In the previous issue of Anchors Aweigh, we described the collaboration between the Procurement Department at Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) and Center for Community Wealth Building (CCWB). The collaboration’s goal was to increase the number of diverse, small, local businesses on AHEC’s On-Call Skilled Trades List.
Of the ten businesses that attended our jointly hosted information session, two submitted bids and one was accepted. A few attendees requested a deadline extension, but AHEC was not able to adjust the deadline.
Promising outcomes:
The percentage of BIPOC vendors on AHEC’s list increased from 9% to 14% for FY23 - 9 out of AHEC’s 63 approved vendors are now BIPOC-owned businesses, compared to 6 out of 68 in FY22.
AHEC retained contact information for all ten businesses and expects to engage some of them via its Purchase Order process. AHEC’s procurement team will track spending with those vendors to measure the overall impact of this outreach and engagement effort.
We learned a lot from this effort:
The On-Call Skilled Trades List presents a great opportunity for small businesses to get their foot in the door at AHEC. The Procurement Department approves a high percentage of the bids it receives for membership on the list, which is open to twenty different skilled trades. While researching and reaching out to businesses in twenty different trades was quite a lift, we would absolutely do it again! We know that the first time is always the hardest, and we now have an established process for conducting the needed research and connecting with potential bidders.
Adding a BidNet workshop for vendors could help us have a bigger impact on AHEC’s list in 2024. CCWB hosted its first BidNet workshop in late July for caterers and food trucks interested in submitting a bid for the National Western Center’s Preferred Caterer and Concession List. If those workshop attendees submit bids, this will give us solid evidence that adding a similar workshop next year in connection with AHEC’s On-Call Skilled Trades RFP would most likely result in additional vendors making AHEC’s list next year.
CCWB will also explore whether AHEC might:
Revise the bid evaluation criteria for FY24 to better align with the goal of increasing the campus’s local, diverse spend; and
Consider opening its bidding window for a longer time, which would be helpful for small businesses that lack administrative support in putting a bid package together.
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