Veteran-owned businesses (especially small businesses) are often met with obstacles when entering the federal marketplace, which can make the process lengthy and more difficult. The government tries to mitigate this with providing more resources and opportunities for disadvantaged small businesses. Small businesses have access to unique opportunities within the federal government, including specialized programs and set-aside contracts. One socio-economic group the Small Business Administration (SBA) recognizes for set-asides and additional resources is Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDBVOSBs). In this blog, we’ll discuss what SDVOSBs are, how to certify, and what the federal contracting landscape looks like.
What is a SDVOSB and What Opportunities Are There?
Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) are exactly as the name reads—they are small businesses owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans. While sole source and set-aside opportunities for Veteran-Owned small businesses can be found through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) under Vets First Contracting Program, SDVOSBs can find sole source and set-aside opportunities through the Vets First Contracting Program as well as across the federal government, such as through the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS).
How to Qualify as a SDVOSB
Before we dive into the federal landscape for SDVOSBs, let’s talk about how to both qualify and certify. It’s not an automatic certification and there are some parameters you need to meet.
To qualify to for the SDVOSB program through SBA, your company must:
- Be a small business according to SBA’s size standards
- Be at least 51% owned and controlled by one or more service-disabled veterans (meaning the eligible veteran has full control of day-to-day management, decision making, possesses managerial experience needed to manage the business, is the highest-paid person in the company, holds the highest officer position unless there’s an exemption, and works full time)
- Have one or more service-disabled veterans manage day-to-day operations who also make long-term decisions
- Eligible veterans must have a service-connected disability
To be considered a veteran (in the requirement listed above), at least one of these must be accurate:
- You served on active duty with the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard for any length of time and didn’t receive a dishonorable discharge,
- You served as a Reservist or member of the National Guard and were called to Federal active duty or disabled from a disease or injury that started or got worse in the line of duty or while in training status
How to Certify as a SDVOSB
The certification process has recently been moved over to the SBA, and self-certification is no longer recognized by the VA and will be a mandatory process by January 1, 2024. This process is completed through the Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) website. If you are interested in certifying, you should first make sure you are registered in SAM.gov, or your registration is up to date. This is a crucial step because once you start the registration and certification process, it will automatically pull your SAM record in and ask you to confirm. If you don't have updated information in there (such as an address change or POC), you will have to stop the process until your SAM is updated, which could take awhile. Once this step is done, you can go to the VetCert page and begin registration, following the questionnaire. The SBA will walk you through all the necessary steps to complete the certification.
SDVOSB Federal Government Goals
The federal government has set a goal of 3% for SDVOSB prime contracts and subcontracts. These goals are mandatory for the Chief Financial Officers Act (CFO) agencies including, but not limited to:
- Department of Defense (DoD)
- Department of Energy (DoE)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Department of Justic (DoJ)
- Department of Agriculture (DoA)
- Department of Labor (DoL)
- General Services Administration (GSA)
- Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
These goals are monitored by the SBA. Individual agency goals can be different from CFO agency goals depending on their mission, but they are still subject to the SBA’s approval.
According to the Small Business Procurement Scorecard, the goal for prime SDVOSB procurement in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 was surpassed and reach 4.57% overall, totaling $28.1 billion. However, the goal for subcontracting SDVOSB procurement was not met and came in at 2.1%, and $5.5 billion respectively. We are currently using data from FY 2022 because the full SBA reports for FY 2023 have not yet been released.
Agency SDVOSB Goal Performance
The SBA scorecard also lists individual agency scores within the CFO and how well they met the 3% goal. We’ll highlight the top 5 agencies who met and surpassed SDVOSB business goals and 5 agencies who did not perform well overall.
The top 5 (and the percentage they hit with 3% as their goal) are:
- The Small Business Administration (SBA): 35.40%
- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): 16.45%
- Social Security Administration (SSA): 11.29%
- General Services Administration (GSA): 9.34%
- Department of Justice (DoJ): 9.15%
The 5 agencies with the lowest scores are:
- United States Agency for International Development (USAID): 0.39%
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): 1.46%
- Department of Education (DoE): 1.55%
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): 1.96%
- Department of Energy (DoE): 1.99%
When you are creating your marketing plan and pipeline for the next year, you might want to keep an eye on these lists. The agencies that are surpassing their goals may release ample solicitations for SDVOSBs to continue the success, and the agencies that failed to meet the goal could be struggling to make up for their performance and will be allocating more spending for SDVOSBs. Or, they could be agencies to not put so much focus on if opportunities are slim.
SDVOSB Spending
Now, let’s take a look at spending over the past few years for SDVOSBs. We’ll highlight FY 2020- FY 2023 (what is reported so far). We used GSA’s Schedule Sales Query Plus (SSQ+) for this information.
As you can see, spending has increased from FY 2020-FY 2022, and we hope to see an increase in 2023 once all the numbers are reported. There are several initiatives out including an Executive Order (EO) to raise the bar and reach a high level of spending percentages for small businesses, so the expectation is spending will continue to increase and agencies will work to meet and exceed their goals.
SDVOSB Opportunities
First, it’s essential you ensure your SDVOSB certification is up to date, and if you have previously self-certified that you go through the VetCert program by January 1, 2024. Having the SDVOSB designation on your GSA eLibrary and SAM.gov record is crucial before you start searching for opportunities.
Once this is in place, you can find opportunities in several ways, but two major places we suggest are SAM.gov and GSA eBuy. On SAM.gov, you can use the “contract opportunities” section to filter by set-asides, keyword, due date, place of performance, etc. This way you can easily identify SDVOSB specific set asides or small business set-asides. On GSA eBuy, you will only see opportunities relevant to your Special Item Number (SIN), so you can more efficiently find relevant solicitations and Requests for Information (RFIs) to respond to.
If want to learn more about succeeding as a veteran-owned business, check out these blogs:
- Government Contractor Programs for Veteran-Owned Small Businesses
- Exploring GSA Schedule Opportunities for Veteran-Owned Businesses
If you need help certifying or preparing your GSA Schedule for opportunities, reach out to one of our consultants today.
