Stevens asks about best practices and mentors for certified firms without contracts
Stevens says many certified MWBEs, especially Black women and Latinas, are not winning contracts and asks if there are best practices or mentor pairings. She questions whether the city reaches certified firms that have never received an award.
And so, like, as I'm just sitting here and just looking to some of this, and I know you had said that especially you guys are doing a lot of work with the agencies around.
figuring out how they are like going about doing this.
But like, let's say I'm MWB.
Cause I want to second what council member just said.
I know, I know a number of people who are like, I'm not doing it because that paperwork is just too much.
And then the results just aren't there.
Like they just don't match for the effort.
But let's say I am a business.
I do get certified.
Like, is there a place where I can go where there's like a list of best practices for folks who have already, um,
who've like gotten contracts and what they've done and like are able to, or can I be like, hey, I need additional help.
Could you pair me with another MWVE to like give me some supports or like some type of mentor?
Because it is true.
It is a lot of work to kind of do it for a lot of times, no results.
So just trying to get a better understanding.
Cause again, I'm looking at the numbers and disparities and they look like in, you know, in, in, in groups that already have disparities, there are certain groups that are doing this well.
And a lot of that, a lot of times that's because in that community, they're helping each other.
And so are we setting up situations so that like,
all folks have places they can go and get the support that they need and trying to figure those things out.
Yeah, so that's where we're really proud that 76% of any of all MWB firms that won a contract last year benefited from one of our services.
We really want to encourage every single New York City.
Don't say that because I just have to stop you there.
And I say that because, again, we're looking at the numbers.
It's not saying that.
And so, like, yes, all of you in the despair, when I'm looking at the numbers, what the chair said.
There's one in 100 contracts is a Latina or a black woman.
Like, that's clearly not happening because those folks aren't doing it.
So I'm asking, are there, like, best practices that, like, those folks who are certified in there can go to so that they can start getting those contracts?
Because, again, I know it's easy to kind of, like, talk about the board of stuff and be like, oh, we've increased by 10% and we've done this.
That's a lot easy.
But I'm talking about getting down into the disparities and, like, how are we, like, saying, okay.
This group is doing good in best practices, so do we have best practices that we can share with these groups to make sure that we can start to have diversity in who's getting these contracts?
And I know specifically you guys keep talking about the agencies, but I'm talking specifically about the businesses.