Supplier Diversity Newsletter

New OMWBE Certified Businesses

Greetings Partners,

Every month we share a list of the most recent state certified businesses including the business name, contact information, business description, etc. This list is best utilized regularly in combination with OMWBE's Directory of Certified Businesses.

Please contact our Supplier Diversity team for assistance using our online directory, or to schedule a virtual training for your procurement team.

Email: supplierdiversity@omwbe.wa.gov

Toolkit Update

Time for Forecasting

It’s time to start thinking about collecting forecasting data, now that session is closed, budgets are getting solidified, and FY23 spend data is starting to come in. Hopefully by now you have reviewed the template and gotten a hold of your agency’s budget if you are responsible for collecting this info for your agency. You can find the template here: Forecasting Template. The Q&A summary from the Forecasting Workshop earlier this year might help: April Forecasting Workshop Q&A. We will discuss next steps at the toolkit workshop on August 24^th at 10:00. Please bring your questions and any data you have collected so far.

Access Equity Update

In August, we will begin training Phase 2 users on the Outreach module through live trainings conducted by Doug Mora.

When:
August 17 at 10am | August 22 at 2pm | August 30 at 11am

The Outreach eLearning module will be available for the Phase 3a launch in early November. The Contract Compliance eLearning module will be available in mid-September.

Phase 2 will be expected to assign the Contract Compliance eLearning module to their Contract Agents and Secondary Contract Agents. Account Administrators are also expected to take both trainings in order to assist their users and are being trained on their responsibilities within the system in late July and early August.

Subcabinet Update

The next Subcabinet quarterly meeting has been re-scheduled to take place on August 17th, 1:00-3:00pm at Tabor 100. There will be an opportunity to network and meet with fellow Subcabinet members and staff at 12:30pm; light refreshments and snacks will be provided. In attendance at this meeting, in addition to partner agencies, we are excited to welcome the business community.

On the agenda, we will be discussing our statewide diverse spending trends and what we are doing to improve them and begin prioritizing the backlog of workgroups that will amplify our efforts to address disparities in our use of OMWBE certified businesses. You can find current information on Subcabinet activities on OMWBE’s website: Subcabinet on Business Diversity.

Spending Goal Plan Deadline

As a reminder, goals have been sent to all agencies and the deadline for submission of your agency’s goal plan is approaching.  The deadline to submit your agency’s FY24 Business Diversity Spending Goal Plan and Supplemental Questions Survey is Friday, August 11, 2023. 

OMWBE is not offering extensions on submitting Goal Plans. Due to the time sensitive nature of this process, plans must be finalized early on in the fiscal year so your teams can follow the plan to reach your agency’s aspirational goal. We have provided your agency with six weeks to complete this process.

If you have any trouble completing your agency survey, please contact us as soon as possible so we can assist you. The sooner the better. 

Please contact the supplier diversity team at supplierdiversity@omwbe.wa.gov with any questions.

If you would like to include others on our distribution list to receive these monthly supplier diversity emails, please let us know at supplierdiversity@omwbe.wa.gov.