America's Small Business Fly-In continues driving momentum for smarter small-business policy.
This week, nearly 100 small-business owners made their way to D.C. for NSBA's annual Washington Presentation.
Known across D.C. as America's Small Business Fly-In, NSBA members attend WP to advocate with Members of Congress, their staff, and officials from the administration on the small-business Priority Issues of the day.
Kicking the week off with a win on one of those Priority Issues designated for advocacy at this year's Washington Presentation, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced a delay in the deadline for comments to its recent proposal to change the size standard definitions for a small business. After weeks of urging a comment deadline delay or cancellation of the proposal entirely from NSBA members and more than 65,000 small-business stakeholders who submitted their thoughts, NSBA commends the SBA for extending the comment period deadline through Nov. 1, 2026.
Read NSBA's comments on the proposal here, and our full press statement on the delay here.
Day One of Washington Presentation began with a dicsussion on the importance of video-forward content for your small business, featuring NSBA Board Member and Vice Chair of Communications Esther Monzon-Aguirre, owner of EV Services based in Miami and San Antonio (left), and NSBA Leadership Council Member LaMar Holliday, owner of the Holliday Collaborative Agency based in Indianapolis (center), joined by NSBA Director of Communications Chana Elgin (right).
A few takeaways from the discussion: do not let perfection hold you back from getting started on video to highlight your small business and brand as a small-business owner, always post external links on social platforms in the comment section, and, if you are going to invest in anything to get started with video for your small business, make sure it is audio.
Watch NSBA's foray into video, Hardwired, here.
The second panel explored AI in Practice for small business, including insights from moderator NSBA Board Member and Vice Chair of Membership Heidi Stone, owner of Heidi Stone Hospitality based in Pembroke, Va., Simon Morrison, 6-year leader of Amazon's federal AI policy, responsible for overseeing a team working on privacy, content, and consumer protection policy, as well as fellow NSBA Board Members Sanjyot Dunung, owner of Atma Global based in New York City, and Alex Cates, owner of OMS Group based in Parker, Colo.
A capstone message of the session: in an increasingly competitive arena, small businesses would be remiss to not consider how to begin integrating AI into their business, and NSBA was very privileged to be a part of this discussion to support our members and entire small-business community.
NSBA Board Chair Bill Belknap, alongside Mr. Todd McCracken then welcomed the WP'26 delegation to the keynote lunch, where attendees celebrated the Advocate of the Year Award finalists Ms. Dunung, Mr. Holliday, and Tony Roberts, owner of The Tony Roberts Company based in Fullerton, Calif.
NSBA's Rising Star, the runner up for the Advocate of the Year Award, for 2026 is Whitney Collela, Ph.D, owner of the Gaia Energy Research institute based in Alexandria, Va., and the Advocate of the Year Award winner for 2026 is Christine Hopkins, owner of ASCI Family of Companies based in Anchorage.
For her tireless advocacy across the nation to improve federal policies better serving of the small-business community, Ms. Hopkins is a previous Rising Star, as well an SBA Small Business Owner of the Year Award Winner for 2025, and the SBA Small Business Woman Owner of the Year Award for 2024.
Learn more about NSBA's Advocate of the Year Award Program here.
Despite the September rain showers covering D.C. for the duration of WP'26, the NSBA delegation then made its way to the White House, where we were fortunate to be joined by SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, as well as the White House Office of Public Liaison, who fielded questions and facilitated a thoughtful conversation with our members.
Before we wrapped up the day, NSBA's Director of Government Affairs Jack Furth led a Hill training session, and then it was time to toast the day of hard work with a networking reception at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center - a fantastic Bonvoy®-age to lead us into Day Two.
NSBA's Capitol Hill day began before sunrise, with attendees joined by Rep. Kevin Hern (OK-01) and Senators Johnson and Husted, of Wisconsin and Ohio, respectively, who shared real talk on the realities of the state of our nation's small-business programs and policies.
From there, the attendees were off for their meetings with their Members of Congress and Senators to discuss the other Priority Issues ratified for this year's fly-in, including increasing small-business owners' access to capital, lowering the cost of health care for small-business owners - particularly their opportunity to provide it to employees and workers, and fully eliminating the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) once and for all.
While NSBA is grateful to the administration for their efforts to defang the CTA, including eliminating its enforcement provisions against American small-business owners, the law remains codified, and we urge Congress to act to repeal this unconstitutional law. Learn more about our efforts to defend small-business owners Fourth Amendment rights, and join us in imploring Congress to properly invalidate this law through full repeal, here.
Thank you to all of this year's attendees who made WP'26 another success. Hosting this event since the early 1940s, NSBA could not further its legacy of fighting for smarter small-business policy without the work of our members at events, like this, as well as through our advocacy programming year round.
View more of the WP'26 album, and connect with NSBA to share photos of your own here.
Last, but not least, thank you to our sponsors of the event, including: Atma Global, AEONRG, LLC, ESO Ventures, Boston Engineering Corp., Alloy Precision Technologies, To The Rescue Bookkeeping, LLC, WMS Consulting, Inc., Widelity Management, LLC, Innovative Space Technologies, Gear Motions, EV Services, Inc., Cynthia Kay Consulting, Dell Technologies, EXIM Bank of the U.S., Amazon, Target, and Software Advice.
To keep our momentum going, please complete the WP'26 event survey to be emailed to attendees, and save the date now for our upcoming Small Business Congress, this Feb. 9-10, 2027, where NSBA members will vote on the Priority Issues to pursue for the 120th session of the U.S. Congress.
See you soon!