SDVOB businesses are now in the name — and in the room.
For the first time, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Businesses are intentionally incorporated into the conference title, programming, recognition and supplier-diversity experience.
This is not a rebrand. It is an expansion of the conference's commitment to diverse businesses and economic opportunity.
You're not buying a logo slot.
You're buying the room.
This is not a panel conference — it's a structured training day that walks owners from understanding procurement to sitting across from the buyers who hold contracts. Your brand sits inside that sequence, not beside it.
Moments from the floor
2025 Buffalo–Niagara Training Day & EXPO
Your brand across every media platform
Sponsors get a media ecosystem — not a mention.Sponsorship here doesn't buy a logo on a banner.
It pays for the room, the meals, the facilitators, the curriculum, and the year-long cohort behind it. The Readiness Standard™ Cohort graduates on the main stage, with certificates presented by an elected official — proof of concept for everything else on this page. That doesn't happen without partners.
Ticket prices stay at $15–$35 with meals included because sponsors cover the gap. Nobody gets priced out.
Bootcamps on pricing, bidding, contract risk, cash flow, systems and AI — each one ending in something the owner has to do.
Conference day is the graduation. The work happens over twelve months of capacity building before it — and in the 48 hours after.
Primes, agencies and buyers sit down with owners who spent the morning learning how to talk to them.
The morning is built so businesses use the afternoon differently.
This is not a collection of panels. Doors open at 7:30, the program starts promptly at 8:00, and the day moves in a deliberate sequence — everything before the Expo exists to prepare owners for it.
Working program. Times, facilitators and speaking order are still being confirmed.
The most-watched stretch of the year, and where the 2026 SDVOB commitment becomes visible: a Veterans Color Guard ceremony, veteran and SDVOB recognition, the five-minute conference film What Does It Mean to Build as Diverse Businesses? produced by Blueprint The Culture™ Media, founder welcome, elected-official recognition, and the Cohort graduation with certificates presented on stage.
Invited and anticipated: Senator April Baskin, Senator Robert Ortt, the office of Congressman Tim Kennedy, Veterans Affairs, and Empire State Development leadership. Titles and speaking order confirmed before publication.
How procurement really works — where the money already lives, and how vendors get on a buyer’s radar long before an RFP.
Primes bring MWBE and SDVOB firms they have actually hired. The real question answered: where does my business fit inside an organization like this?
Price It to Profit · Build the Bid + Before You Sign It · The Business Behind the Contract · You Did the Work, Now Get Paid · Work the Room · AI at Work. Each ends in something the owner has to do.
The industries and supply chains to prepare for now — and where an MWBE or SDVOB business fits into the next economy.
Not a break. The media lounge, the hallway marketplace, and capability-statement and Expo prep while the ballroom transitions.
Not a room of brochures. Every attendee arrives with three organizations to meet and a next step to ask for.
Everyone leaves with one thing to act on within two days. The conference is over; the work isn’t.
Sessions with the actual certification analysts, appointment-based with limited walk-in — separate from the Bootcamp rooms.
300 business owners. Two learning resources. One day built for execution.
Every attendee leaves with a multi-part Readiness Toolkit built to extend the learning past conference day. These are not giveaways. They are the reason the training doesn't evaporate on the drive home.
Training they can use. Tools they can take home. Action they can implement tomorrow.
Black in Business Curriculum™
The Black in Business™ book plus its companion business-readiness workbook — written for MWBE, SDVOB and small-business owners specifically, not general business advice. The book is the founder's own journey: growing up in East Buffalo, building, losing, learning to price for profit, rebuilding, and using certification strategically.
The workbook is where it becomes work. It sits inside the Readiness Standard™ framework — idea → structure → income → sustainability.
It is not motivation and it is not ten easy steps. It is built to help an owner find what isn't working and fix it.
The name carries two meanings. The lived perspective of a Black woman entrepreneur, and the financial goal of getting a business in the black — real margin, retained income, sustainable profit.
The Readiness Standard™: Conference Edition
A separate resource, built specifically for this conference and organized around the actual Bootcamps, facilitators and sessions delivered on the day. Facilitators teach their subject matter; the curriculum and learning experience are produced in-house.
By the end of the day an attendee can answer four questions: what did I learn, what does it mean for my business, what do I need to fix, and what can I implement tomorrow?
Roughly 300 Curriculum™ bundles at about $30 retail each — in attendee bags, not a swag table.
Sponsorship is what puts the Curriculum™ bundle and the conference workbook into business owners' hands. The Official Readiness Toolkit Sponsor is recognized as supporting that learning experience — the resources, not the intellectual property.
Become the Readiness Toolkit Sponsor →These partners are in. Your name should be next.
Pick your level. Build your package.
Every tier exists for a different reason — ownership, visibility, access, training support, attendee impact, business development, community investment. Choose a level, then stack on program-book ads, radio features and signature moments.
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More ways to partner
Real placement, real seats — at a level that fits a growing business.Boost your reach — add-ons
Stack these onto any tier (or buy standalone).Program Book Advertising
New for 2026Put your message in every attendee's hands. The printed & digital program book is referenced all day and kept long after — full color, distributed to 300+ decision-makers.
Radio & Media — Blueprint The Culture™
New for 2026Get on the air before the conference. Blueprint The Culture™ is the only MWBE-owned radio platform in New York State — Power 96.5 FM & Mix 1080 AM, Thursdays at 11:30 AM — and every episode also streams podcast-style across our social media, so your feature keeps reaching people long after it airs. Feature your brand, your story, or a live interview.
Signature Moments
Own a high-visibility moment of the day — from the first cup of coffee to the awards stage.
Put your dollars behind a specific part of the experience.
A short, deliberate list. Each of these underwrites something attendees actually feel — scoped and priced in conversation, because the fit matters more than the tier.
2026 is the first year SDVOB businesses are intentionally built into the conference name and experience. This partnership carries that commitment — respectfully, and tied to entrepreneurship rather than pageantry.
The strongest purpose-driven position on the page. It underwrites the take-home learning resources for roughly 300 business owners — recognized as supporting the learning experience, not owning the curriculum.
On-site storytelling. Entrepreneurs get interviewed, recorded and amplified — and your name is on every piece of coverage that comes out of the room.
Underwrites the matchmaking floor itself — the part of the day where preparation turns into conversations with buyers.
A table in the room. All day.
Presenting, Premier, Impact and Capacity Builder sponsors are set up around the perimeter of the main conference room — not down a hallway, not in a side gallery. You're in the room where the training happens, every hour of the day, while people have their workbooks open.
Put your business in front of the room.
Not every partner is a sponsor. If you sell to small businesses — or offer the capital, certification, workforce or technical help they're looking for — a table on the EXPO floor puts you face-to-face with 300+ owners for the full day, while they have their workbooks open and their next steps in front of them.
$250 for businesses. $150 for nonprofits and community resource organizations. Both include a 6ft skirted table, two chairs, two representatives, breakfast, lunch, and your listing in the conference program — one of the lowest-cost ways to spend eight hours in front of this audience.
Apply to be a vendor.
Tell us who you are and what you're bringing. We review applications as they come in and confirm your table by email with a payment link. Space is curated so the floor stays useful to attendees — submitting an application does not guarantee acceptance.
It's on its way to info@therareplace.org. We'll come back to you within a few business days with a decision and your table details.
This is not a conference people just attend.
It is a conference they leave equipped to use.
Sponsorship here funds business education, practical training, supplier diversity, procurement access, MWBE and SDVOB development, and the implementation tools owners take home. The sponsor enhances the learning environment — the sponsor never becomes the curriculum.
View sponsorship tiers →Teach the room.
Less talk. More execution.
We're building the 2026 training tracks and we want practitioners who teach from experience — not theory. If you can put a real tool in a business owner's hands, we want you on the schedule.
Got it — thank you!
Your session is in front of the planning committee. We review on a rolling basis and will reach out about the 2026 schedule.
Email your teaching sample →Unprompted. Public. Real.
What people said after last year.
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Ready to build the blueprint with us?
Premium levels are limited and go on a first-come basis — the sponsor wall and program book lock in September. Questions or a custom package? Talia will walk you through it.
We'll email your invoice within one business day, with a payment link or check-by-mail instructions — whichever you prefer.