As policymakers and economic developers grow to recognize the need to create broader opportunities for prosperity to sustain future national competitiveness, four facts reveal one of the complex and compounding factors hampering productive participation from a significant segment of our population:  

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and its federal partners, announced the winners of its third annual Growth Accelerator Fund Competition on August 31. The 68 winners in 32 states and the District of Columbia were judged by more than 100 experts from both the public and private sector with entrepreneurial, investment, startup, economic development, capital formation and academic backgrounds.

The White House Office of Management and Budget released Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century, a plan for reorganizing federal agencies. On topics related to innovation, the wide-ranging plan would make changes to education, workforce, economic development, small business and more. Some of the suggestions could advance with administrative actions only, while many will require congressional support.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations this morning advanced a funding bill that includes $25 million for Regional Innovation Strategies — $4 million more than the current funding round.

The Department of Labor (DOL) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) recently announced programs that will provide financial support to help states and regions assist key industries and small businesses compete in the global economy through the development of regionally focused workforce development and export assistance programs.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced a $2.5 million funding competition for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each to fund operating budgets. The Growth Accelerator Fund Competition is open to business accelerators, incubators, coworking spaces, shared makerspaces, and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models from across the country.

Tasked with taking the Small Business Administration (SBA) to the next level, Maria Contreras Sweet, the new head of the agency, envisions a modern SBA with a greater focus on inclusion. Contreras Sweet outlined steps to achieve her vision earlier this week in a speech at the Center for American Progress.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced it is accepting applications for the SBA Clusters Program. Under the SBA Clusters Program up to four contracts may be made to lead organizations of innovation cluster initiatives from across the country. The awards are intended to help the lead organization bring together regional assets to support the cluster and provide services and resources to small businesses involved in the cluster. Applications are due July 31.

The House Appropriations Committee began releasing FY 2018 “markup” budget bills this week, and the proposals would cut billions in non-defense spending. EDA would lose $100 million* in funding, SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs would lose $34 million, NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership would lose $30 million, and Energy’s ARPA-E would be eliminated, among other cuts.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has granted 16 organizations up to $125,000 each and five organizations up to $200,000 in FY 2017 as part of the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) launched the 2017 InnovateHER: Innovating for Women Business Challenge – a cross-cutting prize competition to unearth innovative products and services that help impact and empower the lives of women and families.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the 20 recipients of the fourth Growth Accelerator Fund competition. The winners, which represent a broad set of industries and a diversified range of demographic groups, will each receive a cash prize of $50,000 to address gaps in regional entrepreneurial ecosystems as part of the award. Awardees will be required to submit quarterly reports for a year, and must report or provide their metrics, including jobs created, funds raised, startups launched and corporate sponsors obtained. 

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that is withdrawing a December 28, 2016, final rule concerning Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) investments in passive businesses – a small entity that does not engage in regular and continuous business activity.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently named the 50 winners of the first Growth Accelerator Fund competition, which recognizes accelerators building stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems in underserved parts of the country. Each organization will receive $50,000, in exchange for providing SBA with quarterly reports on their activities, impact and partnerships. SBA hopes to use the data to build a national database of information about accelerator programs and forge long-term relationships within the accelerator community.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced four new Regional Innovation Clusters that will be included among its portfolio of high-performing regional networks. Awardee clusters will receive $500,000-$550,000 for mentoring, counseling, pitch development and other small business support programs. The new members of SBA’s cluster portfolio include Milwaukee’s Water Technology Cluster, Southeastern New Mexico’s Autonomous and Unmanned Systems Cluster, a Retail, Supply Chain and Food Processing Cluster spanning the Ozarks region and a Marine Industries Cluster in several Gulf Coast states.

The U.S. Small Business Administration and Department of Treasury have released strategic plans through FY 2022.

With final passage and signage pending at the time of publication, the federal budget for FY 2018 provides relatively strong support for innovation economies. The Regional Innovation Strategies program is funded at $21 million, MEP at $140 million and the National Science Foundation at $7.8 billion, increases for all organizations. Other notable innovation programs receiving at least level funding are SBA’s cluster and accelerator programs, DOE’s ARPA-E, NASA science and the National Institutes of Health.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) released a request for information (RFI) on revisions to two key areas of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) policy directives: SBIR/STTR Phase III policy; and, SBIR/STTR data rights.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that it will commit $4 million to the second round of the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition. Launched in 2014, the competition makes awards of $50,000 each to help fund operating budgets for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models in parts of the country where there are fewer conventional sources of access to capital (e.g., venture capital and angel capital investors). For this round of funding, applications are encouraged from manufacturing accelerator models. Applications are due June 1.

The Small Business Administration announced the FY15 awardees of its Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program. In FY15, 20 state and local economic development agencies, business development centers, and colleges and universities will receive $100,000 each to support programs to establish and/or sustain programs that provide support to innovative, technology-driven small businesses in their state and help them compete in federally funded research and development through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

Last week, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) released a combined synopsis/solicitation with the intention of awarding up to three contracts for entities to head regional innovation cluster initiatives. SBA intends to make three awards including one to an entity that will provide cluster initiative services to a community affected by changes in the coal economy.

This may be one of the best environments for tech companies to receive funding since the extreme financing figures recorded during the tech boom in 2000, according to a new Small Business Administration (SBA) factsheet. In Q1 of 2015, venture capital (VC) investments totaled $13.4 billion making it the fifth straight quarter to see over $10 billion in VC investments.

The final FY 2021 budget provides $1.4 trillion in total federal funding, including increases in some programs affecting the innovation economy. Among SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council priorities: EDA’s Build to Scale received an appropriation of $38 million, SBA’s Regional Innovation Clusters received $6 million, and SBA’s Federal and State Technology (FAST) program received $4 million. These are just a few of the federally-funded initiatives that support regional innovation economies and a wide range of federal R&D activities.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced the winners of two award programs. The Lab to Market (L2M) competition was launched in September and recognizes organizations, programs and ideas that support R&D innovation ecosytems, particularly those focused on underrepresented communities and pandemic responses. SBA also announced recipients of the annual Tibbetts Awards, which recognizes companies, organizations, and individuals for exceptional success achieved through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) recently rolled out a new website for the SBIR/STTR program which SBA administers. Reorganized and including new landing pages for entrepreneurs, support organizations, and federal agencies, the new page provides quicker and easier access to the right information.