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Vendors should first register with USF's purchasing department by submitting the vendor application form and required attachments.

Yes. USF's Office of Supplier Development and Engagement encourages all minority, women, veteran and service-disabled veteran businesses to connect directly with USFOSD by submitting the USFOSD Certified Supplier form, along with your business's capability statement and all federal, state, city or other recognized certifying body certifications.

USF recognizes the following certifications:

Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE)
Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE)
Veteran-Owned Business Enterprise (VBE) or (VET)
Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business (SDVOB)
Small Business Administration 8(a) (SBA 8(a))
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE)

For more information, visit the Recognized Certifications page.

Qualifying small-, minority-, women-, veteran- and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses should be certified by one of the following certifying entities: Florida State Minority Supplier Development Council (FSMSDC), Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), State of Florida Department of Management Services (DMS), U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), and Florida's Department of Transportation's (FDOT).

For more information, visit the Recognized Certifications page.

General qualifications for certification through the State of Florida's Department of Management Services, the state's office of supplier diversity, include 51% or more ownership of firm by a qualifying minority, woman or veteran, control of the business enterprise, and U.S. citizenship among others.

More information about USF's current business opportunities can be found in the Find Opportunities page and under "Additional Purchasing Resources" in Register with USF Purchasing.

USFOSD has compiled a listing by department and college of contacts. This information can be found under Find a Contact at USF. We encourage you to use this information strategically to introduce yourself and your business.

The USF Office of Supplier Development and Engagement is here to help you by connecting your business directly to relevant University buyers. USFOSD will share your business capability statements and profiles with USF departments and colleges, share information with you regarding vendor fairs and educational resources, and spotlight selected diverse businesses via Facebook and Twitter, as well as on the Office of Supplier Development and Engagement website.

Connect with USFOSD on social media by following and liking our page on and . You will receive all the latest news and information on upcoming events, as well as helpful tips and resources

USF buyers can find you if you have been added to the USFOSD Certified Supplier database. To be added you need to submit the USFOSD certified supplier form and the required documentation.

Supplier diversity is a proactive business strategy that seeks to provide suppliers equal access to sourcing and purchasing opportunities. This is important to USF because this positions the University to continue to create a platform of economic growth and development for the diverse business community in the Tampa Bay region. In addition, a diverse supply chain affords USF access to vendors who are proving they can provide better pricing, products and service offerings, in some cases, and also helps USF's supply chain better reflect the demographics of our community.

By considering a diverse business before making any purchase – big or small. Make a true "Good Faith" effort in including diverse businesses when getting quotes and making vendor selections.

Find a Vendor in our diverse vendor database. Vendors are categorized by goods, services and construction with specific sub-categories.

For more information or assistance in finding a vendor, visit or contact USFOSD directly at: 813-974-5052.

For all procurements with a diverse business, please track and report the spend using the Spend Reporting Form. For construction projects, tier 2 reporting is required. For more information, visit here.

Let us know! Email osd@usf.edu with a description of the goods, services or project you require and any vendor requirements you may have. USFOSD will work to find a diverse vendor that fits your needs. Allow for 48 hours to process your request

Yes! Every purchase you make from $1 to $1 million matters. With your help we can positively impact economic growth and development for families and communities right here in Tampa Bay.

For more information, visit Benefits of Supplier Diversity

Your support is invaluable! Help us get the word out to your fellow USF teammates about the USF Supplier Diversity initiatives and let's make an impact together. Also, if you come across a great diverse business, let us know! We want to spread the word about them throughout USF and with your help, we can increase our diverse business utilization substantially.

Also, don't forget to connect with USFOSD on and to be informed of the latest news and developments of USF's supplier diversity program

There is a significant disparity in our utilization of black owned businesses and we need to focus on this area. Over 60% of our diverse owned spend is with WBEs, which is very disproportionate. We are trying to spread our spend across all categories.

You can ask them if they are certified as diverse business. If not, ask if they are eligible. You can direct them to contact USF OSD for assistance with the certification process.

Like every category of vendors they may be issues. Let OSD help you find good vendors to work with.

If a CBE holds a prime contract, they are still required to report their subcontractor spend to USF. We do not double count this participation.

At this time we are not requiring vendors to be certified but will likely change. You can still utilize the vendor. If you know a vendor is not certified they should be encouraged to certify and they can contact USF OSD for assistance.

At this time we are not requiring vendors to be certified but will likely change. If you know a vendor is not certified they should be encouraged to certify and they can contact USF OSD for assistance.

Yes, at this time we are allowing businesses to self-certify. However, we do want to encourage them to get certified if they are eligible because eventually it will be required. There are many certifications that are free of charge and we can help them with that information.

We will need to set expectations just like we do with all vendors. If there are concerns, the OSD can assist but we would encourage you to not go into a contractual obligation with a supplier expecting them to fail because they may be a small business. Again, have an open mind knowing new suppliers may need to understand our processes and procedures just as we have done with suppliers who have been doing business with us for years.

If it's sole source contact OSD and they will search to find diverse vendors for you. Please allow 48 hours turnaround time.

The Deans or Senior VPs were given until Sept. 30 to notify that person.

OSD would like for you to make an effort to use diverse suppliers whenever possible, but we do understand that Covid-19 has impacted spending. According to Procurement the expectation for Office Depot is that they will be utilized for consumable office supplies as per their contract. But diverse suppliers can be used for other purchases outside of those consumable office supplies. Procurement is also looking at current contracts for opportunities with other diverse suppliers.

We do not have any diverse suppliers in Bull Marketplace at this time. But Procurement is working to add them and will highlight those vendors.

Tier 2 spend would include all sub-contractor used by the main contract holder. The main contractor would fill out the Tier 2 spend report.

You can use the Vendor Listing on the OSD website to find suppliers that have been identified as diverse. You can also search the , , or the  supplier diversity sites.

You're not required to use the diverse owned supplier however take all factors into consideration (e.g. timing of service, customer service). Diverse vendors might prove to be a better option if the price difference is minimal and the service is favorable.

For every purchase we encourage the purchasing agent to receive a quote from a Diverse Vendor. If you are unable to locate one please feel free to reach out to osd@usf.edu so that we can get a list for you.

The vendor will be able to classify themselves as a CBE/MBE when they register with USF Purchasing via the Jagger system (Bull Marketplace). They will also choose their classification as either, woman-owned business, African-American, Asian-American and upload any certifications.

YES, You absolutely can.

There is no specific percentage for black owned businesses. Our goal is 13-20% of our spending with diverse vendors.

USF is leading the FL SUS in this initiative. We have the most comprehensive program of all other universities in the state.

That guidance will be provided by our new Chief Human Resources Office Angela Sklenka.

At this time, this is not a tool we have available. We will look at implementing.

They should be. They can contact OSD for more information on certification but if they are women owned please include them in your spend report.

Yes, we continually go through this listing and updated based on the information we are receiving.

It depends on if a CBE specifies their diverse category during the vendor setup process. If they do, then we can pull the data but if they do not designate themselves we cannot capture that data.

search features

At this time and we cannot add it at this time but it is something we can discuss for the future.

OSD is working with IT to create training videos for suppliers

Yes, we definitely encourage PCard holders to review the Spend Report Training for Colleges and Departments. A recording of the training is available to view and the PowerPoint Presentation can be viewed or downloaded.

No, not every individual attending the training. Your Dean or Sr. VP will be appointing someone to collect the data. OSD expects one report from each College or Department (e.g. one from the college of Nursing, one for Administrative Services,) OSD has contacted Senior Leaders to inform them they need to appoint someone by Sept. 30.

If you are using Diverse Owned suppliers you should use the Spend Report form to report that spend. Yes, that does include Foundation and other DSOs.

There could be FAST queries you can use to find spend for your College or Dept. However, for the purpose of your spend reporting you would input the relevant data into the OSD Spend Report Form. We don't have Fast queries by college or department; OSD is going to work with IT to create these queries. Once these are built OSD will compare them to the monthly spend reports from Colleges & Departments. OSD knows that some spend for diverse vendors is missing because the vendors are not tagged in the FAST and Jaggaer system and Spend Report Form will help to fill those gaps and give better visibility of the diverse spend to senior leadership and the community.

Many of these fall under Continuing Services contracts or sub-contractors that are diverse. Please send that data with the College or Dept. Spend Report form

We categorize them the way they choose to be categorized. The majority of the Black woman owned businesses will be categorized under African American businesses.

At this time, there are no goals in this category.

You can find  the Spend Report Form for Colleges and Departments on the OSD website.

PCard purchases with diverse suppliers should be reported via the Spend Report Form.

At this time we do not, but it is coming soon.

Monthly

This is a manual process for now. However, we are working to automate.

E&G primarily but if there is spend with diverse suppliers from our DSO organizations, we want it to be reported.

In some instances you will have to ask them. We are including their classification on the vendor listing on the OSD website.

You may be able to work with purchasing to build that. At this time, we do not have an individual query to provide to you.

Yes, please submit the report with $0 in the respective fields.

Yes, please include them on your suppliers on the monthly report and we will compare to the information that we receive from JP Morgan Chase

Yes, if there are spend in all of those areas with diverse suppliers, please report. However, in our final reports we typically remove travel.

We would like to see individual lines for each supplier with their designation. However, if you make a purchase with the same supplier multiple times in the same reporting period, it would be okay to group that spend and just give a brief description of services for what they provided.  You can add more rows to the spreadsheet if needed.