Friends From The City, LLC

Friends From The City, LLC operates as an 8(a)-certified, women-owned, veteran-owned, and service-disabled veteran-owned small business (partnership/limited liability company based in Chicago, Illinois) delivering federal IT platform development and system management services as a prime contractor under the GSA Multiple Award Schedule. The vendor holds active SBA certifications across four designations — 8(a), WOSB, VOSB, and SDVOSB — and competes under set-aside vehicles; its two documented prime awards in the source carry total small business or 8(a) set-asides.

Friends From The City's federal footprint is heavily concentrated in a single customer relationship. The Department of State's Bureau of Information Resource Management accounts for $24.9 million (98% of combined potential value) through a single delivery order awarded March 27, 2026, under the GSA MAS. That order, set aside for total small business with an ultimate completion date of March 26, 2029, requires development and delivery of a Consular Appointment Management Platform with place of performance in Washington, DC, carrying a firm fixed-price ceiling of $24.9 million. The vendor also holds a GSA MAS schedule contract (awarded April 17, 2023, ceiling $500 thousand, through April 16, 2028) covering IT professional services, marketing research and analysis, and management consulting, with labor categories spanning project managers, subject matter experts, developers, UX designers, and trainers. The MAS parent vehicle anchors all recent prime work.

Across the GSA Schedule labor portfolio, Friends From The City offers 25 active categories with hourly rates ranging from $111.45 (Cloud Consultant I, bachelor's, two years' experience) through $250.74 (Cloud Subject Matter Expert, bachelor's, ten years' experience). The portfolio emphasizes cloud capability — Cloud Consultant, Cloud Engineer, Cloud Task Manager, and Cloud Subject Matter Expert roles dominate the spectrum — with UX/UI design, product management, and general management support rounding out depth. No security-cleared roles appear in the published rates; all categories list bachelor's education as the minimum requirement and do not specify clearance mandates.

From the Service Contract Inventory data, Friends From The City shows subcontractor activity only. SCI captures 12 records across FY2022–FY2024, all as a named subcontractor (zero as prime on reportable service contracts), with FTE trajectory rising from 0.3 FTEs in FY2022 to 10.3 FTEs in FY2024 across 11 sub records. This signals recent growth in sub-engagement scope, though the data excludes the vendor's March 2026 State Department prime delivery order and reflects only service contracts above the $150,000 reporting threshold. The prime awards documented in the source ($24.9 million plus the $500 thousand MAS contract) do not appear in the SCI dataset, indicating either that SCI lags in reporting updates or that the vendor's prime work operates outside the reportable service-contract framework (product development, fixed-price platform delivery, or other procurement models not captured in SCI's scope).

Friends From The City transforms how government serves people. As an 8(a), Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB), and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), we uncover what matters to users, translate that into real system behavior, and work side-by-side with engineering teams to build software that works for the people who actually use it.

We're the people you call when the work is complex, human, and too important to rush. Our team is made up of deep, empathetic, T-shaped experts who don't just deliver services, we build clarity, trust, and momentum inside messy systems.

At Friends, we reimagine digital experiences for people navigating systems that often feel overwhelming or opaque. We've designed tools for Veterans in crisis, clinicians interpreting quality reporting programs, and educators uncovering stories through the Smithsonian's Searchable Museum. In each case, we've made high-stakes, policy-heavy systems feel clear, useful, and human.