Public Law 95-507 (October 1978), which amended the original Small Business Investment Act of 1958 (SBAct), established the requirement for every Federal Agency to have an Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) to make Federal procurements more readily accessible to all small businesses.  The policy of the Government is to provide maximum practicable opportunities in its acquisitions to small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses and women-owned businesses.  Over the years, the program has expanded to cover more categories of small businesses, including but not limited to:

  • Small Businesses (SB)
  • Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB)
  • Women Owned Small Businesses (WOSB)
  • HUBZone Businesses (HUB)
  • Veteran Owned Small Businesses (VOSB)
  • Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB)
  • 8(a) Businesses
  • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)

SBA has additional classifications of small business types including:
Native American, Alaskan Native, Hispanic-owned, Asian-owned, Native Hawaiian, Disabled, and many others.  For the purposes of this OSDBU report, we focus primarily on the seven major small business designations shown in the bulleted list above.

Sections 8 and 15 of the Small Business Act (SBAct) [Public Law 112-239, enacted 1/3/13 as another amendment to the original SBAct of 1958], is implemented and executed by OSDBU.  Per Section 15, small businesses must receive a fair proportion of the total purchases and contracts for property and services for the federal government. Success in this objective is measured by the Departments demonstrated efforts to:

  • Exceed statutory prime, sub and socio-economic small business goals;
  • Provide education on the management and operations business model; 
  • Improve best practices such as the Mentor-Protégé Program;
  • Furnish information on financial assistance opportunities;
  • Train small businesses through outreach events and training opportunities;
  • Ensure compliance with Federal Acquisition Regulations and other applicable small business laws and regulations;
  • Issue new small business policies; and
  • Update existing small business policies at the Department.