Who Gets to Compete: The Small Business Story Inside Our Impact Report
Many capable businesses are shut out of major contracts long before a bid is ever submitted. They lack certification, or bonding capacity, or financing, or the back-office systems a large buyer expects. Sometimes they simply are not in the rooms where opportunities circulate. Talent is not the problem. Access is.
Our FY 2025/2026 Impact Report shows what changes when those gaps close before they become disqualifications.
Contracts. Through SupplyPHL, the active firm portfolio grew from 32 to 50. Sixty of 110 bids became contracts, worth $48.5 million. Firms secured $12 million in new bonding capacity and $2.3 million in financing. Thirty-four earned M/W/DSBE certification and 23 earned LBE certification. SupplyPHL works through a five-partner ecosystem with The Enterprise Center, The Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, Done & Done, Money Honey, and the City of Philadelphia.
Launches. Participants in the Urban League Entrepreneurship Center secured $5.4 million in contracts and $1.5 million in financing, created 167 jobs, and launched 16 businesses. Nicola Timoll came through the 90-Day Business Launch Challenge with an idea and left with a plan, a $1,000 Business Launch Grant, and a brick-and-mortar home for Meal Inna Cup.
Capital. This year ULGP moved from helping entrepreneurs prepare for capital to providing it directly. Urban League of Greater Philadelphia Community Impact Financing launched and originated its first two loans, totaling $27,000. One of them was a $10,000 microenterprise loan to Frontline Tavern in Chester.
Gabriella Paez, founder of BR Hardscape and Landscape Design, shows how those pieces fit together. She came for coaching, procurement support and affordable refinancing. Her revenue grew more than 25 percent, with five new contracts, three new full-time jobs, roughly $100,000 in grant funding, and a loan from our CDFI.
Advice can strengthen a business. Capital gives that business the power to act on what it has learned. That is the economic mobility work, and October is a good month to see it plainly.
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