Reauthorizing the SCORE Program to Help Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs (H.R. 4407)

What is H.R. 4407?

(Updated October 9, 2020)

This bill would reauthorize the SCORE program for fiscal years 2020, 2021, and 2022 and implement safeguards that incorporate recommendations made by a 2019 Office of Inspector General (OIG) report. The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) program is a non-profit subsidiary of the Small Business Administration (SBA) that provides free or low-cost counseling, mentoring, and workshops for small business owners and entrepreneurs related to the operation of their businesses. These counseling services can include developing a business plan, or providing marketing and finance advice.

Based on business experience and knowledge, SCORE volunteers would:

• Provide personal counseling, mentoring, and coaching relating to the experience of starting, expanding, managing, buying, and selling a business to current or aspiring small business owners;
  
• Facilitate low-cost education workshops for individuals who own, or aspire to own, small business concerns.

The SBA Administrator would be authorized to make grants or enter into cooperative agreements totalling less than $11.7 million to help achieve the goals that each chapter of the SCORE program establishes for itself.

The SBA would ensure that the program and each of its chapters develop and implement plans and goals to provide services more effectively and efficiently to individuals in rural areas, economically disadvantaged communities, and other traditionally underserved communities. This would include plans for electronic initiatives, web-based initiatives, chapter expansion, partnerships, and the development of new skills by participating volunteers.

The SCORE Association would: 

• Make use of online counseling, including by webinars and an electronic mentoring platform;
  
• Study the future role of the program;
  
• Develop a strategic plan for how the program will evolve to meet the needs of small business concerns over the next five years.

Within 180 days after this bill’s enactment, and annually thereafter, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and the House Small Business Committee would receive a report on the SCORE program’s performance and effectiveness. Among other topics, the report would discuss:

• Metrics (such as the number of individuals counseled or trained and number of hours of counseling provided) illustrating the program’s impact;
  
• Demographics (including gender, race, and age) of SCORE program participants and volunteers; 
  
• The cost to create a job, the cost to create a business, and return on investment;
  
• The results of SCORE program participant satisfaction surveys, including a summary of any comments received from such participants; and
  
• The number of new businesses started up and jobs created by SCORE program participants.

The SBA Administrator and the SCORE Association would be prohibited from disclosing the contact information of a person or business participating in the program without their consent.

Argument in favor

The SCORE program helps link small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs with retired executives who can serve as mentors. This bipartisan reauthorization of the program will help small businesses across the country.

Argument opposed

These volunteers who participate in the SCORE program could create their own non-profit outside of the SBA and still be one of SBA’s partner organizations. All they’d need to do is raise their own money.

Impact

Small businesses and entrepreneurs; SCORE chapters and mentors; and the SBA.

Cost of H.R. 4407

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) introduced this bill to reauthorize the SCORE program for FY2020-2022, establish new compliance and oversight requirements to protect taxpayer dollars, and set new outcome-based performance goals to ensure the program meets the SBA’s standards and Congressional intent After this bill unanimously passed the House Small Business Committee, original cosponsor Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) said: 

“Small businesses are at the heart of our district’s thriving economies and robust communities - from Hastings to Cannon Falls to Zumbrota. “I’m proud to see a common-sense, bipartisan effort like this pass out of committee, and I look forward to continuing to expand economic opportunity and entrepreneurship for Minnesotans through critical programs like SCORE.”  

This legislation passed the House Committee on Small Business on September 25, 2019 with the support of four bipartisan cosponsors, including three Democrats and one Republican.

Last Congress, it was sponsored by Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) and passed the House by voice vote on July 10, 2018 with the support of one cosponsor, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE). 

Before its individual consideration in the House, this bill was included in the Developing the Next Generation of Small Businesses Act (H.R.1774), which later became part of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2018 (H.R.2810). The 2018 NDAA was reported, as amended by the House House Committee on Armed Services on July 6, 2017, and passed the House on July 14, 2017 by a vote of 344-81. It was then passed by the Senate, as amended, by an 89-8 vote on September 18, 2017. H.R.1700 wasn’t included in the final version of H.R.2810.

Of Note: The Service Corps of Retired Executives, which is now known as SCORE or the SCORE Association, was founded in 1964 and began creating local chapters in the 1970s. It has provided services to nearly 10 million Americans since its founding, and SCORE currently has over 13,000 volunteer business counselors located in 348 chapters across the U.S.

In 2014, SCORE’s volunteers donated more than 1.2 million hours of their time to mentor and train 148,800 small business owners and entrepreneurs -- leading to the creation of 56,079 businesses and 47,187 jobs. Of the clients assisted by SCORE, 107,201 increased their revenue in 2014, which is more than 72 percent of the entrepreneurs it worked with.

Media:

• Original Cosponsor Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) Press Release
  
• House Committee on Small Business Committee Report
  
• House Committee on Small Business Press Release
  
• Small Business Committee Republicans Press Release