In 2000, the federal government set a goal to award 5% of all contracts to women-owned businesses. In February 2011, after 11 long years of work, the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program was finally enacted to help make that goal a reality. This program allows federal contracting officers to restrict competition for certain federal contracts to women-owned businesses.

Since then, our goal was to provide women-owned companies with guidance on how to take advantage of the set asides, which resulted in launch of a specialized program, Give Me 5.

Give Me 5, named for the 5% federal contracting goal for women-owned businesses and created by WIPP and American Express OPEN®, is designed to educate women entrepreneurs on how to successfully navigate the federal contract marketplace through a full range of freely accessible and on-demand online educational courses ranging from contracting basics to more advanced courses.

Give Me 5 has over 90 educational courses, with 20 highly specialized contracting instructors .

We encourage you to join successful women-owned companies and start doing business with federal government. Our next webinars are focused on Understanding Project Accounting and its Impact on Government Contracting and on The Essential Ingredient of All … Relationships!

Also don’t forget to check out WIPP’s other federal contracting education resources:

• ChallengeHER – a live event series, cosponsored with the SBA and American Express OPEN.
• WIPP Federal Contracting Certificate Program
• WIPP National Directory of Women-Owned Small Businesses
• WIPP’s Procurement Policy Page – Procurement news, policy updates, legislation and regulatory actions