Local Business Community Outreach and Training Program

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

In 2014 the Purchasing and Fleet Service Department began outreach efforts to increase awareness to the small business community on “Doing Business with The County.” The goal of the outreach effort is to remove the myth in the small business community that doing business with government is much too complicated and impossible to compete against big, established businesses. The County of Riverside is the fourth most populous County in California and spends over $600,000,000 in goods and services per year – affording many opportunities for small businesses to do business with the County. The program’s focus is to foster an environment where these businesses can successfully compete for government contracts. The program reaches out to the small business community, including veteran and disabled veteran-owned businesses (DVBE), local businesses, minority business enterprises (MBE) and woman’s business enterprises (WBE). Since 2014, the Purchasing and Fleet Service Department has enhanced its public website for the business community, developed presentation programs for various chambers of commerce and local business engagements, developed a vendor training academy/certificate program, co-sponsored two large business summits, and participated in local, regional economic outreach events. Over the past two years, the local and small business community has become more engaged with doing business with the county which increases the number of registered vendors in our database which subsequently has increased the number of responses to solicited bids. The program continues to plan for additional outreach efforts to further increase participation.