In the second part of our two-part series on public procurement, Chizo spoke with Mary Lazerri, the head of business growth at Bloomworks and which is one of the few women-owned small businesses in the digital service space. As part of her efforts to grow opportunities for WOSBs, she started an informal coalition. She also wrote two, op-eds highlighting the need for WOSBs to work together and key policy changes that the Biden administration could take to reach their WOSB targets. Alongside Mary, Lapedra Tolson, the co-founder of Friends from the City and other digital services formed joined us to discuss her experience as a women-owned small business owner as well. Lapedra currently sits on the board of the Digital Services Coalition, a coalition form to accelerate the growth or ability of the government to implement services that focus on good usability, reliable technology, and accessibility for all while also benefiting the individuals and firms that are part of the community.
Episode credits: Hosted by Chizo
Cover art created by modifying Abstract Shapes © Nathan Covert (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
Note: This episode was recorded before Chizobam began their term as a Digital Corp Fellow at the General Services Administration. The views represented are their own and do not reflect the views of GSA.
References mentioned in the episode:
Read Mary’s two op-eds
[00:00:00] Chizobam Nwagwu: Hello, and welcome to think civic, the podcast where we explore civic responsibility in tech policy design and more. I'm Chizo, your host. This episode will be the second and final part of a mini-series focusing on procurement in women-owned small businesses, or WOSBs, in the civic tech or public interest tech space.
[00:00:32] This episode, we spoke with Mary Lazerri, the head of business growth at Bloomworks and which is one of the few women-owned small businesses in digital service space. As part of her efforts to grow opportunities for WOSBS, she started an informal coalition. She also wrote two, op-eds highlighting the need for WOSBS to work together and key policy changes that the Biden administration could take to reach their WOSB targets. Alongside Mary, Lapedra Tolson, the co-founder of Friends from the City and other digital services formed joined us to discuss her experience as a women owned small business owner as well. Lapedra currently sits on the board of the Digital Services Coalition, a coalition form to accelerate the growth or ability of the government to implement services that focus on good usability, reliable technology, and accessibility for all while also benefiting the individuals and firms that are part of the community.
[00:01:28] Before starting Friends from the City, Lapedra served in the U.S. Air Force, worked at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and other federal contracting firms. I hope our listeners are able to take away some new insights after listening to this episode, as well as the previous one.
[00:01:44] Be sure to check out the show notes for any links to the op-eds and information mentioned in this conversation. As usual, make sure you're following us on our twitter handle @thinkcivicpod to join in on the conversation after the episode, and every episode will be delivered with links as well as availability on all streaming platforms with key takeaways and references in the show notes. The full transcripts for folks that actually prefer to read up on the conversation. You can see all of that at our substack, so be sure to hit subscribe at thinkcivic.substack.com. Now without further ado, here's our conversation with Mary and Lapedra.
[00:02:21] Awesome. Good afternoon. We're recording on a sunny kind of Monday morning, at least for me. And so welcome Lapedra and Mary to the show.
[00:02:32] Mary Lazzeri: Thank you.
[00:02:32] Lapedra Tolson: It's nice to be here.
[00:02:33] Chizobam Nwagwu: I'll just jump into yeah our conversation today. Um, I guess Mary, if you could start us off and Lapedra, when you're ready to also just share a little bit about each of yourselves to our audience. Really Mary, what decide made you want to join Bloomworks, and if you could also describe your kind of transition into public interest tech and digital service.
[00:02:54] Mary Lazzeri: Sure absolutely. Well, I've been working in government technology for like 13 years and working generally for 24 years and throughout all that time. So I worked for the government. I worked in nonprofits and I worked in the private sector. And throughout all that time, I'd never worked for a woman owned business or even a woman led organization, and that was a real draw for me because since I left government in 2017 at the tail end of the Obama administration, you know, I've been working in both tech and sales or business development, whichever you wanna call it. And both of those are largely male-dominated fields. And it's really felt that way. You know, I was rarely in meetings either with other companies or even within my own organization where I wasn't like the only woman in the room or the only woman on the call.
[00:03:40] And of course, like women can lead both sales teams and technology companies, and we can do it successfully, while creating different norms and different ways of working with each other and Bloomworks is a woman own small business. And I started working here about a year ago as the head of business development.
[00:03:57] I mean, it's given me the opportunity to really experience that new type of organization and it's been great for me.
[00:04:02] Lapedra Tolson: And for me, Lapedra, similar to, to Mary my background is also in the, in the federal space. I from either just being a veteran with the Air Force and for five years, and then joining the federal workforce as a federal employee. Similar, I've been in a lot of spaces. A lot of my career choices have been basically male-dominated either as a graphic designer, or in television production when I was in school, and even as a black African American woman in this space, it even gets even smaller. And so I wanted to form Friends from the City, which, you know, we are a fully distributed design and tech firm. And we say impacting the lives of millions, and that's like broad, right?
[00:04:41] But I think from my perspective, not only have I dedicated my whole career to civic tech, I wanted to really impact those federal agencies and those outcomes. And for those folks who rely on government services and also just on an employee level, just really being a safe space for black and brown creatives like myself. Women and veterans who really wanna lend their skills to the civic tech community, and I often talk about the privilege that I have because as an African American woman, we often think that we don't have privilege. And, but I think that I do just from the different lenses and perspectives of being a, you know, veteran woman, queer community, you know, African American, all those things that I can lend that privilege to create that space and really do to things that I feel like, I think women bring that unique perspective, like those hiring practices and the pay equities, something that maybe may, may not think about, you know? So I wanted to just be on the front lines, join great organizations like Bloomworks and Mary to really, you know, bring about a change.
[00:05:39] Chizobam Nwagwu: Yeah. Thank you both for, I think sharing. Yeah. Both of those experiences, definitely pieces of both are things that I can relate to just personally, like trying to navigate like what civic tech is in relation to like what traditional big tech is as well. And how also just the inequities that you might experience like as a woman or as a woman of color are definitely present in both. With that, I think, Mary, could you really bring us back to the opinion piece that you wrote or actually it was two opinion pieces. Could you sum up, I guess, yeah, and really we have the time, but yeah, some of what you were trying to say in each piece and also the timing. So from what I understand, like one was published a lot more recently and then one like about a few months ago. What the difference or like the learning, maybe experience that you experienced that wanted you to be able to say something different or something support what you originally wanted to say.
[00:06:37] Mary Lazzeri: Yeah. First I'll talk about the timing and then sort of the content of the piece and the pieces and sort of what led to them.
[00:06:43] So the timing is really based on what we're seeing. The Biden administration has put a really big focus on equity and also on pulling more small businesses or disadvantaged small businesses into federal contracting or into, you know, the supply chain. And, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about this a little bit later, but just to touch on it, they've increased what they call the targets for awarding a certain amount of contract dollars to underrepresented small businesses. And I have various thoughts and opinions on how successful they're gonna be with their current approach, but, you know, Lapedra and Friends from the City and a number of women owned small businesses alongside Bloomworks. We've formed an informal coalition of women own small businesses, and we've been talking and we really think, you know, if we're ever gonna get heard of some of the issues that we're facing the time is now based on, you know, again, what we're seeing from the Biden administration, but we're really hoping to use the articles I've written and you know, this podcast, and other things that we're attempting to see what we can change to kind of make the opportunity space for women own small businesses in all of federal contracting, but specifically for us in digital services, a more level playing field.
[00:07:52] And then to touch on sort of what the issues are, you know, I think that there are social constructs and inherent biases. Reinforce this erroneous belief that women aren't savvy in business or skilled enough in technical development. I think it's like a subconscious bias, but it manifests itself in a very, in a number of really tangible ways in the federal contracting space.
[00:08:16] You know, for example, if my business or women-owned small businesses are talking to a contract officer during the market research phase, which is a normal thing to do. And, you know, we encourage them, "hey, maybe you wanna think about putting this digital services opportunity out as a woman-owned small business set aside." We'll always, almost always have the contract officer come back and say, "well, will there be enough women own small businesses that will bid on it?" Which is this crazy, widely held belief that you know, that is not true, and it's, you know, mathematically and provably false. I mean the small business administration releases data and there's a publicly searchable database that will show you that actually the women own small businesses, there's more women own small businesses than any other small business designation, which makes sense, we're 52% of the population. But yet there's this widely held belief that we don't exist, and they in particular that we don't exist in the digital services space. So that's just one way that this sort of some subconscious bias about women in business or women in tech, like manifests in a really real barrier for women, especially in contract in government contracting
[00:09:20] Lapedra Tolson: I'm new in this space, and just to kind of go back to what Mary mentioned about the incentives and, you know, increasing the categories by 70% in Biden, really putting out all these letters, saying that they were gonna, he was gonna increase across the socioeconomical categories from 5 to 11%. But my question to them is like, what are the incentives? Like, it's gonna be the increase right to 11%, but what, how are they gonna incentivize or either, do something about it when they don't? So right now, if they're not hitting 5%, then what happens?
[00:09:50] And I saw that I think they were gonna tie it to the performance plans of like the SES to report towards those achievements, but I didn't see anything about okay, I'm the SES, and I said, "oh, well, well, I actually only achieve 3.5%." Then what, what happens next? And so I am open to having that conversation. Maybe Mary, you know, anything more that happens after that. Like if they don't hit that mark, but what would be different other than changing the, from 5 to 11%?
[00:10:17] Mary Lazzeri: Yeah, absolutely. That's in my op-ed pieces as well. The government has set up these targets. They've had these targets for years. Like you said, Lapedra, there were, was 5%. They're trying to increase it to 11%, but except in some pockets, in some agencies in the federal government, like most agencies never even hit that lower target.
[00:10:36] You know, and as you said, Lapedra, there's really no consequence for that. I mean, they could potentially look at tying it to senior executive service bonuses. That's one way of like making it a real toothy, like goal or like, you know, 'cause currently it's just toothless. There's no consequence if they don't meet those targets and they haven't for years.
[00:10:55] But in addition to that, I think in tandem to increasing the targets, they have to increase the education for contract officers around how to use the women owned small business set aside. I think in many cases they sometimes want to, but it's not as easy as other set asides, which we can talk about, you know?
[00:11:12] And in particular what's interesting to me is the woman owned small business program was set up to increase the amount of business... going to women owned small businesses in certain business areas, which they go by NAICS codes and all of the digital services NAICS codes fall under the women owned small business program. Yet, you know, I, and as long as I've been looking at this, have never seen a quality woman owned small business set aside in the digital services space.
[00:11:39] Chizobam Nwagwu: That's really interesting. I'm actually really curious how I'd say the efforts to form. Like, for example, you mentioned you already have like an existing, like informal coalition of women-owned small businesses in the digital service space. How do you see that being different from maybe the processes that exist for bidding on contracts within the larger digital service coalition? The DSC? Yeah. If you could talk about, how those are either, you know, working in parallel or are really different.
[00:12:08] Mary Lazzeri: Well, we'd like for them to work in parallel, but you know, we set up number of women in small businesses have come together. We actually just met in person for the first time last week. And, you know, I think that we have to work together in the sense that, as I said earlier, you know, if a contract officer is thinking of putting something out as a women-owned small business set aside, we need to respond to RFIs in mass, requests for information in mass, to prove that there are enough women own small businesses in the digital services space that will bid on them.
[00:12:36] So, you know, we have to do that. And, you know, we do have, you know, ally groups among some of the digital services coalition that certainly understand what we're facing and that, I mean, no secret that there's just never a woman on small business set aside in, in a lot of the contracts that we're looking at.
[00:12:54] So, you know, we may ultimately formalize our coalition in some way. We're definitely looking for other women-owned small businesses who work in digital to join us. And there's a few things that we can do I mean on the individual contract level, again, we can go to contract officers and say, "here we are, we're ready to bid." Lapedra and I submitted an RFI together, or, you know, we submitted a similar RFI just recently to try to encourage a contract, to come out as a woman-owned small business set aside. I. So, yeah, it's that kind of thing that we can do together in sort of the grassroots local sort of level. And then on the higher level, you know, we were potentially looking at whether we can talk to influential people in the Biden administration, or on Capitol Hill to see how we can sort of change this in a more systemic way.
[00:13:39] Lapedra Tolson: Yeah, I was gonna mention that too, like with Mary said, and I wanna just publicly thank you Mary too, because I have been educated on coming together and the importance of submitting RFIs, because there's an element I think of bravery that we have to have and not really fall back and say, "you know what? I don't know if I wanna partner with Bloomworks because we are two women-owned small businesses and we may, you know, may not be competitive." But we have to like stick together, especially like Mary said on this ground roots floor that wow changes are being made. We still have to be brave and we still have to show up as a united front, no matter what. And I think that's all I want to add to that.
[00:14:14] Chizobam Nwagwu: Yep. I think that's a perfect transition. I think into, I guess, a mix of the second part of this conversation, is could you talk about really maybe why, I guess maybe, could dig a bit more into the details about why specifically federal contracting and maybe if possible, the extent to which state and local contracting really isn't a level playing field. Could you kind of also talk about yeah. I'd say like that part of it at first?
[00:14:41] Mary Lazzeri: Sure, sure. Well, I think one of the things that I mentioned in my op-ed was this, this concept of spousal sign off, which is when you're applying to be an economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business women, own small business, or some of the other set asides. They, you have to, you know, essentially have your spouse sign and say, "I don't run this business, or I don't operate this business."
[00:15:01] And, you know, I understand what the government was trying to do or was, and is trying to do with that historically. And even of course today there have been women owned, small businesses that were just put in a woman's name and they weren't necessarily operated by that woman, but there's this sort of false and like kind of widely held belief that the majority of women own small businesses are that way.
[00:15:24] And you know, again, it's just, it's certainly not true, and well, and if you think about it, that could also be true for veteran-owned small businesses, or 8As, or hub zones, but yet the sort of accusation that like, "oh, the person that they say is running this business, isn't really running this business," is really only that accusation's really only leveled at women own small businesses, you know? And why is that? And I think that... that has impacted the amount of contracts that have been put out for women on small businesses for years. And like another point on spousal signoff, I think it was conceived in a world in which spouses were of the different gender, you know, and that's, that's certainly an outdated mentality now and, you know, potentially a harmful one.
[00:16:05] And further, I can't think of you know, any reason why two spouses growing a business together is really the worst problem facing government contracting. You know, I mean, of all the sort of gaming of the system and fraud that exists, like I just don't think the spouse will sign off needs to have as much of a focus as it does. And the only reason I can think of why it does is honestly it's rooted in bias against women, but to sort of expand a little bit sort of in the weeds of why it's difficult for women-owned small businesses to get sole source awards, which is an important part of government contracting. Just the federal acquisition regulation, or the FAR, is written in a way that makes it easier for contract officers to award contracts that are under a certain dollar threshold, which is about $4 million, which is a game-changing number for small businesses. You can direct award a $4 million contract to an 8A, which is a minority-owned small business, can't do that with a woman-owned small business.
[00:16:58] So with the 8As, you can do it without any competition with the women own small business. The women-owned small business has to prove that there's no other woman-owned small business that could do this work, which they call the rule of two, which is bananas. I mean, like I don't wanna be going to a contract officer and say, "only Bloomworks can do this. There's no way Friends from the City could do this."
[00:17:16] You know, on one hand, they're asking us to prove that there's enough of a market that there's enough women on small businesses to put out set asides. Then we have to go make the counterargument, if we are trying to get a sole source, which is that there are no other women-owned small businesses that could do it.
[00:17:32] So in just the FAR, I think was written in a way that. It doesn't make it easy to award these things to women own small businesses. And in no way, do I wanna take that sort of massive power away from 8As, but it would be good if the government, so whether it's the SBA, or Congress, or the White House, or OMB, you know, would take a look at the women owned small business set aside in soul source authority and see what potentially can be done just to simply make it more useful.
[00:17:59] Lapedra Tolson: Yeah. And I agree with that too. I wanted to go back to what you said about, and I'm glad you brought this up about the notion that, you know, men are gonna be backing women with these businesses and that it's not really on the scrutiny for SWUSB. I'm also a services able veteran owned small business. And so I can compare the two as in, you know, my spouse for one improving upon that language from that old kind of outdated thing.
[00:18:19] My spouse is a woman, you know, I still have to go through all the things. And so it is a bit outdated also with the SAVOSB process was so much easier. They asked if my spouse was in S SWOSB or the other business partner. And it was just like, no, and that was it. It wasn't like all of these questions, and I have to submit all these documentations. So it's just, it's kind of hard.
[00:18:40] I think my perspective from this and not to get into the weeds, cuz I think Mary covered it well. It's about the process of even applying to be a SAVSB. I was just chatting with Mary earlier about how I was like, "is it even worse becoming a certified as a WSB just for the fact that I never saw any sort of set aside or any so source or anything for WSBs?"
[00:19:01] Definitely not for ED WSBs. And I went through the process on the SBA website and it was so difficult. I was denied like twice. That I had to go out and go to WBENC to be certified. I didn't have to do that for the WSB. I'm not at AA yet, but I'm sure that's strenuous. But even that just at the beginning level, especially from someone that's a small business owner at the process level, it's even difficult then.
[00:19:25] And then just within with the spousal requirements and all the things that Mary mentioned is very problematic. And then on the back end, is it even worth it, because the agencies are not even hitting their targets at a low 5%. So, what this program just seems like there just needs to be, like Mary said some sort of overhaul just from the router to the tutor. As my grandma used to say.
[00:19:45] Chizobam Nwagwu: I think those are both really interesting points you made and for our listeners, if you could just briefly define VSB and EDWSB. I know those are lots of acronyms.
[00:19:56] Lapedra Tolson: Yes. For SAVOSB is services able veteran-owned, small business, and then VOSB is veteran-owned small business. EDWSB is economically disadvantaged, women-owned small business, and WSB is woman own small business. Is that right? Mary?
[00:20:10] Mary Lazzeri: Yep. That's right.
[00:20:11] Chizobam Nwagwu: Thank you. And from what I understand from reading again, the oped that Mary shared that the spousal requirement is the one that is required for the EDWSB.
[00:20:20] Mary Lazzeri: Definitely. Yes, I believe it's also required for 8A, but it's slightly different. And again, the scrutiny is on the women owned small businesses. And I think if you sort of look at the history of it, when the women own small business program in the federal space was originally stood up, there wdasn't a certification process.
[00:20:37] So a lot of businesses could kind of self-certify, and I think that made some people skeptical. Right? Cuz there was no, you know, no investigator, what have you like looking at your paperwork, making sure that you're telling the truth, but they changed that I wanna say 2015, like years ago. And so that perception should no longer be impacting whether there are women-owned, small business set asides or social source opportunities and I mean, it must be, or something's affecting it. Look because as Lapedra and I were talking, we don't see any quality opportunities for that are set aside for women and small businesses.
[00:21:12] Chizobam Nwagwu: Yep, with that, if you could touch on the, I know you briefly actually touched on the role of the contract officers and being able to build relationships seems a lot of what you're, you both are also kind of advocating for is a policy or systems change for, you know, Program to actually serve the folks that really couldn't benefit the most from this type of set aside.
[00:21:37] Yeah. Could you actually go a bit deeper into what those tools and policies would be? So like what connections exist either may, for example, those that are. For example, like predominantlymale-ownedd businesses that are not, you know, available for women, is that relating to like tools or connections or relationships, or even just understanding of how to make sure that people can have access to those types of contracts.
[00:22:04] And please correct me if I'm also yeah, if I'm paraphrasing it incorrectly.
[00:22:08] Mary Lazzeri: Not at all. I think so every contract is supposed to go into a market research phase. So a contractor has to essentially put out a request for information or talk to a number of companies to just indicate that they've talked to the market so that they're not putting out a procurement that, you know, it was bananas or, or some, you know, that no one would bid on or like it's overly broad or, or something like that. And I understand that contract officers are, you know, like everyone in the government are resource constrained and pressed for time, but it's sometimes easier for them to talk to a bunch of businesses they already know. And I've been seeing, you know, RFIs being distributed just to a handful of businesses, right, and so I may never know about it and therefore I may never get a chance to respond to it.
[00:22:57] So it's like, if you're a known entity, then they go to the known entities and. For young businesses like Bloomworks and Lapedra's Friends from the City, were not gonna be known unless they put out those market opportunities more broadly.
[00:23:11] Yes. And like I said, our companies try to, when we hear about these opportunities, we kind of try to hoard on them or, you know, we try to mob on them and ev... all of our sort of informal coalition of women owned small businesses, we try to, you know, respond to those RFIs as much as we can so that we can make the case to a contract officer that there's enough of us that will bid.
[00:23:31] Lapedra Tolson: Yeah. And I want to add to that too, just with Biden, you know, his vision of diversifying the federal workforce. You need folks and not just, you know, ethnic backgrounds, but also with, you know, with women with all sort of gender identifying, because I feel like once you're at the top, if you're those leaders, as we've always talked about is that you're gonna have that lens. So you need someone at the top. If it's a woman leader that says, you know, what did you consider? You know, women owned small businesses? Did you do those things? Because I feel like they women or those folks with those particular lenses are gonna be able to speak up and speak out.
[00:24:05] So we also have to press hard down on our federal leaders to really put folks in place that are going to lend their privilege to really creating opportunities for women owned small businesses.
[00:24:18] Chizobam Nwagwu: Yeah, but I think that's the great point about really people being able to be allies, to making others be able to also feel, you know, be seen and also be heard. And in terms of, you know, getting opportunities that they otherwise should have access to.
[00:24:31] That I actually like to pivot a bit. Really, I think some of the lens of where we come from for think civic is trying to focus on like the early career experience, or folks who are trying to break into this space of digital services.
[00:24:45] Could you talk about, yeah, you're share your perspectives on where you see the expansion of opportunities for women-owned small businesses in digital service space or broadly in civic tech and opportunities for women in civic tech, or others of different identities, different gender identities, marginalized identities as interrelated and really how you see women-owned small businesses, again, in this space being part of making it easier for women to be able to engage and do this work since like you both already articulated very clearly, like they can.
[00:25:18] So how can furthering those businesses also support that work as well?
[00:25:22] Lapedra Tolson: Well, I would say from my perspective, and I'm curious to see what Mary has to say too, but you think about. People that start businesses like us and like Emily and Lauren over at Bloomworks because we have lived through those experiences. Right. And I used to call myself a super minority, which is very negative. Like in hindsight, like I used to say I'm a super minority because of all the different things, but really now I see it as a superpower because I do have those different perspectives. And I am putting myself in a position, like you said, to bring in women, to bring in minorities, to bring in, you know, different gender identities, and say that your lens and your perspective, your cultures, or whatever is needed in this federal space.
[00:26:01] And so if we don't have companies like ourselves that are not just chasing the dollar, cuz let's keep it real. Like the federal contracting is a very lucrative business that you can be in. But if we really hold the space that we are saying like, no, you know, having this opportunity, creating these opportunities for so many different types of people that on the back end is really gonna help the federal workforce because we are building these services for diverse perspectives and for diverse populations. And so I think just from what we are doing on the frontline, maybe we can inspire other women to sort of roll off from their traditional companies and create this new space. And then now we have this groundswell that's creating these opportunities and really just being inspired by the Biden administration, and, you know, all the others that are really trying to create space. We are saying, look, we also want to provide equity as a service across the board across all spectrums. And I think it just starts with us.
[00:26:56] Mary Lazzeri: Absolutely. I, 100% agree. You know, I think creating more opportunities for women-owned small business is to be successful in government contracting will in turn like inspire more women entrepreneurs and, you know, and then those women entrepreneurs, and of course, you know, represent those role models and mentors for younger women who might be thinking of starting a business.
[00:27:16] And I can also make the argument that women-owned small businesses are more innovative, more cost-efficient, and create working environments that result in better working conditions, like more equity for all employees and not just women for, but for all employees. And sort of to touch on that point of lived experience, while I hope it's changing, I think we're still seeing a lot of civic tech leaders, so both in the government and in the nonprofit space that are really kind of far, you know, their backgrounds are far afield from any real lived experience of the populations that a lot of digital services are looking to help. And to Lapedra's point, I think people with that lived experience will create better products for underserved populations.
[00:28:01] And I think that's something we need to keep an eye on in civic tech. When we have the opportunity to mentor and appoint new leaders, look, you know, Who we're elevating and you know, and why, and is there an effort to sort of change the dynamic a little bit and really sort of change the game and change the face of civic tech?
[00:28:17] Chizobam Nwagwu: I definitely agree. I think seeing how the downstream effects, like definitely play out pretty clearly, like, being able to provide someone funding to do X, Y, and Z. That is a public benefit that benefits X, Y people creates opportunities for another set of people. So I think that's definitely telling. Actually, could you really circle back a bit to this informal coalition that you've been able to organize?
[00:28:42] What does that look like now? And where do you see it going? And how do other, maybe women own small businesses or other businesses that also may be of other identities that may be going through a similar hardship actually connect with either of you or, you know, the larger coalition to further this type of policy change?
[00:29:06] Mary Lazzeri: I'll give it a shot. Well, what was interesting when we put together this group of companies, one of the first things we had to do, or what we thought to do is let's create a one pager that describes like what the women own small business set aside can do and can't do. And that with a bunch of smart people focus on it, we were getting confused ourselves because the FAR is written in such a, the Federal Acquisition Regulation, is written in such a weird way that we in, we were like, could it be that this entire set aside is not really useful.
[00:29:34] Um, but I think we did come to that conclusion. So one of the things we're, again, we're gonna attempt as much as possible to get the word out and talk to influential people in the Biden administration, or you know, career government leadership. I was a career government fed, not a political appointee. And I really feel that sometimes the rubber hits the road with the career staff more so than the politicals. And then, you know, there's an opportunity to talk to, to Capitol Hill as well. There's a few women members of Congress that this is one of their issues, expanding opportunity for women-owned small businesses.
[00:30:08] So that's where I think our coalition is gonna go. We'd like to grow it and potentially formalize it one day. I think, you know, we're kind of being scrappy underdogs here and seeing what options there are to kind of get our word across.
[00:30:22] Lapedra Tolson: Yeah. And I'll just say to that, it's just the visibility, cuz I think, you know, with the digital services coalition, you know, we shouldn't have to ask questions like, "well who's the woman own bond businesses?" You know, because we are we had to ask ourselves those questions and start making a list and we shouldn't have to do that. We should be a little bit more visible.
[00:30:39] And I feel like, you know, with Mary and others forming this coalition is gonna really bring us together with that visibility. So we're just not like lost in the sauce of these other companies, but we can say, look, we are a united front. And then secondly, just really, there are other women organizations out there that's on and been on the ground floor with a good fight and that we can also join forces within like women impacting policy or something like that. That we can really start to maybe move small little mole Hills and get over this mountain together.
[00:31:08] Chizobam Nwagwu: In regards to the policy changes that we both discussed in our conversation so far, who's responsible for carrying those out? Is that something that would be a decision that Congress would have to sign into legislation? Or is that something that the SBA already has domain, SBA being the Small Business Administration, already has domain to articulate? Or is that an executive order of some sort mandate to make that a priority?
[00:31:38] I remember learning in terms of, in regards to the pandemic so much of the aid from the SBA was appropriated by Congress being that Congress is the one that's responsible for appropriating money, but the SBA has, you know, authority to be able to figure out how they can be able to allocate that funding in the best way to create the most public good. So if you could talk about who's really the primary policy actors, I think in this scenario.
[00:32:04] Mary Lazzeri: I'll give it a shot. It's not an easy answer. So the FAR, the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which for my estimation will need a change in order to increase opportunity for women-owned small businesses. Again, we have that rule of two, which makes it hard to do soul source authority. That's really where I would focus the sort of the FAR change and see what sort of, what we can do to make that a more useful soul source authority. And that would have to be changed by Congress, but, you know, when people say "that'll take an act of Congress." There are sort of ways that are used, like the National Defense Authorization bill, the NDAA. It's potentially the Office of Federal Procurement Policy within the Office of Management and Budget.
[00:32:47] I'm really getting in the weeds now, people. They have the ability to sort of insert language into the NDAA that could change that sort of provision of the FAR, and I think, you know, an executive order from the administration directing the SBA to make some of these changes is probably an option too, you know?
[00:33:08] And yeah. So I think that there's a bunch of ways to get through and do it. And I'll say it, cuz we didn't really talk about the local level. One thing I would love to see changed is Bloomworks does a lot of state-level and municipality-level work. And in order to get women-owned small business certified, you have to go through a different process for every state.
[00:33:28] You know, as far as I know, there are no states that sort of share that certification. You know, like if you're made it through the process here in Pennsylvania, well, New York will honor it. That's not true, and so, you know, you're finding yourself, filling out all this paperwork to prove that you're a woman owned small business in, you know, every single 50 state. And that's not a good use of anyone's time. That's another thing that I would love to see, and I don't know how you change that, but it would be great if someone could, someone could look into it for us.
[00:33:56] Lapedra Tolson: I was gonna say, Mary, you know, if we are looking at other set asides, like SBUSB, to your point, I have been getting certified on a state level. But they are asking if you are certified with the VA, you can use that certification to speed up the process for SWSB. I have not done it yet for SWSB, but I have not done it yet for WSB. So, I'm wondering if they can take some best practices, cuz it seems like the SVUSB has been doing great work as in making it easy and I've done it for Massachusetts and New York.
[00:34:25] And so to your point, I think they need to do the same thing for WSB.
[00:34:29] Chizobam Nwagwu: Yeah, clearly the confines of who is supposed to do what is, it's a mirage, but it's really cool. I think learning about how the pieces fit together as someone with extremely limited experience about how procurement and government contracting works. Well, what that, I think the best way probably for us to close out this conversation is, what's advice that you have for women that are interested in working in this space, starting their own business? You know, serving the government in some way through business or elsewhere, you know, that's creating some type of public good? Yeah. I'd love to definitely hear your thoughts.
[00:35:05] Lapedra Tolson: I mean, for me, just from being on early on, I think it really is seeking out companies like Bloomworks. That's something that I did at very, very beginning. Like some sort of like pseudo-mentorship. And I know Emily and Lauren are, are like, look, I'm not a mentor right now to LP, but I really sought them out because they actually started and they are admired what they were doing in space. To see if this is something I really wanted to do, and how to potentially go about it.
[00:35:28] And so I hope that, you know, I could be that mentor some to another, you know, young woman that, or, you know, gender woman identifying that we can enter this space. But also, I guess I would say, you know, seek out those companies that are doing something different. I think you can tell by the work that they take, the website, the folks that they hire and stuff like that, to try to get some sort of insight and maybe informally just reach out to them and say, "do you know what I am looking to start a business, or I want to be involved, but I don't really know how." And I've found that all of the women that I've encountered are very open to sharing their best practices, even when they've messed up to help others. And so I would encourage folks to just reach out and that's something that I had to come to grips with because I didn't want it to seem like, you know, I'm just reaching out to you to get all of your cookies, but I haven't been met with any kind of resistance.
[00:36:17] And I think that we are creating that open, transparent space. And just practicing what we're preaching. So I would say, just reach out to folks on LinkedIn or whatever, and just say, "hey, I wanna just have 15 to 20 minutes of your time to just ask you about either the civic tech space. How is it as a woman-owned small business?"
[00:36:34] And that's been working for me and people have actually reached out to me and I make time for those sort of requests, even at my young stage where I feel like I don't have a whole lot to offer, but I'm gonna give of what I can. And so that's my perspective.
[00:36:48] Mary Lazzeri: Yeah, that's great. I think that we kind of encourage women in certain sectors, like maybe law, you know, we encourage women to go into nonprofits. We don't, I think really encourage women to go into business as much as we should, and the reasons for that, but, you know, I think that the more that we can be role models and, you know, run a sales team and, you know, like Lapedra found a business and get ourselves out there, offer ourselves up as, as mentors or people that can provide advice to young women who can start businesses are just looking to figure out where to take their careers. That'll certainly help change things and sort of change the government contracting industry, just, you know, one step at a time.
[00:37:30] Chizobam Nwagwu: With that. I think that's a perfect time for us to close. Thank you so much for really taking the time to explain this very important issue.
[00:37:39] Mary Lazzeri: Thank you.
[00:37:39] Lapedra Tolson: Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you for having us.
[00:37:41] Evan DeBroux: Thank you again for taking the time to tune into this episode. We hope you found this conversation with Mary and Lapedra, as interesting as we did. Do share this with any family, coworkers, or neighbors who are interested in how women own small businesses and tech procurement fit together. And, or just anyone who may be interested in exploring our past episodes.
[00:38:00] As always, please make sure to follow us on our new Twitter handle @thinkcivicpod to join in on a conversation after the episode. Also, be sure to hit subscribe at thinkcivic.substack.com. Thanks everyone!
Mary Lazerri and Lapedra Tolson: Increasing Access for Women-owned Small Businesses in Civic Tech