What Is SBA's Mentor-Protégé Program?
SBA's Mentor-Protégé Program pairs a small business with an experienced mentor firm. The two can bid together as a joint venture that counts as small.
Mentor-protégé program in plain English
The All Small Mentor-Protégé Program is open to small businesses of any kind. You apply to SBA with a mentor you've already found, because SBA doesn't match you with one. An approved agreement can last up to six years.
Mentors can help with technical and management advice, loans or equity investments, subcontracts, and help performing prime contracts. SBA doesn't treat a mentor and protégé as affiliated just because of the assistance in an approved agreement.
A mentor and protégé can form a joint venture that competes for small business set-asides when the protégé is small for the contract. The protégé must perform at least 40% of the joint venture's work, and more than administrative tasks.
Related terms
- Affiliation: Affiliation means SBA adds another company's size to yours because one of you controls or can control the other, or a third party controls both.
- Subcontractor: A subcontractor is a business hired by a prime contractor to do part of a government contract. Your customer is the prime, not the agency.
- Prime contractor: A prime contractor is the business that holds a contract directly with the government. It's responsible for all the work, including any it subcontracts.
- Limitations on subcontracting: The limitations on subcontracting rule caps how much of a set-aside contract a small business can pay other firms to perform. On services, the cap is 50%.
Put it to work
- How to become a government subcontractor
- The limitations on subcontracting rule
- SBA: Mentor-Protégé Program
- 13 CFR 125.9, the program's rules
Looking for another term? Browse the full glossary or the government contracting glossary guide.