SERVICE 1: SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM FINDER

Make it easier to find the appropriate programs for a small businesses.

Other Information:

Overview: During the Startup America: Reducing Barriers Roundtables held earlier this calendar year, the most common frustration among participating entrepreneurs and small businesses was about the need for new program X or service Y through the Federal Government. Fortunately, in most cases, the Federal Government had a program – similar or otherwise – in place, but the Federal Government does an unsatisfactory job in making programs and services for small businesses easily accessible and understandable through normal means. With the relaunch of SBA.gob site in Winter 2011 and related functionality in SBA Direct, the Small Business Program Finder makes it easier to find the appropriate programs for a small business through basic questions about the small business. Key Customer Groups: Any entrepreneur or small business owner interested in learning more about Federal, State, and Local programs available according to their interests. Challenges: The major challenge to this initiative is the maintenance of the database of relevant Federal, State, and Local program to keep its relevance and accuracy. Currently, the database focus is relatively narrow, and will gradually broaden upon subsequent releases. The SBA will move to develop a regular update process to maintain its accuracy and relevancy of the database. Realistically, the tool will be as current and accurate, as its use will be by the small business community reporting errors and inaccuracies. Featured Action: The SBA plans to unveil a first generation of the Small Business Program Finder by the end of the November 2011. Subsequent releases will take place quickly thereafter. The SBA is also exploring the opportunity to make the core tool extensible to related initiatives, such as BusinessUSA. Additional Information: The Small Business Program Finder is an interactive, online tool supported by a database of Federal, State and Local programs that quickly narrows an individual small business owner or entrepreneur’s quest to find a relevant federal program that could suit their needs. The questions asked of the small business include size, ownership, location, industry sector, and interests. The tool lists the programs and provides them in a downloadable format for further viewing and study, after the small business exits the tool. Currently, version 1 includes over 400 loan and grant programs at the Federal, State, Local levels with the Federal contracting certifications for small businesses. Version 2 will include other resources, such as education, training, and technical assistances for small businesses. Version 3 will include search functionality relevant for small businesses of other publicly available information, such as FedBizOpps.gov, Grants.gov, FederalRegister.gov, and others. Advanced functionality will include the widgetization of the tool for use on other government and private sites. Additionally, the base data will be made available through a commonly-used web services API. * The Small Business Program Finder represents an improvement of a currently available tool at SBA.gov – the “Loans & Grants” tool. * The datasets which currently power the above mentioned tools are featured datasets made available by SBA through the Open Government initiative. * The “Loans & Grants tool” currently receives approximately 70,000 page views per month.

Stakeholder(s):

• Entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurs interested in learning more about Federal, State, and Local programs available according to their interests.


• Small Business Owners: Small Business Owners interested in learning more about Federal, State, and Local programs available according to their interests.


• Federal Programs: Federal programs of interest to entrepreneurs and small business owners.


• State Programs: State programs of interest to entrepreneurs and small business owners.


• Local Programs: Local programs of interest to entrepreneurs and small business owners.


• BusinessUSA

Objective(s):

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