WOMEN VETERAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM (WVETP) 2024 | SB OVWV 24 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for SB OVWV 24 001

The WOMEN VETERAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM (WVETP) 2024 is a discretionary grant opportunity offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) under Funding Opportunity Number SB OVWV 24 001 (CFDA 59.044). It is designed to strengthen the nationwide pipeline of women veterans, women service members, and women military spouses who want to start or grow a small business by expanding the reach and delivery capacity of entrepreneurship training providers. Rather than asking applicants to invent a brand-new curriculum from scratch, the program is aimed at organizations that already have entrepreneurship training in place and can use federal support to market it more effectively and deliver it to more participants within the intended military-connected audiences.

The core purpose of the funding is capacity-building around outreach and training delivery. In practical terms, this means the SBA is looking for proposals that show how an organization will broaden awareness of its existing training among eligible women, increase enrollment and participation, and improve the organization’s ability to provide training services at a higher volume or with stronger infrastructure. The target participants include women who are currently serving in the military, women who previously served and are now veterans, and women military spouses. The trainees may be aspiring entrepreneurs who are still exploring business ownership or current small business owners seeking to stabilize, professionalize, or scale their operations. The overall emphasis is on entrepreneurship training as a tool for economic mobility, community development, and workforce and small business growth among military-connected women.

Eligible applicants cover a wide range of entity types, reflecting the SBA’s intent to reach communities through multiple channels. Applicants may include state governments and county governments, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, and nonprofit organizations with IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions when applying in the nonprofit category). Uniquely, the eligibility list also includes for-profit organizations, with the important limitation that the eligible for-profit category is “other than small businesses.” This suggests the program is not intended to directly fund small businesses themselves, but rather organizations capable of delivering training and support services at scale.

The funding instrument is a grant, and the activity focus spans business and commerce, community development, education, employment, and labor and training, which matches the program’s emphasis on teaching practical business skills and expanding the support ecosystem for women veteran entrepreneurship. The award ceiling is $300,000 per award, and the SBA anticipated making about six awards under this announcement. Applicants should pay close attention to the program requirement that each eligible organization may submit no more than one proposal, and that the proposal must respond to the operational areas described in the program announcement. In other words, an organization needs to choose a single, well-scoped approach that aligns with the SBA’s outlined operational expectations rather than submitting multiple competing project ideas.

Timing details provided in the notice indicate the opportunity was created on February 20, 2024, with an original closing date of March 21, 2024. Any organization considering this opportunity would need to plan around that submission deadline (or confirm whether any amendments or extensions were issued), and should be prepared to clearly describe its existing entrepreneurship training program, explain how grant funds will increase marketing reach and delivery capacity for the intended population, and demonstrate readiness to implement the proposed work within the grant period and reporting requirements typical of federal awards.

• The Small Business Administration in the business and commerce, community development, education, employment, labor and training sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "WOMEN VETERAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM (WVETP) 2024" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 59.044.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-02-20.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-03-21. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses.

Apply for SB OVWV 24 001

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