About

On March 3rd, 2021 the “Reform the SBA: BIGGER Mission, Authority & Resources” was launched, not as a criticism of the Small Business Administration. It is a call to action to expand the mission, authority, and resources of the SBA.

There is a bipartisan recognition that the country is at a four-decade low in new business startups—a slow moving economic disaster that has developed during good and bad economic times.

The COVID pandemic has made the problem worse. While requests for Employer Identification Numbers at the federal level have increased dramatically in 2020, this did not translate into new business startups at the local level. A survey in South Carolina found that new business licenses requested from local units of government were down 31% in 2020 from the same months in 2019.

U.S. Small Business Administration

Simply doing more of the same will not move our nation along fast enough, or possibly not at all, to correct this small business startup crisis.

This national campaign is derived primarily from insightful and tangible reform recommendations of business leaders and groups, entrepreneurs, lenders, and elected leaders.

Our nation’s aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners—particularly minorities and women in underserved communities—need strong, singular national leadership to break down barriers to starting and growing small businesses.

“Reform the SBA” is a campaign to focus Washington’s attention on the issue and advocate for the changes desperately needed.

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Frank Knapp Jr.

Frank Knapp Jr. is the director of the coalition. He is President and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce which he co-founded in 2000. He has held leadership positions with the American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN) serving on its Board from 2011 to 2022. He served as Co-Chair of Small Business for America’s Future from 2017-2022. From 2015 to 2017 he served on the SBA Regulatory Fairness Board for the Office of the National Ombudsman. In 2022 he directed ASBN’s national Business for Democracy campaign. He has testified numerous times in Congress on small business issue.