Denver Public Schools

The DPS Business Diversity Outreach Program (BDOP) was developed in 1992 with the goal of outreaching to diverse businesses and providing support, guidance and training to ensure an equitable opportunity to participate in DPS construction projects. In 2016, BDOP was renamed the Office of Business Diversity (OBD) to reflect the expanded programming and diversity efforts of the department.

Through the efforts of this department, many small, minority and women-owned businesses (SMWBEs) have formed fruitful relationships with DPS as well as their peers in the contracting community. DPS has also formed partnerships that have helped to build continuous improvement, collaboration and awareness of changes that may be needed.

Through the Office of Business Diversity, we have organized numerous outreach activities and more being scheduled for the future. These include:

- Execution of the Annual Reverse Trade Fair to connect local vendors with decision makers in the district and provide information about the upcoming projects
- Quarterly Coffee Chats allowing direct access to district buyers and project managers
- Contractor/Vendor Recruitment through locally sponsored Trade Shows and outreach events
- Creation of solution oriented programming to address community feedback
- Collaboration with local resource partners to provide tools to help mitigate obstacles for local SMWBEs to work with the District
- Focused outreach for upcoming solicitations with SBE and/or MWBE participation opportunities