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Two Chicago-area business owners have organized a grassroots effort to provide an online training and development program designed to help small business owners across the country improve their organizations’ performance in 2009.

The online program, called the Great American Small Business Challenge, will provide free Web-based business development software to participating companies aimed at assisting them in establishing best practices to help them achieve their business objectives, said Michael Kramer, co-founder of the nonprofit organization. More than 25 U.S. Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), along with a number of private-sector companies, have signed on to sponsor the yearlong Challenge and provide resources.

“It’s amazing what you can do with no money,” said Kramer, a co-owner of tsWB Strategies Inc., a management consulting firm in Chicago. Kramer co-founded the Challenge with Jean Kulig-Tucker, president of InteliCorp Business Solutions Inc. in Chicago. The idea came to them while attending an American Society for Quality national conference earlier this year.

“We were just surprised there weren’t a lot of small businesses at the conference (which recognizes quality and best practices),” Kramer said. “We saw a need for quality practices being adopted earlier by small businesses. There wasn’t an easy on-ramp.”

The effort garnered support when the two presented the concept at the America’s Small Business Development Center Network annual conference in Chicago in September.

Participating businesses will have the opportunity to win awards after they complete each step of the four-part program. On a sponsorship level, the Challenge is also an opportunity for professional services firms and other small business vendors to gain exposure to participants by contributing in-kind services or prizes.

Most business owners will likely participate online, Kramer said, though they are encouraged to utilize the resources of their local Small Business Development Center so they can work one-on-one with an SBDC counselor.

“We want to help the SBDCs develop strong, long-term relationships with business owners,” he said. “We’re really hoping the SBDCs can leverage this program to promote their services.”

In Illinois, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has offered the program to all 40 of the state’s SBDCs, said Jan Bauer, director of the Illinois SBDC at the College of Lake County, one of the sponsoring SBDCs.

“After looking at the software, I think it is certainly a good way for small businesses to strategize and to take a closer look at their operations,” Bauer said. “I am really looking closely at how I can utilize it, but I am really limited on time and staff, as are all SBDCs.” She said her counselors have online training coming up within the next few weeks to help them become familiar with the program.

Dave Lentell, an SBA spokesman in Des Moines, said neither his office nor the Iowa SBDCs had heard of the program. He said it’s too early to tell whether Iowa’s SBDCs would participate.

More than 25 million small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 employees, employ more than 54 million Americans and contribute 40 percent to the U.S. gross domestic product.

Visit www.TheGreatAmericanSmallBusinessChallenge.com for more information, including a two-minute introductory video and a handbook explaining the program.