Certification Guidelines

• First, owners interested in becoming a certified Minority Business Enterprise attend a  Pre-Certification Briefing on the second (2nd) Monday of each month. Please register in the Events section of our website. 
• Second, carefully review your financial information. Review your by-laws, operating agreement or partnership agreement to be sure you have the required information for the certification application.
•  Third, forward the certification package to the MMBDC main office (Detroit, Michigan). An application cannot be returned. Therefore, please do not send an incomplete application. The application includes a checklist of required items that must be submitted with the application.

There is an initial non-refundable application fee of $300 due with your application.  Your annual fees will be determined by your gross annual sales.

Certification Criteria

A summary of the criteria is presented below:

1. Company shall be owned by an ethnic-minority that is a U.S. citizen. Ethnic-minorities are defined as: African-American or Black, Asian-Indian American, Asian-Pacific American, Hispanic (non-European), or a documented Native American Indian. The principals must be U.S. citizens.
2. The ethnic-minority shall own, operated, and managed by no less than 51 percent of the firm. The applicant firm shall be an independent business, with an independent location and not a “sales arm” of a non-minority firm. The firm shall be an existing operation (not a start-up) with an existing contract or a firm that has an existing (documented) contract with one of the NMSDC Corporate Members. All equity investments shall be true and real, presented on the balance sheet (according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and documented and correspond with all other legal documents.
3. The minority owners shall have complete and absolute control and be active in the day-to-day management and daily business operations. Complete control means the ethnic-minority owners shall be able to act independently of the non-minority owners. The ethnic-minority must demonstrate the “capabilities of managing” the firm. If a state charted entity (i.e., corporation, limited liability company or a limited partnership), the ethnic-minority person(s) must demonstrate the ability to manage and control the “chartered” entity, the other shareholders and/or the other unit holders. The ethnic-minority person(s) must have numerical control of the corporation’s Board of Directors and the limited liability company’s Board of Members. These operational and control facts must be documented in the corporate bylaws, limited liability company’s operating agreement or the partnership agreement.  

*Please read this document before attempting the application. Note: All presented information is reviewed independently, so all documents should be  consistent.  The NMSDC requires all financial statements (Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Statement, and Statement of Cash Flows) shall meet GAAP standards set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Please plan your financial accounting and presentation accordingly. Internal or tax basis financial statements are not accepted.

January 26

September 14