The U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington, DC - INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE. Under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, the U.S. Small Business Administration intends to negotiate and procure on a sole source basis. This is neither a solicitation announcement nor a request for proposals or quotes and does not obligate the Government to award a contract. Requests for a solicitation will not receive a response.

 This is a notice of intent to award a sole source contract to Aspen Institute for the purchase of Contractor support to advise SBA on appropriate program metrics and goals for the Microloan Program.  The Contractor shall provide training for SBA Microloan Intermediaries.  At the completion of the training, the Intermediaries will have an understanding of the key metrics for the program; understand the protocols for data collection; understand the differences between performance and outcome data; know how to use the proper tools for data collection and reporting; and understand how to analyze their performance against the program metrics.

The Contractor must demonstrate extensive experience in the microenterprise industry.  The Contractor shall provide evidence of past performance in conducting training, developing metrics, data collection and reporting requirements for the microenterprise industry.

The Contractor is required to provide necessary resources to include personnel, material, and services, to perform the tasks described herein.  The Government will provide the facilities for all training conducted. 

 The Contractor should be skilled at providing training, one-on-one technical assistance in data collection, reporting tools and data collection protocols, and the cleaning, aggregation and analysis of data. The Contractor should also have experience offering consulting services to organizations to help them analyze the data to support strategic change.

 Any firm that believes it can meet these requirements may give written notification. Supporting evidence must be furnished in sufficient detail, to demonstrate the ability to comply with the above requirements. All information submitted in response to this announcement must be received by September 21, 2009, 1:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. This information can be emailed to Joseph Hodges. My email address is [email protected]. Responses will be evaluated; however; a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Please no phone calls will be accepted.