Penn State spends across 24 campuses, a teaching hospital network, research labs, dining, facilities, athletics, and a sprawling physical plant in University Park. That makes it one of the larger institutional buyers in Pennsylvania. But there is no public bid board you scroll through and a "register here" button on the homepage. The front door is a portal called PaymentWorks, and getting through it works differently than most people expect.
If you want to sell to Penn State, here is the process as the university's Procurement department actually runs it, plus how its Supplier Diversity Program treats certified diverse firms.
Start with PaymentWorks, but you need a link firstPenn State onboards suppliers through PaymentWorks, a third-party supplier registration and payment platform. The wrinkle: you generally cannot self-register from a cold start. Penn State asks prospective suppliers to contact its Procurement department to request a unique PaymentWorks registration link, which then routes you into the portal where you build and manage your profile.
In practice that means the registration almost always follows a buying conversation. A department, lab, or facilities group that wants to work with you initiates the connection, and that triggers the registration link. So your first move is not paperwork. It is getting in front of the people inside Penn State who buy what you sell.
Once you are in PaymentWorks, you control your own profile: company details, tax and banking information for payment, contacts, and any certifications. Penn State treats the portal as the system of record, so keeping that profile current is on you, not on a buyer chasing you for updated documents.
What to have ready before you register
- Your legal business name, address, and W-9 information
- Banking details for ACH payment setup
- A clear, short description of the goods or services you provide
- Any diverse-business certificates as uploadable files (PDFs)
- The federal and/or state diverse classifications that apply to your business
Penn State expects suppliers to indicate their federal and/or state diverse business classification during registration and to upload the supporting certificate. So if you hold a certification, have the document in hand before you start, not as a follow-up.
The Supplier Diversity Program and what it recognizesPenn State runs a formal Supplier Diversity Program, and its framing is straightforward: diverse competition produces better sourcing of goods and services. The program is not a separate application sitting outside the normal supplier process. You flag your diverse status inside the same PaymentWorks registration and attach the certificate.
The certification piece is where firms trip up, because Penn State is specific about which credentials it accepts. The university names two certifying agencies whose certifications qualify a supplier for the Supplier Diversity Program: the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). Penn State also states it may approve additional certifications from other agencies on review, so a credential like NMSDC's MBE or a state Small Diverse Business designation is worth submitting and asking about, even though only SBA and NGLCC are named outright.
That SBA reference covers the federal set: 8(a), Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB), Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned (SDVOSB), HUBZone, and SBA small-business size status. NGLCC issues the LGBT Business Enterprise (LGBTBE) certification. If you are pursuing a minority-owned credential, the standard path is NMSDC's MBE certification, and our NMSDC certification guide walks through how that one works and how long it takes.
A note on a common point of confusion: the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) is a separate set of state universities, not Penn State, and PASSHE runs its small diverse business contracting through SAP Business Network and Ariba Discovery. If you searched for Penn State and landed on Ariba instructions, you were likely looking at PASSHE. Penn State itself routes through PaymentWorks.
What Penn State actually buysA university this size buys almost everything, which is good news for finding a category fit. The recurring spend tends to cluster in:
- Facilities and construction — trades, MRO supplies, building materials, grounds, fleet
- Research and lab — scientific equipment, reagents, instruments, specialized services
- IT and professional services — software, hardware, consulting, staffing
- Dining and hospitality — food, beverage, catering supplies, equipment
- Office, print, and general goods — furniture, supplies, signage, promotional items
- Health system supply — clinical and administrative goods tied to its medical operations
The decision-making is decentralized. Individual departments and units do a lot of their own buying within university policy, so a single central "yes" rarely exists. That is why being registered and certified matters less than being known to the specific buyers in your category. Registration makes you payable. Relationships make you bought.
A realistic sequence to get in- Identify the buying unit. Figure out which Penn State department, lab, or facilities group actually purchases your category, and reach out to that buyer or to Procurement to start a conversation.
- Request your PaymentWorks link. Once there is interest, ask Procurement for the registration link rather than waiting for a portal to appear.
- Register completely. Fill in the full profile, set up payment, and upload your certificate. Flag your diverse classification in the same pass.
- Get certified before you need it. If you qualify as a minority-, women-, veteran-, LGBTQ+-, or disability-owned business and you are not yet certified, start that now. The certificate is what unlocks the diversity program and what many other institutional buyers ask for too.
That last point is the one founders underestimate. Penn State accepts SBA and NGLCC credentials and reviews others, and the same certifications open doors at dozens of corporations and agencies beyond one university. You can see how many programs map to each credential in our corporate and institutional program directory, and you can publish a profile that buyers search in our supplier directory.
Next stepIf you already hold the right certification, your work with Penn State is mostly about reaching the right buyer and finishing the PaymentWorks registration cleanly. If you do not, getting certified is the gating step, and it is the same step that qualifies you across most institutional buyers, not just this one.
CertifyAll handles the certification application end of that: it captures your business details once and prepares the federal and state filings that put a recognized certificate on your profile. If certification is the piece standing between you and Penn State's Supplier Diversity Program, that is a sensible place to start.
Sources: Penn State Procurement — Become a Supplier, Penn State Procurement — Supplier Diversity, Penn State Procurement — Info for Suppliers, PASSHE Small Diverse Business Contracting
