Size Standards Revised!

Claiming Small Business Status? It is important to know that there are sizing rules and regulations that you must use to determine whether or not your business is considered small. And, the definition of small depends on your business’s industry based on NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes. At the federal level, being classified as…

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Creating Inclusion Strategies

While we may not be completely aware of the impact, SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) business owners are often the beneficiaries of the supplier diversity inclusion initiatives taken by large organizations. I found my favorite definition of D&I on the Royal Bank of Canada’s web site: “In simple terms, diversity is…

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Critical Inclusion Leadership

Since June of 2013, we’ve been talking about The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan with an emphasis on how SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) business owners might benefit from their insights. Chapter eight discusses four areas of competency leaders must master…

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We’re Certified, Now What? Revisited

In speaking with newly certified  SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) business owners or those seeking certification the question “What does certification do for me?” is often asked. In most cases, just being certified does not help grow your business; it is how you’re able to market your certification and utilize programs…

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Certification Alphabet Soup (or fun with acronyms)

In the world of diversity certifications there are many acronyms, some more familiar than others. This alphabet soup contains WBE, MBE, DBE, SBE, VBE, DSBE, HUB, LGBT and that’s only half of them. Some of the abbreviations are shared by government and third-party certifiers (MBE, WBE) and others are specific to the Federal government (8(a),…

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Insider Outsider Memberships

As SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) businesses we find ourselves members of multiple groups and the dynamics of these memberships is discussed at length in chapter six The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan. Insider outsider dynamics happen at the group…

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Talk or Walk?

Thought we’d take a break from our in-depth review of The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan to return to our theme of supporting each other.  As SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) businesses we expect large corporations and government agencies to…

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Diversity Dividends: Reducing Bias

Bias is the very human and perhaps unfair preference for or dislike of something. Its synonyms include prejudice, partiality and favoritism.  At the heart of the original equal opportunity movement, laws and regulations were enacted to mitigate conscious bias in American education, employment and procurement opportunities. As SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business…

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Inclusion Dividends: Taking the Initiative

During the summer, we talked about The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan, intending to relate the book’s concepts to supplier diversity and how we SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) businesses might be able to incorporate this information in our organizations.…

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Shameless Request for Votes!

We’ve applied for a Mission Main Street℠ Grant in Chase’s program that will award twelve (12) small businesses with grants of $250,000 in January 2014.   You can learn about last year’s program and listen to interviews with last year’s winners. Abator, always a WBE, knows getting certified as diversity owned can be challenging for small businesses. And…

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