Page 30 - BusinessWest June 17, 2024

Certified Diverse Businesses
How to Qualify and Comply with Massachusetts Requirements
BY JULIE A. DIALESSI-LAFLEY, ESQ.
AND BRITANEY N. GUZMAN-BAILEY, ESQ.
It is no secret that running a profitable business can be difficult. It can be even more difficult, however, for women, minorities, veterans, persons with dis-
abilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, who often face systemic obstacles to achieving sus- tainable economic status for their businesses.
Massachusetts has created various public pro- grams for certain diverse business enterprises to address this issue, such as the state’s certification program through the Supplier Diversity Office (SDO).
The SDO currently certifies the following business categories: Minority (MBE), Women (WBE), Portu- guese (PBE), and Veteran (VBE). The SDO also has agreements with third-party organizations to certify additional business categories: Service-disabled Vet- eran (SDVOBE), Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans- gender (LGBTBE), and Disability-owned (DOBE).
The qualifications and requirements for each are easily found on the Commonwealth’s website. For a quick list, an interested business may review the SDO certification program at www.mass.gov/ certification-program-for-sdo.
In addition to certifying businesses, the SDO also provides certified diverse businesses with networking opportunities to market their goods and services to potential buyers. The SDO certification may give busi- ness enterprises a competitive edge when seeking
contracts with the government because the SDO sets benchmark spending goals for state-agency buyers to pur- chase goods and services from cer- tified business.
“There is a lot of opportunity for a registered business, and the numbers indicate there are numerous businesses in the local footprint that would likely qualify but have not registered yet.”
Addition-
ally, applica nts
enjoy the mar-
keting benefit of
being listed in
the SDO’s directory of certified businesses. A com- plete list of SDO-certified businesses can be found again at the Commonwealth’s website.
For certification, a business entity must be both owned and controlled by eligible persons and or prin- cipals, be free of any conversion rights, be indepen- dent, and be ongoing. An eligible person is an adult permanent resident of the U.S. who is a minority, vet- eran, person of Portuguese origin, LGBT individual, person with a disability, and/or a woman. An eligible principal must own at least 51% of the business enterprise or, if a nonprofit organization, must be in
JULIE DIALESSI-LAFLEY
BRITANEY GUZMAN-BAILEY
control of the organization.
Clarification of the categories is helpful and may
result in being eligible based on more than one crite- ria. For example, in order to qualify as a minority, one is defined as an Indian or Indigenous, Asian, Black, Hispanic, or Portuguese person.
Careful Consideration
The Commonwealth looks carefully at all require- ments. In order to meet the requirement of being free from conversion rights, neither the applicant nor the eligible principals may be subject to a scheme that,
if exercised, could result in diluting the ownership of
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