Small Business Conference Reauthorized: $200 Fee and Private Donations Change How Main Street Gets Heard

The White House Conference on Small Business is getting a reboot, scheduled to meet between late 2025 and late 2026. This legislation, titled the White House Conference on Small Business Act of 2025, modernizes the conference's goals—shifting the focus to evaluating and improving small business assistance programs from the Small Business Administration (SBA) and other federal agencies. But the real story is in the administrative and financial changes, which fundamentally alter who gets a seat at the table and how the whole thing is paid for.

The Cost of Entry Goes Up

If you’re a small business owner who wanted to participate in the National Conference, prepare for some sticker shock. The bill dramatically increases the registration fee for participants from a token $10 to a hefty $200. More significantly, it tightens the rules on who can attend. General participation is out; only individuals selected as delegates by a State conference and a regional meeting can attend the National Conference, and they must be an owner, officer, or employee of a small business. For the average plumber, storefront owner, or freelance coder, this means the path to the national stage is now much narrower, channeled through a formal, politically appointed process.

Who Gets to Be a Delegate?

This bill doesn't just raise the price; it formalizes a highly structured delegation system. Delegates will now include one appointed by every single Governor, every Member of the Senate, every Member of the House, and 100 appointed by the President. While State conferences will still elect some delegates, a significant portion of the National Conference attendees will be political appointees. This centralization means that the conference’s recommendations—which aim to "identify and prioritize the problems impacting small business"—could lean heavily toward the concerns of businesses connected to political networks, potentially sidelining the less-connected, truly grassroots perspectives.

Funding the Conference: A Private-Sector Paywall?

Perhaps the most structural change is how the conference will be funded. The new Section 10 dictates that all conference activities must be funded exclusively by amounts collected from non-Federal sources, "to the extent provided in advance by appropriations Acts." This means the Commission, the SBA Administrator, and the GSA Administrator are authorized to actively solicit and accept gifts, devises, and bequests from private, non-Federal sources, including agreements with 501(c)(3) organizations to fundraise. This shift from relying on standard government appropriations to private donations introduces instability and raises the specter of undue influence. If the conference relies solely on corporate or institutional donors to pay the bills, will the final policy recommendations truly reflect the needs of Main Street, or those of the biggest check writers? The bill requires the SBA Inspector General to review gifts for conflicts of interest, but the reliance on solicited private funding remains a significant departure.

The Digital Lifeline

On a positive note for modernizing the process, the bill mandates the establishment of an electronic communication system. This system is required to be active before, during, and for at least four years after the National Conference. The goal is to allow delegates to collaboratively define problems, refine solutions, prioritize recommendations, and, crucially, monitor later legislative or regulatory action based on those recommendations. For delegates who invest time and money, this digital infrastructure offers a much-needed mechanism to ensure their work doesn't just end up gathering dust on a shelf. The bill also streamlines administration by replacing the old maximum staff pay rate (the obsolete GS-18) with the more current GS-15 rate and removing a delayed effective date for establishing the Commission.