Creative knows what it’s like to be a small business, and the spirit of entrepreneurship that helped the organization grow inspires its work with small businesses today. Creative was founded in 1977 by four entrepreneurial and talented women from diverse backgrounds. Its first office was in a Washington, D.C., basement of one of the founder’s homes and has since grown to a global organization.
In keeping with the organization’s commitment to engaging and supporting small businesses—as well as its own history as a woman- and minority-owned business—Creative often engages them as subcontractors to fill specialized roles on its global development projects or for other needs at headquarters. These partnerships are essential to achieving results in our programs and represent a core pillar of Creative’s approach.
USAID named Creative its 2018 Large Business Partner of the Year in recognition of its work with small businesses.
Creative carefully selects small businesses based on their specialized, strategic, technical and operational capabilities. Creative has new and longstanding partners, including:
- Connexus | Connexus is supporting the West Africa Trade and Investment Hub project by developing and leading the partnership strategy and coordinating directly with private sector actors to develop public private partnerships (PPPs) that are inclusive of youth and women.
- ORB International | For a USAID project in Nigeria, Creative engaged ORB International, a woman-owned small business that specializes in high-quality quantitative and qualitative research, to conduct research at the community-level to capture attitudes and behaviors of the target population and evaluate program impacts.
As a valued partner, small businesses enrich proposals, increase innovation and diversity of thought and bring new approaches and methodologies to programming.
Interested in partnering with Creative?
If you are a U.S. small business interested in partnering with Creative, please fill out this form and a representative from our business development team will reach out to you.
