Further Discovery: A Primer on Federal Funding for ESOs

All right, well, while we wait for Victor to join us, maybe we can. I'll just. It'll be like the airplanes, right? You are currently in a session on further discovery, so we're following up that primer for funding, federal funding for entrepreneur support organizations, and this will be a more, you know, open conversation. If we're having any technical difficulties with people getting in to share their audio and video, please do put your questions in the chat and we'll. You know, I don't know, what was it called? Like, the cable TV sort of thing? We'll just. We'll. We'll answer your questions, but first, it is my great pleasure to get to introduce Brittany Sickler, who wasn't with us on the panel, but I would say Brittany Sickler is The reason why SBA's Office of Investment and Innovation actually cares about ecosystems. So everybody here can thank Brittany, even though she has gone on to bigger and better things with larger budgets. Oh, Jen, would you like to introduce your current role?

Sure. Before I do that, though, I will say, as with most things, there's always a team behind what ends up happening. So, Jen, it's great to see what you've been able to do at SBA over the last now almost six years and where things are here with the summit and then where they're going. So I love the time that I was at SBA and also appreciate many of you that I still interact with now in my current role. So I'm over at the Economic Development Administration, which is under Commerce, and I'm in the Office of Regional affairs, working in a new area, a new team called Networks. And the great thing is, you know, we talk about a network of networks, we talk a lot about communities of practice, which we actually have some funded awards in my portfolio on that. And so much of our approach, even, and how we're able to support stakeholders stems from this community. And so it's great to look back there, but what we're involved in is really trying to help a lot of. Not just EDA's grantees, of which many are in the SBA world as well, but other stakeholders in the economic development spectrum be able to connect and be able to have a deeper impact at scale. So we have communes of practice. We have an upcoming fellows program, a lot of learnings that kind of surround the work. So we don't actually have funding ourselves for esos, for groups, but we are good connectors across. So happy to be here today.

And we are so, so happy to have you here. And welcome back. Victor oh, almost. Hopefully he can still hear us. But actually so you know, there are a couple of questions in, in the chat on sort of the, the eligibility and funding availability and say eligibility. Right. So somebody asked about whether local community network ESOs have to be non profits and I think Scott, that will be really dependent on. Oh, lost Victor. You know, one thing I will say is if you're on a vpn, you might need to check to cancel that. But so different funding opportunities are going to have different requirements about whether you're a for profit. Because there was also a question about funding available for for profit incubators for profit or nonprofit. Brittany, I don't know if you can speak to any eligibility requirements around some of the major ESO funding for from eda.

Yeah, I think, I'm not sure if Amanda was able to share fully on the panel, but EDA basically due to the type of funding that we have available for us, we do kind of have a hard and fast line where we're not able to fund for profit entities in EDA funding and this is across our programs. So whether it's on that the opposite innovation, entrepreneurship, the build to scale STEM or even through the regional offices, there's a lot of incubators, accelerators that are funded through our regular programming. Those have to either be a non profit affiliated, possibly with a local or regional government entity, academic institution and there's a variety and we can go into that more. But, but unfortunately I see there were a couple other questions on for profits and at EDA specifically we're not able to.

And for the Small Business Administration actually there are generally for profit organizations, particularly if you are a small business yourself, would be eligible for a number of funding opportunities. So the Administrator announced the 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, that is a prize competition and nonprofits and for profits will be eligible. I'll also call out or recently the Regional Innovation Clusters program from SBA again the Small Business Administration did, was specifically a funding opportunity via a contracting mechanism for for profit small business entities. And thank you for the reminder to use full names, not acronyms. And so Edgar asked about funding available for Web3 based ESOs, you know, decentralized autonomous organizations that support entrepreneurs through funding via smart contracts. That sounds, I mean, so I know. So what I'd say around that is that does sound like a pretty unique structure and I think at its core is how for a particular funding opportunity you identify how you match that opportunity. Right. And the goals of what the federal agency is trying to accomplish with that funding opportunity. So Generally it's going to be, you know, do you have, are you eligible? So we just talked about a little bit about, you know, making sure to look at those eligibility rules around for profit or nonprofit, whether you have to be formally linked to a state or local government. And so that's it. And then I think in terms of how you support entrepreneurs, that will again, sort of, that will be part of the innovative description of how you are doing, achieving the mission that a particular agency is looking at. I'm going to look in the Q and A. So there's a question in the Q and A. How does EDA or SBA or doe, if we can get Victor back, think about assessing regional ecosystem gaps in program and funding planning? Brittany, I think this is a good question for you.

Oh, there's so many things to talk about in terms of gaps. I think just an interesting thing as people are starting to navigate some of the agencies is so at the Economic Development Administration I referenced, we have an office, Innovation Entrepreneurship. Amanda Costi was just on that panel and they run a competitive program that has a couple different arms, a few sub programs. So I'm going to throw that link in the chat. And this program really does include or require information on how the programming is going to align with and fit across the region. So in terms of gaps, the way that what's proposed is able to be tailored to fit is very unique. And there's even a staggered approach where it's not just one set dollar amount across. So really it's adjustable based on what's being proposed and what's needed, I'll say for our six regional offices that EDA has, we have what's called Economic Adjustment Assistance, EAA funding. And really where EDA has come into play through history is being able to make this difference in distressed areas. And so there's a lot of tools and way that tools and ways that distress is measured. And that's where we're really trying to target funding towards those gaps. And so a lot of the ESO related projects would have to align with some of that regional planning. There's what we call comprehensive economic development strategies, a SEDS or an equivalent. And then what the plus side of that is our economic development district, some other planning partners are able to help, especially if you're a newer entity able to help you kind of through this process even before you start, of how you would align your work with EDA and how that might complement some of the other efforts. So ends up being a positive for folks that are eligible because they're able to frame again what they're working on in terms of how they're going towards even working with others to fit that gap.

Thanks. And I guess I can, I'll try to answer around at least for around SBA and how we think about the gaps because, you know, whenever we're designing new funding opportunities. Right. We do think about that in terms of the program or funding planning. So I'll talk about the 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Growth Accelerator Fund competition, which has evolved since 2014, and one of the learnings there that I think we're taking from both just the wealth of new programs that came in through Covid Relief, such as the American Rescue Plan act, the NSF Regional Innovation Engines programs, things that we've heard that, you know, it's a similar community of organizations that might be interested in that funding and supporting regional innovation is where are there gaps? So one, as Brittany was describing, some of the eligibility and the rules around applying for funding through eda, one of the reasons for that is because it is tied to their legislative authority and like specific legislation that says this money has to be spent as a grant or cooperative agreement. And so that's one of those restrictions around how the money gets distributed from an agency. And so that also requires very specific bureaucratic things like having to apply through grants.gov for example, with the Growth Accelerator Fund competition, then. Well, so one thing I'll say about that is then that does tend to bias towards people who have already applied in the past. Right. Because you have to go through all of those, the bureaucratic, bureaucratic things. So what Victor brought up during the panel earlier was that many agencies are trying to make use of prize authority to allow for more new organizations and applicants to apply through easier processes and maybe also lower the total amount of funding so that as stewards of federal of U.S. taxpayer dollars, we have to balance the, you know, the potential risk or perceived risks with the ability to experiment and learn. And so prize competitions, if you're, if you haven't applied to for federal funding in the past, are probably one of the easier ways to get sort of into funding. And so the 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, one of the gaps we're trying to fill there was this ability to provide kind of smaller dollar awards that will allow more new entrants in to show and demonstrate capacity and capability. And we've heard that some of our past Growth Accelerator Fund awardees were able to then use the results from that to build on applying for federal grants later, like EDA's build to scale program, for example. And Victor.

Yeah, I was gonna see. Can you hear me? Yes, thanks.

Welcome back.

20 minutes of tech, tech difficulties but I'm here.

You know, it always happens. I think for any organization that is associated with technology and innovation, we tend to have the worst problems with tech. But there was. So let's see. So there's some questions around and I think this.

Well, just to your last point actually like DOE has seen a lot of success with its prize entrance flowing into its SBIR program. And so I would encourage groups, if they're dealing with any kind of startup or small business, to point them to the prize programs first. And you can do that by just going to the DOE's, you know, just Google American made challenges that has all of our prizes across almost every technology area for a good place to start.

Actually around the prizes, I would like to highlight challenge.gov so obviously I mentioned that we don't have every agency represented here, but many agencies, if they're going to have a prize competition, they will publish it on challenge.gov so there's also a question around, you know, the link for the 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund competition. The specific competition guidelines and details are not published yet, but I can say that it is going to be in two stages. So I think I started to talk about that, but that was one of those learnings also beyond the gaps that we were filling is that we are going to have two stages. Stage one is really going to be kind of a planning effort around planning for partnerships and we are going to have a, we're going to have a webinar to talk about this next Thursday. So here's our Drip campaign.

That's exciting, Jen. I think, you know, on the partnership side, it's obviously helpful to find folks that you might want to connect with, especially for this, the competition. But another thing I wanted to bring up was if there are especially there's organizations involved that have received funding from one of these programs in the past. There's, there's a lot of great stories too of stacking or even sequencing some of the funding. So for instance, I know a couple of you have received Growth accelerator funding from SBA in the past that I know went on to compete for and, and win some EDA funding at the Najama administration. Some complemented that with DOE and funding available there. So there, there are some really great stories of folks that were able to, you know, kind of take an assessment of their needs, look to these programs and to the extent possible, especially with timing and obviously the competitive nature, but really be able to leverage or even test out some of their theories or ideas and then push the boundaries where they can, whether it's, you know, again, from doe, SBA or eda. When we talk about that acronym soup.

I wanted to address one of the questions in the Q and A is about funding, whether there's funding available for entrepreneurs or small business owners with a past criminal background. And so, you know, we were talking about equity and inclusion and who has been kept out of different programs in the past. And I will say, you know, there, there has been an effort both on the SBA side as well as the Minority Development Agency actually to, to focus on formerly incarcerated persons and having entrepreneurship pathways available because that is, it's, it's a, you know, when there are barriers to more traditional employment, then being an entrepreneur and a business owner yourself is actually a really kind of valuable pathway to participating in the economy. So I don't have the specific information. I don't know if there were actually specific grants or funding, but I know that there were some programs there. So I'll put in reply to your question just the information from the mbda. And I know that I had seen efforts from SBA as well.

I see a couple of comments. I think that we got some entrepreneurs in the mix. Great. Keeping our core focus here up front. But I think what we're going to focus on, Jen, correct me if I'm wrong, we're focusing on the funding for program support. Those, the organizations and the entities that are going around the entrepreneurs and kind of making, helping with that expertise, the connections, being better prepared for funding. But I know that SBA and DOE can talk specific to small business, some small business opportunities as well. But just wanted to reference that in case folks are seeing a mix.

Yes. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that's a common theme I'd say has been around more at least, you know, as I was saying, like we're going towards more funding to support and facilitate partnerships. Is that something that either of your agencies is working on in particular? I mean, I guess your whole job, Brittany, is to facilitate collaboration and learning. But are there funding opportunities specifically around that?

Well, as I mentioned, Jen, you're putting me in a bad light here saying I have all this money around the support. We're a bit limited, but I think that a lot of folks are looking towards what's going to happen with the Economic Development Administration here in the future. We're going pending a few exciting things on legislation, but regardless of what Happens with the some of the bigger potential programs around tech hubs. We still have our programs and especially for this crew, referencing a build to scale. The 2022 awardees were announced not too long ago. I put a, I'll put a link in here again, but you can kind of get a flavor for what was funded both in kind of a more traditional support side. Also building up some seed fund networks. So appropriate place to talk about seed funding here at the America Seed Fund. And also there's a STEM talent challenge with interesting kind of complement to their work. They'll be announced next year. So we don't have anything open for those national programs at the moment. But a couple comments I made in the chat revolved around our regional offices. And not to send everyone there in a huge flock, but if you are trying to build up your connections and especially in this economic development space, I do recommend looking at what regional office you relate to and finding your economic development representative. Because when there might be a time to start putting together or join in on a proposal application, they're going to have a different level of flexibility than our national program programs.

Oh, go ahead.

Yeah, so DOE definitely has some funding programs specifically around trying to help the partnerships. And you know, the, the one I mentioned today was the Energy program for Innovation Clusters. It's obviously nowhere near the size of some of the EDA programs, but it's doe's kind of main program to work with that and it's supposed to be recurring every year. For the last several years we've been appropriated roughly $5 million to help these organizations and we've developed a three stage prize program to make it super low barrier and encourage kind of the development of new things. And then the other thing I'll say is that infrastructure law is this huge monolith of funding, but it takes a while to program around that. We had to start all new offices. We were gonna reorganize the entire department. So things are really just starting to kick into gear. You're starting to see some notices of intent and some actual funding opportunity announcements go out. And there is a major effort around what's being called technical assistance, which is basically the bread and butter of esos. So I do expect a large, maybe not a large number of programs, but some significant opportunities coming out of doe. I would say in the next year or two as that infrastructure work starts to really accelerate.

And how would, what, what are the best ways for people to stay in the know on when those opportunities come up and come out?

So there's, there's one key office, the, you know, Office of Clean Energy Demonstration. O said, you know, if you go to their website, I'm sure they have a newsletter you can sign up for. The one I always point people to is the American Made Network. We've invested quite a bit in standing up the National Renewable Energy Lab as our what's called a prize administrator. Anytime you run a prize, the law requires a prize administrator. So NREL is that for us and therefore they have stood up this America Made Challenges. America Made Network that lets ESOS know about both prize opportunities as well as traditional funding opportunities that are coming out of the department. It's sort of the best resource we have to target our communication towards those groups.

If you have a link for that, maybe you could throw that into the chat and I will ask One of the latest questions is around how the agencies build capacity to work with esos. So the, the person asking the question works for a local government and it'd be helpful to learn how they can leverage our learnings and programs to structure initiatives that are closer to the ground. Brittany, do you want to tackle that first or I can, I can.

Try.

To answer for SBA in terms of just in general, you know, looking to partner with local government on that precisely because we're, we want to. It's kind of that, I guess we were talking about reciprocity in that last panel and so being able to design programs and learnings from, from the people that are closer to the ground and how to structure for flexibility because we know that closer to the ground is you need to be able to respond to the needs of your communities and if we over. Over design then that might prevent some of those things from happening. So building capacity work with ESO is what I one thing I would say is just also maybe it's a.

I'm.

Going to put in a plug for bringing you in to possibly work for the federal government. All of agencies are hiring so we love to bring people in so you bring your perspective directly into helping design things.

Yeah, that's a good point. Doe's hiring like a thousand people right.

Now and SBA has always been underst.

I was going to say, I think that might be an underestimate to you. He's really going out out there.

Yeah, we're, we're going a lot of money. So if there's any interest, there's the clean energy co core. If you just search for that, that's how all of those applications are being received. And I also just threw in a link for the American Bay Network and then below that the new office called SCEP or it's this state and Community Energy Programs. They're actually very well resourced. New office also hiring and that office would I if I were one of these organizations, I'd probably try and check that website and sign up for their newsletter. If they don't have one, I'm sure they'll have one soon. But that is the one. It consolidated a bunch of different efforts in DOE into a state and local government office that can work directly with them.

Thanks, that's fascinating. Victor. I just wanted to call out a little bit separate so you know, if you can't come join us. Here is just highlighting at eda the fascinating thing about the structure was a push to have decision making kind of out of DC and spread more evenly throughout regions so that EDA could be more responsive on a local level. So many of the programs, I think a hard thing for us is trying to describe some of the typical programs, how they're structured in terms of the funding because it's not similar. I talked to some folks in Alabama and they were able to use EDA funding to expand sewer lines so that their kind of technology park could grow. Talk to someone else who in their area EDA funding was able to be used to lengthen an airstrip so that there could be additional or different kinds of flights that could work in the supply chain in the area. Then I talked to an accelerator that's trying to build out a fabrication lab and so on. There's lots of different kinds of projects, but it is at that local level and it does tie back to some of those strategies and even you know, data around the areas. When we talk about distress, so it's not just stress, it's the distress side. So but the great thing is for many of you that means there's a lot of resources, there's a lot of flexibility to design and kind of stack Again if you're going after something from doe, from SBA and there's a need to fill in especially on, I think, you know, speaking to SBI and a little bit better. It's challenging. You can't really fund infrastructure, you can't fund building. Whereas EDA is able to do that in a way that complements that other work.

And I would just say at doe, for all this infrastructure work we're supposed to be doing that these are going to be like 100 million to like maybe even a billion dollar awards across things like direct air capture, hydrogen hubs, you know, large scale storage and things like that. And all of them need places to be built. So if that is probably one of the easiest ways to partner or maybe most straightforward, where these big groups winning a lot of funding will need a place to build. And state and local communities are going to be critical to finding sites for the future cutting edge technologies. And, you know, the. The more innovative the community and accepting of various technologies and being able to be nimble with permitting, I think the. The more likely they would be able to receive a large demonstration project that would bring, you know, economic development and jobs to their community. So it's definitely something to. To keep in mind and look out for, because those funding opportunities are coming out between now, I'd say in two years from now. And that is the opportunity to get that innovation cited at your location. It wouldn't be something that's going to happen over and over again unless maybe some additional laws are passed. But this is sort of a unique opportunity.

So there's a more personal question. Why do. For all of us, why do you do this work? And what change do you hope the esos you support will make in the world? Anybody want to take that one first?

Brittany, you want to go first?

You. Victor is good. No, I. No. So, so what. What helps or what propels us to do this work, Jen, and what we want the esos to accomplish, I think for me at least, there's a lot of reasons why I love being in this space. For the last, you know, actually almost 20 years, I've been in anywhere from working in microfinance and the tiniest of small businesses to some broader economic development work, even out of the country and back here across from coast to coast, Midwest. And what I find fascinating is in this exchange of where people are passionate, where we have the ideas, where we have the access and we can connect dots to. To make things better. And whether that's in an entrepreneur being able to create their. Their company, whether that's a community that can have a place that is strong, resilient, and be able to have all the other pieces that go alongside the society in terms of education and health. So for me, entrepreneurship has always just been a huge place of that, the creativity, the growth, some of those best things in our society, how we can challenge each other. And so not being an entrepreneur myself, and actually, the longer I've worked with entrepreneurs, I think I respect them even more for the risk and the grit, but playing a role in that larger system of, you know, how can folks overcome barriers, wade through regulation, partner on that state, federal Government side, there's a lot of challenges. So how can we come together to break down challenges? That's what I love to hear from our esos. And how can we all do that in different ways?

All right, tough act to follow, but I'll just say, in my experience, it's an odd person that really loves to work in government, but I guess I'm one of them, because you can apply your efforts and actually get funding out to really exciting people. And if you. If there aren't enough people in government, that money gets really, really bogged down and you actually have to fight it through the system to get it out, because justifiably so, you know, there are a lot of restrictions on how to spend taxpayer funds. But once you learn how to do it over. Over several years, you have a unique skill set where you can help drive funding programs towards the people that can actually make an impact. And so seeing that over the years, you know, fighting for a notional idea and then. And then seeing it actually released to the public is pretty rewarding, and I like it. However, there are a lot of very mundane days full of paperwork and processing that are required to lead to that. But I'm happy to do it to try and make sure we can keep building out programs that can help organizations like the ones on the event today.

Yeah, And I think for me, there's actually probably a combination of. That's why I always like to go last, because I can just say, like, yeah, that. Ditto. But I, you know, I probably have an uncommon background for working in. At the Small Business Administration, which is. I have a PhD in neuroscience, and I used to look at cells under a microscope for most of my career. You know, really, I went into science because I wanted to have a positive impact on the world, and I see entrepreneurship as actually the way to make that science happen and be useful in the world. And so, you know, I think I came to government for a short fellowship, like, two years, and now it's been over 10 years. And that's part of it is because I get to work with this amazing community. I thought that the bureaucracy would kill me, and instead, it's just, you know, I see it as there's some interesting problems to try to solve. I really love all of the doers that we get to work with in particular. And so that's, you know, one of the things I hope the esos that we support are going to. And I see them and you who are here being very collaborative, I think, you know, trying to. We're trying to solve big, hard problems. And I am looking for that, the collaborative nature of how we all have different perspectives and skills and assets to share to solve those problems. And so there's another question in the chat about or in the Q and A on for larger projects, how much risk analysis is done on the federal agency side when considering funding proposals? And so maybe Brittany or Victor, you can talk a little bit about some of, you know, especially some of these large awards, what goes into sort of the review before making a funding decision? And I will say just so. Before I came to the Small Business Administration, I worked on America's seed Fund at the agency level. I was at the National Institutes of Health. So my first exposure to the federal government in making these sorts of decisions on funding was for phase one small business innovation research application. That was 150, $50,000. And how many hours and people time and effort went into fighting for, like, one application to be funded. And, you know, so I was, I was really impressed with how much diligence there was. But also, you know, again, that balance of it's $150,000. Do we need to do as much to, you know, analysis on this to make those funding decisions? But we also know the people applying put in a lot of effort as well.

So.

Risk analysis and review.

Well, I could talk about this for like an hour just because of how crazy the process is, but DOE and I'm sure all government organizations take the review process extremely seriously. And to your point, Jennifer, like, even if it's just $150,000, you run it through something very similar to like $10 million. And that's actually something I've been working on with the prize authority. But if you're funding to traditional financial assistance, you go through what is called a merit review process. Ours has a concept paper, which is a lighter touch review, where we encourage and discourage applications to try and save time. Even discourage applicants can still submit full applications. And then the full applications are submitted and put through an external review panel, typically three to four external views with different backgrounds. Their comments are combined. We get them together, everybody together. We used to before COVID and then talk about it, debate. And then you have someone called a technology manager that will basically take on your application and defend it, like a PhD thesis where they're just getting darts thrown at them, coming up with a million reasons not to fund each application and they have to fight for you. And so I mentioned earlier in the session that giving those people the information and ammunition they need to help you get through the Gauntlet is what they're trying to do when they write the instructions on how to apply. So all that to say this review process I think is second to none now that they are put through a crazy amount of detail. Now with prizes we try to change that. Anything under a million dollars, the first prizes you know are $50,000. Those are just a five page application in a 90 second video and a small panel can make those selections very quickly. So we can get funds out the door in like a month. Whereas the larger programs ramp up the level of things that they need including like for O said they're going to do techno economic analysis, full technology validation and vetting, site visits, things like this. Before they would give out $100 million.

Wow.

Monthly Jer. That's very fast.

Yeah, prices are great.

I know they are. I missed them. We don't have prize competitions currently at eda but we're looking at making or asking for some changes for that. But just similar to Victor that at EDA funding the support organizations or you know, we're looking more broad even to economic development organizations. EDOs there, what's interesting is that there is both what we call a technical review. So looking at that eligibility portion. But in the merit review Most of EDA's programs, including the regional offices go through investment review committees. And that is almost similar to a panel in a sense. But it's a great opportunity. I think it really goes to the benefit of a lot of the applicants for discussion to take place. And it's holistic in terms of, you know, not only just meeting the requirements but having that legal vision and also the programmatic vision altogether. And so it ends up helping a lot of those grants be stronger. I'll say that for my portfolio which is mainly cooperative agreements. It also gives us an opportunity to kind of round out the final edge of that award to really meet the needs of the program. So we try to do, when it's a program especially that's going to come back, we try to do some debriefs and especially in the regional office they typically are maintaining these relationships so folks know what's not going well or not meeting. But ideally we were going to hit that before it gets to the review stage. So I think there's really a big push that we're not just trying to get applications in, we don't get any bonuses for getting extra ones in. And so you know, obviously we want things that are, that are high quality. So a lot of it, you know, we appreciate the pushback from the community and from all of you of what's not clear in those funding opportunities and where help is needed. And much of my focus now is how can we even now help potential applicants be better prepared and fill in technical assistance from earlier on?

So there's a high level question and I think it links back to a specific question also on somebody's particular organization, whether it be the right fit. And so I think what I'll do is sort of take that as a whole, which is one at the macro level. What are agencies looking for in 2023, like goals, priorities and focus areas? So you know, like where would somebody go to find out from from any agency really probably to identify where are we going to focus and then in terms of specific funding opportunities. Right. Like how do they know if their organization has the right mission alignment?

Right.

Like are they, how would they know if they're well aligned with that priority or focus area, where should they go look? And I know EDA specifically has a page, so I'm going to go to Brittany first.

Are you talking about our investment priorities, Jen? Yes, I am. Yeah. Yeah, I can put that link there. It's really helpful to give a signal to folks especially, you know, kind of throughout the regions, not every project has to have every investment priority, but how do the programs that are being proposed or the projects fit? At the top of the list is equity. And so we go into a little bit of how that is kind of infused and can be found in a project. But then we go down and it does, I think a few, probably most relevant in this space, we have technology based economic development as one of our investment priorities. We actually have manufacturing there. We have even on the, the export side. So it's really, you know, looking at what you're already doing and making sure that it aligns with where EDA wants to see some of our investments. But resiliency, quite a few words that we do give some description on and, and we can help walk you through that process.

And you know, one of the things that I'll say in terms of at a very high level where you can start to see the agency priorities and where you'll probably see a lot of specific language that gets called out in any new funding opportunities that come out. There are a couple places to look at and one is generally for any administration, there will be executive orders, there will be, that will flow down. There's also what's called, you know, the President's budget request. So the president's budget request. There's like this whole process. You don't have to worry about, but it is a way to know like, where are the top level signals coming from the White House to tell the agencies what they should be focusing on? And that comes out very early. So for example, every summer typically there is a Research and Development Priorities memo that comes from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. So if you're interested in like, what are the specific research and development topics that might be end up having to get flowed down to any funding opportunities that come from an agency, they'll often be signaled at a very high level from like this budget memo from last summer. So you know, we work in three year budget cycles basically. But so, and then of course any of these large funding bills again will signal what Congress wants each of the agencies to focus on in terms of their priorities.

Yeah, and when a budget passes, you can actually go in and you'll see looking at the same thing we are, you know, this office shall run a $20 million program to do X, Y and Z. And you know, generally some of the funding is flexible where you can, you can maneuver into the programs you think are most important. But other times Congress says you're going to run a program like this, this. And so if you see language like that and you can understand sort of the government funding cycle, we are maybe going to see an FY23 budget passed here in the next few weeks or a few months. But we can't really run our programs until that passes. So then it passes and then there's sort of this rush to get our funding opportunities out so that we can hopefully obligate our funds by the end of the fiscal year, which is September, and then we do it all over again. So, so the, the funding programs tend to come out between like now and March if, if the budget's in a nice healthy schedule. But if the budget is a, a bunch of continuing resolutions, it can really disrupt our ability to issue our funding programs. But when a budget passes, that is a great signal to the, the public about what funding programs are coming up. So you can look at that and, and start thinking about if they're appropriate.

It is sadly time to wrap up this session. Thank you so much, Victor and Brittany for sharing your expertise and of course sharing your talents with the federal government. I put into the a link in the chat for basically a fact sheet for the SBA Innovation Ecosystem Network, which we hope you'll join. And so one of the other things I was going to say was if you like this, then you should come to our monthly SBA Innovation Ecosystem Network call because we bring in our federal partner agencies to speak with entrepreneur support organizations every month. And then we also share, you know, other funded partners sharing practices. So it's kind of an hour monthly gathering that's similar to the summit. So please do head to the main stage where we'll be going gathering for our next panel on building bridges between ESOs and academic institutions. Thank you.

Bye. Thanks, Chen. Thanks, Victoria.