Did you know that NGA is the only member of the Intelligence Community (IC) that participates in the SBIR program? Members of the IC are exempt from SBIR. But NGA found that the SBIR program is valuable enough to warrant voluntary participation! The following aspects of NGA's SBIR program are discussed below to assist you in participating: 

Broad Information·  Solicitation Dates·  Contract Cost and Duration
Proposal Submission·  Proposal Selection· Contract Award· Classification

Broad Information: The first step to take if you're interested in participating in NGA's SBIR program is to learn more about the program in general. The program is run by the Small Business Administration, that sets the basic parameters of the program according to law. Beyond these guidelines, every Agency and Department runs its SBIR program a little differently. Therefore, you should also check out the Department of Defense (DoD) SBIR program, under which NGA's program falls.

There are some things that are good to know about NGA's implementation of the program, too. NGA's program is designed to help NGA meet its mission to provide timely, relevant, and accurate imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information in support of national security objectives. Therefore, topics of interest to NGA focus on getting the most out of imagery and geospatial data.  Consistent with Executive Order 13329, NGA encourages Phase I and Phase II proposals to address the development of innovative manufacturing methods and processes when applicable to the topics.

Solicitation Dates: NGA aims to advertise all its topics in the first iteration of DoD's Phase I SBIR solicitation, which normally opens about 1 October and closes about 15 January. NGA will advertise during the second iteration only if it either did not receive suitable proposals for its topics during the first iteration or additional funds become available to allow more topics to be advertised.

Contract Cost and Duration: The maximum amount of SBIR funding for a Phase I award is $100,000 and the maximum period of performance for a Phase I award is 9 months. Phase II proposals shall be limited to $500,000 over a two year period, with a $250,000 base proposal (first year) and a $250,000 option period (second year).

Proposal Submission: All of DoD's SBIR proposal submission requirements are required by NGA. It is mandatory that the entire technical proposal, DoD Proposal Cover Sheet, Cost Proposal, and the Company Commercialization Report are submitted electronically through the DoD SBIR website at http://www.dodsbir.net/submission. If you have any questions or problems with the electronic submission, contact the DoD SBIR Helpdesk at 1-866-SBIRHLP (866-724-7457) (8AM to 8PM EST). Complete electronic submission includes the submission of the Cover Sheets, Cost Proposal, Company Commercialization Report, the Entire technical proposal and any appendices via the DoD Submission site. The DoD proposal submission site http://www.dodsbir.net/submission will lead you through the process for submitting your technical proposal and all of the sections electronically.  All proposals must be received by the date and time indicated in the solicitation. In addition, a work breakdown structure that shows the number of hours of each key person and other labor (by type) to be assigned to each task and subtask, as well as the start and end dates for each task and subtask, shall be included.  Please ensure a valid email is included for your primary point of contact for notification purposes.  If you are submitting a phase II proposal, your base and options cost must be shown separately. FYI, NGA does not participate in the FastTrack program.

Proposal Selection: Selection of proposals will be according to the evaluation procedures and criteria discussed in the solicitation. Due to limited funding, NGA reserves the right to limit awards under its topics, and only those proposals of superior scientific and technical quality will be funded.  There is no commitment by NGA to make any awards on any topic, to make a specific number of awards or to be responsible for any monies expended by the proposer before award of a contract.

Contract Award: NGA aims to award Phase I contracts within two months of the close of the solicitation. NGA aims to award Phase II contracts within 60 days of receipt of all Phase II proposals on a given topic. This is far faster than the law requires, and helps assure that the small businesses that participate in NGA's SBIR program receive the timely funding and funding decisions they need to help their businesses thrive.

Classification: NGA's SBIR program is completely unclassified, allowing a wide range of vendors to compete for contracts. All eligible vendors who have innovative ideas on NGA's advertised topics should seriously consider competing under NGA's SBIR program! You may obtain additional information at the links below:

NGA SBIR Program Manager
Electronic Mail: sbir@NGA.mil