Evaluation of SBA’s Award Procedures for the CARES Act Entrepreneurial Development Cooperative Agreements

This report found that SBA awarded the CARES Act entrepreneurial development cooperative agreements and grants in accordance with applicable federal laws, regulations, and guidance. We found program officials established performance goals and identified performance indicators. To more effectively ensure performance goals are achieved as intended, SBA should clearly define the performance goals and set performance targets. We recommended that SBA enforce standard operating procedures requiring defined performance goals and include performance targets in all future SBDC and WBC cooperative agreements and grants. We also recommended that SBA collect and analyze the CARES Act entrepreneurial development cooperative agreement recipient’s performance results and establish a goal-setting process for technical assistance programs established for future disasters. SBA management agreed with both recommendations.