Special to the Patriot-Beidge
Mayor Michelle Wu kicked off the City’s second annual Supplier Diversity Week, reaffirming the City’s commitment to supporting local, diverse businesses in city contracts. As part of this effort, Mayor Michelle Wu and the City of Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) entitled “Compact to Build Local Economic Growth,” a public commitment by the City of Boston and City of Cambridge to work together to advance shared supplier diversity goals. This includes increasing public contracting for minority-owned (MBEs), women-owned business enterprises (WBEs), veteran-owned (VBEs), and LGBTQ-owned business enterprises (LGBTQBEs). The Mayor also announced the opening of applications for the Supplying Capital and Leveraging Education (SCALE) Grant Program, the release of the annual Equity in City Contracts Report paired with a new data dashboard, and a series of events and workshops aimed at supporting residents and local business.
“We are blessed in Boston to have incredible businesses who strengthen our local economy and bring so much vibrancy to our community,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “To make Boston a home for everyone, we must keep building on our work to support small, local businesses across neighborhoods. I’m thrilled to partner with the City of Cambridge to ensure that we coordinate our efforts and increase contracting opportunities for businesses that have traditionally not had access to public contracts. Through the opening of the SCALE program and Boston’s strong progress towards our supplier diversity goals, I’m excited for the work the City and all of our partners will continue to do together to build wealth in our communities and support businesses across Boston.”
“Thanks to Mayor Wu and her commitment to closing the racial wealth gap, ensuring that a greater share of City contracts are awarded to local, small, diverse firms continues to be a top priority for the Administration. This is evidenced by a second year of continued process improvements, deeper collaboration across the City team, and important achievements like exceeding $100 million in spending with these firms in just one fiscal year,” said Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Segun Idowu. “I am grateful for the hard work of the Supplier Diversity and Procurement teams who are not just creating pathways to contract opportunities, but providing on-ramps for local and diverse firms to become competitive. This type of progress will not only transform the lives of business owners, workers, and residents, but also cast the city in a new light as a place where all dreams can grow.”
“As a major buyer of goods and services, it is important that the City of Boston uses its buying power to empower local, small, and diverse businesses and to help close the racial wealth gap,” said Chief Financial Officer Ashley Groffenberger. “Under Mayor Wu’s leadership, our teams have worked to streamline processes, uplift our data and lower barriers to City contracting. Now, we have the ability to hold ourselves accountable through an interactive public dashboard that will show progress in reaching our supplier diversity goals. I am grateful to the Mayor, Chief Idowu, and the Supplier Diversity, Procurement and Auditing teams for their dedication to this effort.”
The Boston/Cambridge compact will build local economic growth by strengthening the relationship between the City of Boston’s Department of Supplier Diversity (DSD) and the City of Cambridge’s Community Development Department (CDD). This signed compact will ensure both departments work closely together, consistent with applicable laws and regulations, to increase contracting opportunities for, and supporting the growth and development of, MBEs, WBEs, VBEs, and LGBTQBEs. This compact will allow the City of Boston to certify Cambridge-based businesses, work with the City of Cambridge to provide access and assistance to MBEs, WBEs VBEs, LGBTQBEs, and other diverse businesses in City of Boston procurement opportunities and business initiatives. The City of Cambridge will provide City of Boston certified businesses with access to Cambridge training opportunities and help the City of Boston with determining eligibility of Cambridge-based businesses to be certified in Boston. This initiative aims to build on Boston’s ongoing goal of building generational wealth, expanding economic opportunities for residents across Boston’s neighborhoods and better support local MBEs, WBEs, VBEs, and LGBTQBEs.
“The City of Cambridge is excited to partner with the City of Boston and elevate opportunities for minority-owned, veteran-owned, women-owned, and other historically disadvantaged businesses,” said Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang. “We are deeply committed to creating a more equitable and welcoming procurement process, while more broadly supporting and uplifting the many diverse businesses’ in our area. This is the latest step of many that Cambridge has undertaken to improve its supplier diversity. I am especially grateful for the collaboration between the Cambridge’s Community Development and Purchasing Departments and Mayor Wu’s Office and the City of Boston. If they are not already, we encourage diverse Cambridge and Boston businesses to become certified now.”
Supplying Capital and Leveraging Education (SCALE) Grant Program
In line with ongoing City efforts, Mayor Wu and the Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Cabinet also announced that the City’s Supplying Capital and Leveraging Education (SCALE) grant program will open this Friday, November 1 at 12:00 p.m. and close on Monday, December 2, 2024. The program will provide selected participants with a grant of up to $200,000 and industry-specific technical assistance for three to six months. Selected participants will be small, local, businesses and a part of industry categories that currently represent a large share of the City’s public contracts. The grant program funding, provided by the American Rescue Plan Act, is anticipated to total $5 million and will be disbursed in the beginning of 2025.
Mayor Wu first announced the foundation for SCALE during Supplier Diversity Week 2023. The BDC Community Capital Corporation will now administer and execute the SCALE grant program. Once grant recipients have been selected, BDC Community Capital Corporation and technical assistance providers will work with SCALE participants to create a plan to use the funding to address key pain points that limit their businesses’ ability to perform larger institutional contracts or identify investments that will help them scale.
“We are absolutely thrilled to work with the City of Boston to launch this program. The City’s focus on assisting the scaling up of underserved businesses by securing public contracts, is critical to fostering economic growth and ensuring equitable opportunities for all members of our community,” said Karim Hill, President of BDC Community Capital Corporation.
Equity in City Contracts Annual Report and Data Dashboard
In an effort to ensure residents and local businesses have a clear understanding of the City’s contracting and spending, the Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion (OEOI), Department of Supplier Diversity (DSD), and Procurement Department are releasing its annual Equity in City Contracts Report. For the first time, in partnership with the Auditing Department, this report will be released with an interactive data dashboard that will better show the City’s contract spending and provide transparency on the City’s progress towards Boston’s supplier diversity goals.
For Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, the City of Boston achieved the following:
• Diverse companies got contracts that were worth more: The City of Boston awarded a total of $1.8 billion in contracts that began in FY24, of which $224.7 million, or 12%, was awarded to certified minority- and women-owned businesses (MBEs, MWBEs, and WBEs), representing a 40% increase in contract award value.
• The City spent more than ever before with certified businesses: Contract spending with certified minority-and women-owned businesses (MBEs, MWBEs, and WBEs) in FY24 totaled $144.3 million, or 11% of all City of Boston discretionary spending, representing an 88% increase in discretionary spending with certified businesses. Since the City began tracking these metrics, this is the first time in the City’s history that diverse firms have been awarded more than $100 million in a single fiscal year.
• The City ramped up utilization of Inclusive Quote Contracts (IQC): Established by Mayor Wu’s home rule petition in 2022, the IQC procurement method now allows City officials to use the written quote process, a simpler and cost-effective process for both small, local businesses and City departments, instead of procurements through a Requests for Proposals or Invitation for Bids to procure supplies and services up to $250,000 when purchasing from certified small, local, disadvantaged businesses. The City has awarded 26 total IQC’s, 19 of which were awarded in FY24.
• FY24 saw a measurable increase in the number of Certified Businesses: DSD certified 209 new businesses, an increase from 157 new certifications in 2023. DSD increased the total number of City-certified businesses in the directory to 916, a 13.4% increase from the previous fiscal year.
Throughout this week, the City of Boston’s Department of Supplier Diversity is hosting a variety of free and open resource fairs, sessions, and workshops to highlight and promote diversity and inclusion within Boston’s business community. These workshops will provide small business owners with essential tools and knowledge to successfully navigate the City’s contracting processes. To register for Supplier Diversity Week Workshops, please visit this link or boston.gov/sd.
This announcement builds on the Mayor’s commitment to break down barriers for businesses, expand opportunity for residents and make Boston a home for everyone. Last year, the City of Boston’s Contracting Opportunity Fund awarded approximately $750,000 in grants of up to $15,000 with a focus on six priority sectors that represent areas of high municipal spending. To advance equity in procurement, Mayor Wu launched the Sheltered Market pilot program, which allowed the City of Boston to designate certain contracts for procurement from minority- and women-owned businesses. In 2016, then-Councilor Wu and then-Councilor Ayanna Pressley presided over the City Council hearing that examined the City’s procurement process and efforts to support local businesses. In 2017, then-Councilor Wu and then-Councilor Ayanna Pressley co-sponsored an ordinance that required the City to collect more data on contracting.
The Department of Supplier Diversity (DSD) of the City of Boston is dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in City contracting. DSD certifies businesses owned by people of color, women, veterans, and small and local businesses, and manages programs to encourage their participation in public contracting and foster their growth. More information about business certifications is available here.
The Procurement Department’s mission is to purchase the highest-quality goods and services at the lowest possible price for the City and its residents. We also support non-profits through community grantmaking.