The protégé and mentor also cannot be affiliated, meaning one party has the ability to control the other or a third party has the ability to control both. For the SBA to approve the agreement, the SBA must be able to determine that the assistance provided by the mentor will promote real gains for the protégé and not just act as a means to receive federal small business set-aside contracts. How can a Mentor and Protégé bid as a joint venture?įor a mentor and protégé to bid on federal contracts as a joint venture, the SBA must approve the Mentor-Protégé agreement. Be absent from the federal list of debarred or suspended contractors.Provide value to the protégé due to lessons learned and practical experience gained through government contracting.Be able to responsibly assist the protégé.
To qualify as a protégé, a business must be a small business (according to a business’ NAICS code) with industry experience, must be for profit, and have a proposed mentor applying for the program. So long as the protégé qualifies as a small business, a mentor and protégé can form a joint venture as a small business for any small business contract (including any type of set-aside contract, so long as the protégé qualifies). The program allows protégés to receive valuable business advice from their mentors in several areas such as guidance on business systems, federal contract procurement process, administrative assistance, and more.
The SBA Mentor-Protégé Program is a program that provides small businesses (the “protégé”) the opportunity to gain capacity and win government contracts by partnering with experienced government contractors (the “mentor”). For small business joint ventures, the SBA (Small Business Administration) requires the joint venture to be a separate legal entity that is “unpopulated”, which means the joint venture will not employ the direct employees that will perform the work under the contract however, the joint venture can have employees that execute the administrative functions of the joint venture.Īdditionally, per the SBA, the joint venture must be separately registered in SAM (System for Award Management) and assigned its own DUNS and CAGE number, with the individual partners listed as the owners. What does the SBA have to say about joint ventures?Ī joint venture is a business entity created by 2 or more businesses to bid on and perform work through their combined efforts, skill, or knowledge.
In this blog, we will discuss the SBA Mentor-Protégé Program.
This is the first of a two-part blog series where we will tackle small business joint ventures and the SBA Mentor-Protégé Program.