#Help on sba mentor protege program code

By entering into a mentor-protégé joint venture relationship, a large business will increase its access to small business contracts. This is a great benefit-for joint ventures between companies that aren’t in a mentor-protégé relationship, both companies would separately have to qualify as small. If a mentor and protégé choose to form a joint venture to pursue a federal contract, the joint venture will qualify as a small business if the protégé alone qualifies as a small business. A protégé, moreover, will not be considered to be affiliated with its mentor simply because of the assistance provided by the mentor (but a word of caution: affiliation might still be found for other reasons).īut what’s in it for a mentor? Aside from the good karma promised by helping develop a small business, a large business mentor may also have increased access to federal contracts. Any business (large or small) can act as a mentor, so long as it has the capabilities to offer the pledged assistance and is of good character.įor a protégé, the benefits to participation are obvious: so long as the mentor lives up to its end of the bargain, the protege should gain increased capabilities and become more competitive in the federal marketplace. (To qualify as a protege in a secondary code, however, the company must have done business in that code).

#Help on sba mentor protege program code

To qualify as a protégé, a company simply has to be a small business under its primary NAICS code or under a secondary NAICS code under which it is seeking business development assistance. The Program’s rules are broad enough that really any business can participate.

Mentors and protégés can also-but don’t have to-form a joint venture relationship to pursue one or more contracts. This assistance might qualify as technical or management assistance, financial assistance (including taking a minority equity stake in the protégé to help raise capital), subcontracts or subcontracting assistance, trade education, or any other general or administrative assistance. As a result, mentors can provide virtually any type of assistance that would help protégés do so. The All Small Mentor-Protege Program is designed to help protégés improve their ability to compete for government contracts. Under the All Small Mentor-Protege Program, a mentor provides its protégé with various types of business development assistance. I’m often asked by small business owners, What is the new mentor-protégé program? My answer is simple: it’s a business development program aimed at increasing small business capabilities. Here are five things you should know about the SBA All Small Mentor-Protégé Program: In late 2016, the SBA rolled out a fantastic tool to help small business grow in the marketplace.