Overview
Within the University of Massachusetts, our goal is to ensure purchasing practices are aligned with the development of our local and diverse communities in an equitable and sustainable manner. This mission is championed by the UMass System President, Marty Meehan, and also translates into how each Campus and the President's Office engage with our supplier base.
Our Supplier Diversity Program has been designed to ensure we continue to meet our mandate of "Better, Faster, Cheaper" while also growing our local communities.
The UPST helps drive the UMass Supplier Diversity agenda by:
- Driving outreach to local and diverse suppliers in bid/sourcing/RFx activities
- Maintaining supplier diversity certification information in the eProcurement portal
- Coordinating UMass campus-specific initiatives to drive local supplier engagement
Classifications and Partnerships
The diversity classifications below are tracked by UMass. The requirements for these classifications are aligned with the US Small Business Administration (SBA) and other organizations like NGLCC, Disability:IN,etc. :
- Small Business Enterprise (SBE)
- Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE)
- Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE)
- Service-Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (SDVBE)
- Veteran-Owned Business Enterprise (VBE)
- Disability-Owned Business Enterprises (DOBE).
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Business Enterprises (LGBTBEs)
- HubZone Small Business
UMass has established partnerships with various diverse and local partner organizations. We encourage you to visit these organizations to understand their offerings for our diverse and local communities:
Registering as a Diverse Supplier with UMass
We recommend you go through our Bid/Sourcing Event participation process as detailed below:
- Review open bid/sourcing events on our Sourcing Portal
- Select an appropriate event to participate in, click the 'Respond Now' button to participate
- Create an account to participate (for non-UMass active suppliers)
Questions
Please contact our team at upst@umassp.edu for additional information on the Supplier Diversity Program.