|
|
|
|
|
|
| Friends and AlliesIndustrial Research Institute |
| A total of 5906 small firms nationwide are currently SBIR-STTR active - of which only 679 are VC funded. |
A legitimate question:
Why have Members of Congress been hearing primarily from those representing only that 679.
This is YOUR program.
Step up and be heard!
If not you, then whom?
|
| Plan of action: |
Assuming that enough SBIR Awardees are willing to get involved, the following Plan of Attack is proposed.
This campaign is organized around two deceptively simple conditions. Knowing that for many SBIR Awardees, working in the political arena is a new (perhaps even scary) experience, please be assured that we are setting up
--to help you get started and
--to ensure that you have ongoing access to the information and support you will need.
Some of the detail of what and how is considered in Contributing to the Cause and other parts of this specially constructed site. That said, given how much there is to do, this site is still very much a work in progress.
 Educate the Members
At this point, priority is obviously to talk to your Senators. However, if you have connection to House Members, work with them too. How did they vote on H.R. 5819?)
Did they vote "Yes"?
Was that reluctant - as many members have told their constituents that they were concerned about the pending September 30 sunset. rather than chance losing a program they know to be effective and popular, they held their nose and voted for the bill.
A few have said that they just didn't know that that deceptively crafted bill would be so destructive of SBIRSome are simply having second thoughts
If any of these are the case, as few Members are doing, discuss whether they would be willing to insert a piece to that effect in the Congressional Register. This type of semi-public statement could help a lot in the Senate.
What can you do?
Emails and phone calls to the DC office are invaluable and will always be the mainstay of any campaign of this type. Spend the time to have the all-important staff are brought up to full speed with what you want them to know. Provide them with the charts and graphs and explanatory narrative to help them do their job in conveying to their Boss what you said.
HOWEVER, a major thrust should be to arranging visits while they are home in the District - weekends and over the Memorial Day one-week recess.
If your story is a good one -- and particularly if your facility makes for an interesting tour -- invite the Member (or even a senior staffer) for an on-site visit. There is almost nothing as compelling as seeing what their constituents have done with the SBIR funding.
Are you not quite ready for that?
a useful alternative is to get together with a few other local awardees and schedule a shared visit with the Member (and/or their staff) at an appropriate location
We can help
process your emails to initiate these sessions to all other awardees in your area.
get the data in your hands that will prepare you for the economic impact discussion you need to have
Secure media coverage::
NVCA and BIO have made very effective use of the media - print and electronic. There has been virtually no comparable coverage to date achieved by those trying to counter the NVCA and BIO SBIR enslaught. That needs to change.
We have initiated conversations with the Wall Street Journal and other national sources. What we had to say clearly took them by surprise as being quite different from the carefully constructed story they have heard to date.
Coverage of this very different perspective i.e. the adverse economic impact that this attack on SBIR will have, is already being given attention in our regional and local media. We need SBIR Awardees to initiate similar discussions and coverage.
|
 | | Your move. |
SBIR is being hijacked! Isn't it time for you to get involved and speak up?!
The product of over three years of sustained, powerful and well-funded lobbying on the part of BIO (Biotechology Industry Organization) and NVCA (National Venture Capital Association) on Wednesday April 23, 2008, the US House of Representatives overwhelming passed a bill - H.R. 5819. Ironically designated Modernizing the SBIR and STTR programs, it is the judgment of most long-time SBIR advocates, that H.R. 5819 is seriously flawed with innocuous-sounding provisions that will actually have the effect of excluding a major segment of the SBIR Community.
As the focus of reauthorization attention has now shifted to the Senate, let's be very clear .... buoyed by their considerable H.R. 5819 success, BIO and NVCA have major traction under their wheels. In the Senate - as in the House - NVCA and BIO have spent considerable time and even more money these passed three years and been very effective in garnering strong support among certain strategically well-placed Members.
One thing is certain - stopping them at this point will not be easy. Some of the BIO-NVCA proponents have publicly noted that they will see SBIR go down completely rather than allow reauthorization without the comprehensive VC eligibility provisions intact.
Radically changing who will get SBIR support:
Let it be clearly understood that, if anything comparable to HR 5819 passes in the Senate, the all-important diversity of talent access and technology focus which has been the hallmark and basis of the SBIR achievement as a powerful technology development and economic impact resource -- is finished.
The lion's share of SBIR-STTR resources
will be taken ONLY by firms
which meet the criteria of VC. |
They have to be stopped!
How can we fight?
In my judgment, of one thing we can be certain, that more of the same arguments offered for the passed three years to counter the BIO-NVCA positions on SBIR will not work. We have to change what we talk about.
Playing to our strengths:
TWO trump cards are held by the SBIR community - but to my knowledge these have almost never been played in this, or any other, reauthorization effort. Collectively SBIR awardees are the largest concentration of technical talent in the United States.
 with a solid, demonstrable track record of economic impact regionally and nationally. Involving far more than just firms which fit the VC profile, this story must be told.
AND a major grassroots presence. There is no well-funded, ongoing Capitol Hill presence speaking for SBIR. HOWEVER, awardees live and work in the Members' districts. That is where their voices resonate and where - if they have the right tools and information - they will be heard.
With your help and involvment, we can use
our comprehensive databases to give you what you need
to get the full SBIR-STTR story out there
|
SBIR economic impact:
SBIR reauthorization is fundamentally
NOT just about continuing SBIR as a useful small business support program;
NOR is it about arguing the nuances of who is or isn't SBIR eligible.
It is MUCH BIGGER and MORE IMPORTANT than that.
This fight - for this clearly is what this is and a nasty one at that - is about the health of our economy and the demonstrable role that SBIR firms have played - and must continue to be allowed to play - in positively contributing into that health, regionally and nationally.
Given the current state of our economy and the urgent need for increased support of technology development as THE major driver of job creation and sustainable economic growth, it is nothing short of unconscionable that the VC community would set about so systematically to address only their own agenda, to serve only their own needs by trying to exclude all but their own from access to resources needed to support important high-risk technology development effort.
As the current ad campaign being run by ASTRA (Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America) proclaims "Innovation is America's Economic Heartbeat:" SBIR Awardees in all their variations are an integral part of the Innovation Community. Individually and collectively small firms involved in SBIR have had - and are having - major economic and technical impact. This contribution and achievement is NOT peculiar to those that happen to fit the VC profile.
The stakes are high:
Given the major effort that has been (and is still being) expended by H.R. 5819 proponents, it is apparent that they consider the stakes to be high. At issue for them, at least in part, is their ability to deliver on a commitment made -- specifically, to ensure that VC funded firms of all stripes are afforded major competitive advantage over any other SBIR applicant. Their apparent total lack of consideration for (or apparently even understanding of) how that will affect the rest of the SBIR community and the US economy is disturbing ... but
for the rest of us, the stakes are even higher
.... and must drive how we set about making that challenge
The strength of SBIR:
A major underpinning of the strength and importance of the SBIR program has always been the diversity of the talent pool eligible to compete for the often critical financial support of new ideas and different approaches to address a range of technical problems.
Offered by small firms of all types from the pure start-ups to quite mature entities and everything in between; by firms which have remained - and will remain - small in specialist fields of expertise to others which got their start with funds from this important pool of high-risk, technology-development dollars but which have matured to become well-known corporations addressing very large markets, SBIR funded projects - with an investment now approaching $25B over these twenty-five years - have been at all stages in the development cycle and across the full range of technical endeavor.
In databases which, from the very earliest days of SBIR, track every aspect of every SBIR awardee and awardee over the entire life of the program, we have in exquisite detail the data documenting that diversity and those achievements. Those powerful databases can be used to show that impact.
We are willing and able to use them in this cause.
- See State relevant SBIR-STTR Data
- Examining the extent and Form of Venture Capital involvement in the federal SBIR-STTR Program - a detailed analysis based on tthe complete by-company and investor record. To be published mid-mMay 2008.
|
|
