The Greater Atlanta Economic Alliance is prepared to help small businesses stay informed, as well as aid with preparing documentation for your certification or re-certification.

The document provides implementation guidance for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) DBE and ACDBE Final Rule and focuses heavily on the mandatory reevaluation of currently certified DBEs.

It explains how firms should document social and economic disadvantage, how Unified Certification Programs (UCPs) must conduct reevaluations, and how DBE goals and participation are affected during and after the reevaluation period.

• If you are currently DBE certified, this is not simply a normal renewal. Your certification is subject to a mandatory reevaluation under the new requirements.

• Your Personal Narrative needs to tell your individual story. It is not enough to describe barriers experienced by a group; you need to explain what happened to you and how those experiences affected your economic and professional opportunities.

• You don’t need to tell your entire life story. You need to identify the experiences that demonstrate how disadvantage affected your advancement in education, employment, business, or access to capital and opportunities.

• The goal isn’t to make your narrative as long as possible. The goal is to provide specific, credible experiences that clearly demonstrate how the disadvantage affected you.

• When possible, identify situations where someone with similar qualifications received an opportunity, treatment, financing, advancement, or access that you did not receive.

• Meeting the PNW threshold alone does not tell the entire story. The certifier will also evaluate the owner’s overall financial circumstances.

• If the certifier identifies a deficiency, that does not necessarily mean the process is over. There may be an opportunity to correct or strengthen the information in the record.

• If you’re certified in multiple states, you generally don’t need to go through the entire reevaluation process separately in every state. The JOC handles the reevaluation.

• Once the reevaluation process is completed, transportation agencies will have additional work to do before DBE-conscious contract goals can be established under the new framework.

The new DBE requirements put greater emphasis on your individual experience and your ability to demonstrate social and economic disadvantage through the facts of your own life and business history. The Personal Narrative and Personal Net Worth statement are therefore critical components of the reevaluation package. Our role is to help you identify the relevant experiences, organize your documentation, develop a clear and fact-based narrative, and prepare your information for submission.