece ofof the puzzle which is putting ourcustomers at the centerof design and for us at the mayor’soffice of contract services and um thecity at large it’s really ourthe businesses uh that we work with ourvendors our vendors arenumber one priority um for us at mocksand so bringing them into theconversationslistening um and then including them inthe designum and the reforms that are beingdevelopedum and bringing our agencies who are youknow right thereafter our vendors our agencies areactually our customers tooat mocks so they too need to be part ofthe conversation we need to havegood ideas fresh ideas we need to havesolutions that actually workon the ground work inside of businesseswork inside of the agenciesand that is all what you need for buy-inright everybody’s got to be ineverybody’s got to stack hands umotherwiseimplementation just falls to pieces andthere’s a lack of understandingfor the reforms and finally in the citywe again lean really heavily intotechnologywe have for years now we hadstill do have a digital platform forhuman servicecontracting it covers pieces of thecontractingprocess not the whole thing passportis covering the entire process it is awelcome relieffor the sector there was a lack ofvisibility as we all have been talkingabout herethat creates a lot of frustration um andlimits the amount of agency one has intheir business practices if you can’tseewhat’s going on and what the next stepsare how can you planfor it how can you report on it how canyougrow as a business so we lean reallyheavily into technologyand not just taking these offlinepractices and putting them onlinebut working with our vendors workingwith our nonprofits working with ouragencies to deconstruct the practiceident identify what is significant andrebuild it in a way that makes sensethat is streamlined efficient and veryvery easyfor anyone whether it’s a large businessthat’s beencontracting with the city for years or anew one that’s just interested ingrowing and expanding its portfolioany type of business can jump right infeel supportedand find success that’s awesomeand hearing the way that you all aredriving collaboration is also reallyimpressive withinagencies and you know sort of creatingan enabling environmentwith vendors and with communities aswell andelizabeth this makes me think a bit ofthe city accelerator programi think you guys work really across theboard and we’re just wonderingwhat has been the key to supportinglocal governments to plan and implementprocurement strategies and behaviorchange is such a huge part of this howdo you make sure that all of that issustained how do youmake sure people want to continue tocollaborate yeahanother great question and you knowjennifer spoke to this a bit in terms oflike it’s the relationships andpartnerships choreographing the samethingcarl 2 it really is when our work issupportingcities to explore their relationshipswithentrepreneurs and why they believe whatthey believe about entrepreneurs ofcolor in particularum because many times cities will puttogether programs that they’ve heardfrom somewhere else or they think iswhatthe entrepreneur or business owner needsand it is notat all what it is what they need um andit’s not for lack of trying it’s justsometimes it’s at a different level youknow they’re notaddressing the needs of the businessowner who’s been aroundproviding um jobs and wants to taketheir business to the next level andwants to know about whatyou know can you tell us city like umwhat are your buying plans and like areyou forecasting so that maybe we couldchange our business model to addressthatbut no sometimes it’s just like oh cometo this 101level type of training and how to um youknow pull out an rfpand all that kind of stuff and they’relike yeah we’ve tried that and whatwe’re asking you foris to give us some kind of forecast andhelp soreally working with cities to help themexplore what their relationship has beenlikewith entrepreneurs of color inparticularand then to to really be honest aboutwhether they’re the right messengersor supporters or technical assistantsfolks because many timescities try to take on too much andrealize like maybe their best roleis to be the convener maybe their bestrole is toshare data that they’re collecting fromeveryone that they’re working with justthose two things alone can be such agame changer soi’ll take the example of like the cityof charlotte um was in our cityacceleratorand they heard that the city of losangeles was thinkingabout their olympics and how they weregoing toprepare vendors to be able to be readyfor that and like wow that is likeyou know long long-term thinking that’sgreat and they’re like wait a minutewe just got a request from the all-starnbaand they’re saying um they want to lookfor vendors but like you knowwe’re procuring from different types ofservice you know different types ofbusinessesbut we also know these vendors too thatcould provide those servicesto the all-stars so they they didn’tthey were just like we thought like waitwe have these relationships too we couldbe opening these up weinstead of being gatekeepers for thistype of thing so how can we nowdo this but wait a minute we’re not goodat providing like capacity building tobe able toyou know provide um goods or services tothe nbaand that’s like wait wait a minute likeenterize this national organization doesthat really wellwhy don’t we partner with them so it’sjust changinglike some of the mindset about likehow you are using your resources whatrelationships you haveand thinking about what could folksentrepreneurs of color who don’t havethese connections um need that we mighthave access to and then that data justlikesharing the data that they feel like oheverybody should know this nonot everybody knows this maybe thevendors have always been contractingwith you knowthis type of information but that’sexactly what we’re trying to changeyou know who has always been contractingwith you and soum it’s been wonderful to work withcities that are looking like wait weshould be thinking about de-bundlingour contracts because we do want newentrants into thisand yes it’s going to be harder so yesit means we’re going to have to supportour departments to understand what it’slike to make smaller contracts to meetnew vendorsand all that have so when we are able towork with cities that areum realizing that they have this roleand and that they have been playing onefor a while that might have beencreating barriers themselvesthat they’ve been asking entrepreneursto like jump over hoops that areunnecessarythen they’re like then they say likewait why are we doing thisthis doesn’t meet our values and thisdoesn’t mean our bottom lineso why are we doing this and so when wecan play thatrole of helping them ask themselvesthose questions and theythey know the answers they have thesolutions it’s kind of giving them thekind of cover to say like you can dothis that’s something that i love thatwe can offer support in when we havecohorts of cities tryingthings that they haven’t done beforebecause they can say well they kind ofasked us to try thisout hey this other city is doing itwe’re not going to be the first and itseemed to work for themso sometimes that’s the best way that wecan support otherother cities absolutelyback on that go ahead carl yeah yeahbecauseyou know she’s speaking my languageright hereat the end of the day you know when iwas a contract officer i was the onethat was trying to help these guysthat that were you know almost there butjust couldn’t make it and they a lot oftimes they would ask me wellyou know in a debrief they would saywell what what was it about our proposalthat we didn’t makeit and i would you know be honest andfrank with themuh and i would hold up a lot of times itwas pricing ortechnical skills and i would hold up amagnumuh magic marker in a patio grapha repatio graph is something that thearchitectdraws the little trees with and themagnumum marker is something that people writeon the new york city trains withand i would say when you use a magnummarkerwe’re not going to buy anything from youyou have to know your pricingyou have to know how to get into thatcompetitive rangeand how to deal with your pricing likethat andalso if there’s any technical issues andso what i would do is i would bring inthe small business development center inwashington or maryland oror virginia because i’m in the dmv and iwould have them as a partnerand i would send them clients all thetimeand that’s how i became familiar withthe one at howardeven though i’m a graduate howard ididn’t even know they were there at thetimeand um you know and then eventually tookoverthe uh as the executive director uh butwe do thisevery single day we work with businesseson their business plan their marketingplantheir financial projections we do nocost confidentialcounseling free we dohundreds of webinars we do loan packagereview we’ve gotten overnine million dollars in like five monthsfor these vendorsduring the with the ppp and idle loanswe doindustry research because a lot of timesthey’re trying to open up a hamburgerjoint next to a hamburger joint i’m likethat that’s not a good idea you knowit’s all of these things matter you knowwe do international trade and then rightnow we’re doinga lot of cyber security okay becausehow many times have any of you swipedthis weeki mean we’re mostly staying on right nowbut beforewe would swipe at the grocery at thecleaners at theum convenience store to move theatereverywherewell if they if they targeting peoplelike target and all your major banksand those folks have i.t departmentswith six figure and seven-figuresalarieswhat does that corner store have youknow what is their i.tdepartment look like and we’re swipingin there like this is nobody’s businessso uh we you know we’re looking at atthisyou know cyber security as a major thingand in the federalmarket you have the cyber securitymaturity model certificationthat’s coming up that if you are afederal contractor and you’re notcompliantguess what you’re no longer a federalcontractor so we’re teaching ourbusinesseshow to become compliant in that spacethat’s awesome thank you so much carl umso we are headed into our q a in just aminute but i did want to also askas we mentioned birmingham mayor randallwoodfin haswritten it forward for this report ihope you all really get a chance to readit it’s incrediblebut in it he states that procurement isa starting pointfor pushing toward economic justice andwe think that isthat’s such an important way of seeingthis work andwe’re wondering koryate if you can tellus more abouthow how that translates how doesprocurement become a tool for economicjustice for you alland how does that reconcile with some ofthe budget cuts affecting cities acrossthe countryyeah um loaded question uh butit’s it’s very important uh and veryobtainableuh i think just to give a little contextwhere obviously in birmingham alabamathe home of the civil rights and so wehave a history thatis like none other uh that historyprovides challengesit provides wisdom and it also providesopportunities as welland so what we have seen as we’ve beenmore intentional in this work is thatthere are organizations there arecompanies that will notidentify uh as a wmdbebased on our history because that hasbeenexclusionary for them so what we’rehaving to dois collaborate heavily with ourcommunity partnersecosystem partners to tell the otherside of that story and sayif the city of birmingham pullsinformation ondiverse spend we may not get informationbecausethere’s no one on the other sideactually telling us who theyare right that’s you know it’s justit’s the nature of where we are inbirmingham and the history of thatand so i think that statement thatthere’s there’s race equity that canhappen based on procurementuh it is folded in this way uh wehave an organization or company thatgets a city contractlet’s say for fifty thousand dollarsthat’s their entry intocity contracting as they get thosecontracts they stay involved they arewith organization like carl’sand they understand how to develop inthe next five years they get 150dollars in next five years they get amillion dollar contractso the longevity of making sure thatthat continuum isthere makes a better case for raceequity because then it affects theirfamily itaffects their quality of life it affectstheir neighborhoodand then they’re able to go back and notonly teachtheir family but now if they havechildren there’s generational teachingthereand then the neighborhood then becomesinvolved in thatand so where that small business mayhave been micro business in thebeginning it has nowincreased to small business and maybemid-size in the next 10 to 15 yearsand so making sure that we understandwhat that continuum is and wheregovernment plays a role in that and ithink kisha you said you know we act asconveners and that’s really what it iswe cannot do this without our ecosystempartnersuh we have taxpayer dollars so we areaccountable to our citizensabsolutely but the way thatdifferent governments differentmunicipalities have different taxstructures and howmoney is spent and so i think for smallbusinessesto understand how that works it becomesvery important andagain you know carl and others on thecall their organizationhelp you understand that we asgovernment don’t always have time tohelp you understand that we can put theopportunity in front of youbut we don’t always have time to do thatone of one of the challenges that wehave here in birmingham is thealabama bid law uh so imaginebirmingham being the home of civilrights you can imagine the policieslaws procedures that are exclusionaryjust by nature because of where we comefromwhat we’re trying to do now in thiscurrent administration is turn thoseover not just by policy but in practiceas welland so one of the things that mayorwoodfin did was created the office ofbusiness diversity and opportunitythat office is solely focused on makingsure that small businessesand wmdb businesses are supportedthroughout governmenthow do we procure with the city what arecity government operationsuh we just got online business processesuh last year so imaginegoing from paper to online uh it soundslike wow i can’t believe that in21st century like you just doing that uhbut thedata gaps that that presents for us toreallyunderstand where our businesses arewhere we’re spending money is very realand so we’ve been able to be veryintentional in how we approach thatand i think that a large continuum ofmaking sure that in governmentand operations of the government we youknow increase efficiencyincrease effectiveness then on the otherside of that when we procure with thesedifferent uh vendors as they come in wealsopartner them with vendors who can helpthem develop and get larger contractsthose three key items really matter andi thinkmayor woodfin was spot on with thatstatement to say that that procurementpracticethat totality of procurement practicewill absolutelyuh help us to increase race equity inbirmingham and reallyall over uh but that that is more soimportanthere in birmingham in alabama because ofthe just bruised history that we havearound race equity and so some of ourconversations have to be a little bitmore sensitive than othersuh but the the thing that i really loveabout birmingham nowis that not only is there nationalattention aroundblack businesses wmdbes uh but there’slocal attention for people to be honestthat has not happened before i meanthere there are i’ve had severalconversations with my colleagues who donot look like me and saywe need to talk you know i am a you knowwhite malei thought i understood it but i do notlet’s have a conversationthat open honest conversation opens thedoor forso much to happen whether it’s educationor policy changeeither one of those are going to matterin the long run so a lot of ourcompaniesare taking the approach to say i’m goingto change some policies i’m going tochange some procedures if they don’t dothat that’s fineat least they have opened their mind inorder to start thinkingthen we get the community involved tosay let’s be accountable because nowthat we’ve done thatlet’s be open and honest with ourdialogue so that we can get a littlefurtherin our procurement practices that isamazing i feel like you touchedtransparency accountabilityhonesty uh collaboration all of whichare so soimportant for moving the needle on anyof this workand yeah thank you all again foranswering our questions i think we’reready to move on to the q a section andmake sure that some of our participantquestions canuh get fielded to you guys so okayplease take it overhello thank you to everyone who hasalready been leaving some greatquestions into the chatwe’re going to try to get to as many aswe canum so keep them coming but to kick itoff we have a great questionum from one of our participants whoaskedwhat advice you might have for lesscapacitated or legacy cities to startintentionally thinking about inclusiveprocurement and better supportingum mwbes andwe would love to hear any concrete stepsthat these cities should takeum i’ll i’ll take first steps umi think very concrete uh things that thecity can take is reallyunderstanding its spend have you everproduced a spend report to understandwhere you’re spending your money righti mean it’s like all of us personally ifwe swipe our debit cards and you know wenever look at our accounts we don’t knowwhere we’re spending our money so at theend of the month you’re like whoa ididn’t realize i spent that much moneyon food or entertainmentso i think really understanding andgetting tothe the core of where the money is spentsometimes that’s very easy in our caseit was very hard there wasdecentralized procurement that we had sowe had to go through multiple agenciesto try to understand thatbut that gave us a baseline to say wethought we knew what we were doing butwe reallydidn’t but now that we have a baselinewe have somewhere to move forward so iwould sayfirst steps and that is actuallyproduces well i shouldn’t say producerscan report butactively work on producing a spin reportand that’s going to give you i think agood basis on whether or notyou have the systems and practices inplace in order to even understand wherethe dollar is being spent in procurementyeah i would echo that you have to knowwhat yourstarting line is in order to set yourgoals and to understand where the gapsare and the disparities areum and i would uh add to thatthat another p a concrete piece isactually looking at your policiesand your practices that are in placein light of that information and therewas another questionin the chat that caught my eye aroundthis topic in particular which isthe intersection between policy andpracticeand technology so technology is criticalum for accessibility everybody knowsthat today more than ever with covidwe’re allyou know dialing in and here togetherbecause of technology and being in aremote spaceand so i’d say in the city of new yorkwe’ve invested a lot of timeand effort in building uppolicies practices taking them apart aswelland thinking about the implementation inconnection with technologyso i’ll give you a concrete example thecity of new york in early januaryadopted a new policywhere expedited procurement is availableto our city agencieswho are doing business with mwbesif you are pursuing a procurement of 500000or less you can do it through anon-competitivemethod that allows you to do businesswith mwbesbut that method is only availablethrough passportpassports our technology procurementsystem umit existed before uh passport went livewith its major release but with theincrease up to 500 000and the addition of new goals sobuilding on that baseline then you startto establish your goalspassport is brought into playand it can be a lever for reachingthe end goal of mwbe engagement sothinking about looking at the policiesand practices that are in placeand then building in where technologycan help to further themand moving together hand in hand in botheffortsis a way to be able to make real changeon the groundand i would say even in the firstiterationor release of passport when we took ourwe call it vendor disclosures onlineit was a process that took a month formost businesses it now takes just amatter of hours because it’s onlinewe were somewhat constricted by policiesthat were in placequestions that need to be askedquestions that maybe don’t make senseand so had to think about how do youupdate that policywhen you’re moving into a digital realmand how do you where you can you do andwhere you can’thow do you integrate that technology sothat the policyis uh really one with themode of accessibility which is passportfor usand and i’ll just add to that uh becausei’ve seen the comments uh disparitystudy a couple of timesuh and there that is a very concretestepuh if you know your city is able toafford that i meanit is a it’s a it’s a large uh you knowexpense but the disparity studyabsolutelyuh becomes important for this work it itit gives you the legal basis to haverace conscious programs and things ofthat nature the city of birmingham justcontractedum two months ago with a consulting firmthat’s doing our disparity study sowe’re taking that step as well uh but ithink uhfor what jennifer and i are speaking ofparticularly are things that you can donow before you even get to thatdisparity study that gives you a goodunderstanding of what’s happening sothat by the time you do engage someoneor contract before the disparity studyyou have some sort of um knowledge ofwhere your inefficiencies lieso that that disparity study becomeseven more effective um soi just wanted to point that out becausei saw disparity study a couple of timesuh in the in the chatwell i just wanted to uh talk about aconceptthat i have a certification in andthat’scontract compliance a lot of timesno one ever does it and then you findout that the vendors that were listedas subcontractors to a prime never gotany of the workon the project but the we gave them a 30uh mbe number or whatever and they saidyeahwe’ll make it we’ll do it and then noone checks andwe pay off the contractor and we thinkeverybody’s happyand then the subs come back and say welli never got any work on that projector i was supposed to do a hundredthousand dollars and i only really woundup with ten thousand dollarsand then we’re still looking at thisprime as they completeduh 30 with the mbeswbs etc and they didn’t do anythingthey didn’t even come close to thatnumber so contract compliance issomething that you canimplement today in any cityright now and you would see ias i told the obama administrationmany years ago i said you want a jobscreatordo contract compliance because if youholdthese contractors uh accountable forthesembes and all this stuff they will haveto hire the mbes will have to hirenew staff to do all the work thatthey’re on these contracts forthat’s the job created yeah and thati’ll just echo what youyou’re saying carl um before we wentdigitalthere is a team and teams acrossactually all of our agencies that aredoing just thatwhen you go digital one of the benefitsof thattype of system is that compliance issomething that can be built inum and then it’s the the people part isthe strategyand the engagement becoming citycertified etc but the compliance pieceit’s just built into the system it’shard hard-coded so you can’t get pastthe screen if you don’t fill outif the numbers don’t add up um and youknowsame is true when you get down to youknow your budgetingpiece and your expenses it all has toadd up or the system is going to blockyouso technology can really be uma useful tool um in the compliance partas well but it’s notthe only way to do it you can startoffline as carl was sayingwith just a simple checklist um toensure that those numbers are thereum and and then it also requires i’msure you would as you were saying carlagreethe follow-up afterwards and andmonitoring andum you know being conscious of whatthose goals are and ensuring thatthey’re beingsatisfiedgreat well we have so many questions andif umunfortunately our time is somehowalready running out it really does feellikethis is just the beginning of aconversation or rather we’reentering the middle of a conversationthat’s already been going on sowe look forward to um continuing to liftupthe great thoughts and work that youguys have been doingso i’d like to close out with just onelast questionum perhaps jennifer you can take thisone first and that’sum our musi our municipalities tend tohave trouble with contract forecastinglargely due to decentralized and analogprocurement systemscan the spanal panel speak to bestpractices to startthat process within a city or countyso uh i’m understanding the question uharoundcentralizing and creating more ofa standard within a city in a city ofnew yorkwith its size has been able to do thatagain i don’t mean to sound like abroken record but this is wheretechnology can really help with thatwhen you have a central systemthat all purchasing is running throughyou create a standard practiceacross all types of contracts all typesof vendorsthat standardization createspredictabilityit builds confidence for some uh smallerorganizations or companies that have yetto do business with the citythey do it once they know what to expectwhen they do it againum so a central platform for us hasalways beena grounder for our policy and ourpracticeand a way to manage across the wholecityand we use that principle actuallyacrossa number of our initiatives trying toidentify opportunities where there arebroad engagements how can wecreate a central unit to manage thatbroader engagement to create the policyto create the practice to manageboth of those things to run the datathat manages thatso we’ve done that offline uh in some ofour initiatives butcertainly passport um and digitalprocurementis the key to um you know being able tocreate a standard experienceand a digital experience for purchasingin the citygreat and elizabeth do you have anythingto add here i know that you livingcities have done a lot of work inin different sized cities with differentprocurement systems around the countryyeah i mean the example we always shareis um the city of chicagoum and their forecasting is done on likea quarterly basis butyou can’t just start there um so withinthe cohort that um chicago was in thecity of milwaukee was looking athow could they just begin puttingtogether a city-wide buying planand so yes it’s a lot of individualrelationship work with every differentdepartmentit does help to have like cityleadership on board like a city managersaying we’re going to do thiscreating internal systems and organizingwithwith those colleagues having championsin different departments knowing thatbut it can be done so just like juststart just start collectingand then using and having cityleadership start to put um the tensionand highlight and spotlight those whoare sharingtheir buying plans and say like heyeverybody look atpublic works like what they’re doing oreverybody look at you know and juststart to like highlight thestuff that are from being intentionaland also saying like we do have theseopportunities and then ifpeople will get on board but it is abehavior change so it’s going to takesome timebut it does require there to be likeleadership atevery level making sure that andencouraging folks to take ownershipand embracing everybody has tounderstand the why why are we trying tohave inclusive procurementyou start off saying it’s about goodprocurement it’s about changing ourlivesand the quality of those lives in our inour cities and for our residents andthere are multiple benefitsthat prieta and everybody here has beentalking about you know when we’retalking aboutthe the vendors who sell to us we’retalking about their families we’retalking about their employeeswe’re talking about the quality of lifein our neighborhood so if people don’tunderstandwhy then it’s harder for them to takeownership of that and then harder forthemto see like why they have to puttogether a buying plan and why it’snecessary to go through all this dataor spend the dollars to get a programtogether to make it more easilyfor others to see but when they can theychangethe game for everybody who’s never beeninvolved in procurementso well said elizabeth i think thatwe’re all just nodding alongto that um finish so with that i’m goingto sadly close out our q a there’s somany great questionsum that we didn’t have time for but i’mglad that people were able toget some of their questions answered inthe chat um sowith that jennifer um it’s on to you touh send us on our way umthanks so much i could take up the next30 minutes just talking about some ofthe observationsone of the reasons i love working intheseprecincts of local government is thatyou realize that what mayseem kind of wonky or technical reallyis about the human experiencehow there’s so much history embedded inprocurementso when coriate said that there arevendors who don’t wantthe mwbe certification because of thebadhistory there right that says a lotabout where we havebeen and you know there was a little bitof joke in the chat because of thebeautiful way that the sun is pouringintojennifer’s room and to a certain extentinto elizabeth’s room that likethe sun is shining on procurement it’ssunrise for a new day of procurementbut what i think has been most powerfulabout this conversationand elizabeth started with it andbrought it backin her remarks is we are coming upon anewunderstanding of accountabilityaccountability used to be verycompliance based punitive baseddon’t you waste a dime of taxpayer moneyand i think now we have a much moregenerative understanding of whataccountability isit’s our money and we want to spend itin a way that supports the kind ofcommunitiesthe kind of families the kind ofneighborhoods and systems that we seekand that have been particularlyimportant and the importance of whichhas beenparticularly revealed to us uh duringthischaotic and and in many waysheartbreaking yearso we hope we are so glad that you’vejoined us todaywe hope that you will read the reportshare the report continue to engage withuson social media and on twitter that’s atopen contracting all one word or ataspen urban innova i nnov we ran intocharacter countsjust want to confirm with my ocp friendsthat we will besharing not just the video but also thechatum because the chat has beenexceptionallyrich and vibrant as it always is whenyou get a bunch of procurement peopletogether who have found their tribesum and our my email and keisha’s emailare nowon the slide that you can see and alsogoing into the chatso again thank you this has been areally upliftingenergizing and informative conversationgrateful to the panelists grateful toour ocp partners and grateful to all ofyou for joining us

Local governments are big buyers. Here in the U.S., our state and city governments collectively spend 1.6 trillion dollars per year. But for too long, how and with whom our local governments spend their money has reinforced economic inequities in our country. Minority-owned small businesses have been historically locked out of opportunities to contract with governments, and the current crisis has disproportionately impacted these very enterprises.

In our newly released report, “A Procurement Path to Equity: Strategies for Government and the Business Ecosystem,” we collaborated with the Opening Contract Partnership and consulted 35 experts in our community to propose essential, game-changing solutions that could reshape our procurement systems.

In this conversation, we take a deeper dive into how we can collectively break down systemic barriers to economic inclusion for minority-owned businesses.

Speakers

• Carl Brown, Executive Director, D.C. Small Business Development Center
• Jennifer Geiling, Deputy Director, Policy & Partnerships, Mayor’s Office of Contract Services, City of New York
• Coreata R. Houser, Manager of Neighborhood Investment & Business Diversity, City of Birmingham
• Elizabeth Reynoso, Associate Director of Public Sector Innovation, Living Cities
• Moderated by Kisha Bwenge, Senior Community Building Manager, Open Contracting Partnership & Jennifer Bradley, Director, Aspen Institute Center for Urban Innovation