What Does It Mean to Be a Certified Diverse Owned Business

What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 2 (Why Certify) of our book Certify & Sell: Your Guide to Certification & Supplier Diversity. We get frequent calls from semi-panicked business owners whose client has just asked if they’re a certified diverse business. A surprising number of them ask us what that means; many think they…

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Know Your NAICS

North American Industry Classification System Codes, or NAICS Codes (Rhymes with Snakes!), is used by businesses and governments to classify and measure economic activity in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. NAICS is a 6-digit code system that is currently the standard used by federal statistical agencies in classifying establishments (individual business locations). Organizing establishments…

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Revisiting What’s Behind a Site Visit

2020 saw certifiers take the site visit virtual, but the purpose of a site visit remains the same. The certifier uses the site visit to verify the information you provided in the certification application and clarify any outstanding issues they might have found when the application was reviewed. Or in other words, they’re ensuring that…

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How Workers with Disabilities can use Technology to Advance Careers

We have a guest author this month, Marcus Lansky; Founder, Abilitator.biz While disabilities may have once held workers back from advancing their careers, starting a business, or obtaining a college degree, technology has made it easier than ever for individuals with physical, mental, intellectual, or communicative disabilities to achieve their personal and professional goals. From…

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Who Certifies?

There are many government and third-party programs offering SDMWVLGBTQBE (Small Disadvantaged or Disabled, Minority, Women, Veteran, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered or Queer Business Enterprise) certification in the United States. Let’s start with federal programs and go on from there. The Small Business Administration (SBA) oversees several programs including the 8(a), Women Owned Small Business (WOSB), Economically…

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Is It Just Us?

We keep wondering how the work from home (WFH) model has impacted other  SDMWVLGBTQBEs (Small Disadvantaged or Disabled, Minority, Women, Veteran, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-gendered or Queer Business Enterprises). It seems overwhelming some days, just how much more work we seem to be doing remotely. And meeting fatigue, OMG! Someone suggested the other day not to…

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Intersectionality … what does that mean?

Intersectionality is a big word we’re hearing around the diverse community these days. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 thesis “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics” to demonstrate that “[b]ecause the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and…

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Taking Care of Business

Once we titled this article, the music started in our heads. Instead of talking about COVID, let’s talk about self-care for diverse business owners. Our crazy, complicated lives just got more so! Maybe this is the world’s way of telling us to simplify … to drop unproductive tasks and concentrate on four important things: Family…

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New Year, Time to Plan

Are you considering getting a diverse certification for your business? Perhaps you’re a certified business looking to plan which 3rd party certifier events to attend? Either way, the beginning of the year is always a good time to review your options and determine how best to utilize your diverse status. The Certifiers Disability:IN, the 3rd…

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Down the Rabbit Hole of Certification

Our newest team member, Tara, gives her take on learning the certification process. Being the newest team member (a mere six months), I have submerged myself head first into the world of diverse business certification. As with any journey, obstacles loomed, alongside the fulfillment of assisting others enhance their personal business goals. Now, I could detail…

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