With an historic investment in public spaces, Philadelphia’s Rebuild program is committed to equity in the process

Jobs in the construction industry are family-sustaining careers that have proven to lift families out of intergenerational poverty. Historically speaking, those same opportunities have traditionally been reserved for white men. According to the Bureau of Labor Statics, in 2020 more than 60 percent of construction workers were white, with only 5 percent identifying as Black and only 10 percent female.

In 2017 the mayor of Philadelphia in partnership with the city council announced the creation of Rebuild Philadelphia, the city’s $450+ million program to improve more than 70 parks, recreation centers and libraries in high-need, neglected neighborhoods. The investment is a step in the right direction to create a more equitable Philadelphia, and leaders also realized that the buying power of $450+ million created an opportunity to strengthen minority and women owned businesses in the process.

Commit to investing in minority- and women-owned businesses
An organization’s verbal commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion are the first step, but at Rebuild, our commitment goes further. Strict and ambitious goals are written into the city’s legislation for both professional services and construction contracts requiring our team to ensure our opportunities are available to diverse firms.

Like many municipalities, the city of Philadelphia has been governed by the idea that the “lowest bid wins” on RFP responses, which from one perspective is seen as a cost-saving measure for taxpayers. At Rebuild, a first step in empowering diverse businesses was to remove the lowest bid requirement. Recognizing that majority firms have benefitted from decades of institutional discrimination which allowed them to win business, grow and offer more competitive bids, allowed them a distinct advantage when responding to a low-bid RFP.

At Rebuild, we’re governed by “best value,” which takes into account many factors such as prior work experience, qualified staff to complete the job, an understanding that access to capital and the ability to purchase at volume may be different than that of a majority firms, and minority- and women-owned business enterprise (MWBE) status. This approach allows our team to approach contracting in a different way, and the proof is in the results. To date, Rebuild has spent $86.5 million—39.6 percent of those dollars were awarded to minority business enterprises (MBEs) and 25.8 percent were awarded to women-owned business enterprises (WBEs), for a total of 65.4 percent of contracted dollars going to diverse businesses.

Commit to contracting with diverse businesses, but commit to building the pipeline, too.
Municipal bid opportunities are coveted, but anyone who’s dealt with a bid process knows it’s not a simple process. To effectively submit a proposal with all the documentation required, a firm needs to invest in back-office support to develop those proposals. Smaller, diverse businesses often lack the resources to adequately create and submit the responses.

Rebuild has developed two programs that help small, diverse businesses learn and acquire the skills needed to competitively bid on, and win, contracts.

First, the Rebuild Ready program helps small businesses based in Philadelphia become certified and registered as a MBE or WBE. Rebuild assists and helps with navigating:

• Meeting bonding and insurance requirements
• Accessing capital and financing
• Developing bids and managing cash flow
• Gaining access to technical assistance and back-office supports (e.g. book-keeping)
• Gaining access to networking events that connect diverse businesses with the nonprofits managing Rebuild projects

Second, Rebuild’s Emerging Vendors Program helps design and construction businesses garner minority- or woman-owned business certification. This valuable designation can be complicated and time-consuming for small businesses to pursue. The value add is that participating businesses receive expert assistance to work toward permanent minority- or woman-owned certification for all city contracts.

We recognize that this is just the start. Rebuild is proving that bid and contract process changes can start to shift the disparity in the construction industry. To continue this impact at scale, we ask public and private sector businesses to offer both the supports needed to build the pipeline of minority and women-owned businesses, and the contract opportunities for them to grow.

Kira Strong, executive director for the city of Philadelphia’s Rebuilding Community Infrastructure initiative (Rebuild). Before leading the program, Strong served as Rebuild’s deputy director of design and construction. Prior to joining the Rebuild team, Strong served as the vice president of community and economic development for the People’s Emergency Center, a non-profit community development corporation in Philadelphia. She currently serves on the Slought Foundation board and on the advisory committees of the Community Design Collaborative and the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations.