The University of North Carolina System (UNC System) Office is a state-wide multi-campus higher education system comprised of sixteen universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. The System’s mission is to “…discover, create, transmit, and apply knowledge to address the needs of individuals and society…through instruction…research, scholarship, and creative activities…” The System educates more than 244,000 students and employs more than 58,000 staff and faculty. Over the last year and a half, NCGrowth and the UNC System have worked to develop a strategic plan for the System and its seventeen institutions to increase their use of historically underutilized businesses in their purchasing and procurement processes. NCGrowth has worked closely with UNC System staff such as Norma Houston, Secretary Pearl Burris-Floyd, Governor Sonja Nichols, and Chancellor Cummings of UNC Pembroke. Additionally, NCGrowth engaged other universities and university system offices across the nation and the North Carolina Historically Underutilized Business Office, located within the Department of Administration, and a key stakeholder in this work.
North Carolina has a 10% goal for minority-owned businesses’ participation in all state-building projects and for procuring goods and services. However, a recent disparity report in 2021 found that while there is sufficient availability of diverse-owned businesses, many North Carolina public institutions still are unable to meet the goals set by the State. Recognizing that the lack of supplier diversity threatens a resilient North Carolina economy and creates vulnerabilities in the institutional supply chains (as highlighted during the COVID 19 pandemic), the UNC System Office contracted with NCGrowth to address these vulnerabilities and disparities.
The authors conducted an extensive literature review of supplier diversity in public procurement. They developed a catalog of best practices sourced from anchor institution case studies, peer-reviewed articles, published reports, and news articles. After completing the literature review, the authors identified public and private universities currently with supplier diversity programs. NCGrowth analysts then conducted ten interviews with individuals leading these programs to develop a more nuanced understanding of the best practices critical to their successes and identify their challenges and recommendations for navigating them. After drafting the initial strategic plan proposal, the authors presented their findings and recommendations to the UNC System Office during their April 2023 meeting. After soliciting feedback on the proposal draft from the UNC System, the Office of Historically Underutilized Businesses, and our interview participants, the authors incorporated suggestions and input, and developed their final strategic proposal to promote supplier diversity and use local, historically underutilized businesses.
NCGrowth has provided the strategic plan to the UNC Board of Governors for approval with eighteen recommendations, each with specific guidance on implementation and based on six identified best practices. NCGrowth believes that implementing the recommendations in this strategic plan will create jobs by reducing red tape and barriers to entry for small and diverse-owned businesses in North Carolina that are interested in doing business with the State, thus creating opportunities for revenue growth and expansion for our local business owners via flexible and prudent use of public supply chains. Furthermore, increasing the number of potential vendors through supplier diversity initiatives will lead to greater competition for contracts, thus leading to more significant cost savings for UNC institutions.
NCGrowth analyst and North Carolina State University Ph.D. candidate in Public Administration, Cody Taylor, contributed his intellect and time to this project. Moreover, as a homegrown North Carolinian, the opportunity to support local businesses by working to reduce the administrative burden of public contracting has brought Taylor great joy, influenced his research interests, and connected him to a national network. The work also provided him with the unique opportunity to present in front of both NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson and Appalachian State University Chancellor Cheri Everts, where, as a first-generation college student, he received his bachelor’s and my MPA degrees. After Cody’s presentation, Chancellor Everts and Chancellor Woodson told Cody, “We can’t agree on who gets to claim you, so we decided we just have to share you!” And Chancellor Everts gifted Cody her App State lapel pin!
The development of this strategy benefited from extensive research into best practices by Shannon Wells (an NCSU International Studies graduate student). NCGrowth also extends our gratitude to the purchasing professionals from the following universities who spoke with us about their supplier diversity programs: the University of Connecticut, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, the University of Richmond, the University of California-Davis, the University of Tennessee System, the University of South Florida, and the University of California System. Contributions and feedback from Norma Houston, Jennifer Haygood, Katherine Lynn, and Robby Terry of the UNC System Office have been invaluable. We would like to especially thank Norma Houston for her detailed and comprehensive feedback during the writing process. We also wish to thank Secretary Pearl Burris-Floyd, Governor Sonja Nichols, and Chancellor Cummings for their support, as well as Budget and Finance Committee Chair Lee Roberts, Vice Chair Jimmy Clark, Secretary Reginald Holley, Governor Hutchens, Governor Murphy, Governor Pope, and Former Chair Jim Holmes for their helpful feedback during our presentation to their Committee in September 2022.
