As certifying agencies throughout the country announce deadlines for the submission of personal narratives in support of the recertification of all Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE) and Airport Concession DBEs (ACDBE), it is important to focus on the details of writing your personal narrative. Every disadvantaged owner is required to submit a personal narrative outlining their individual case of disadvantage. The presumption of disadvantage based on race and sex has been removed by the USDOT. Please click here, here, and here for my previous blog posts on the subject.
As I have assisted dozens of clients in writing their personal narratives so far, I’m noticing certain mistakes that folks are making repeatedly. Here are five mistakes to avoid making when drafting your personal narrative:
1. Only Focusing on Your Business
The personal narrative is about the individual business owner- not the business. Some owners are drafting personal narratives that focus on the challenges that the business has faced- not them individually. It is fine to talk about your business, but you must connect how challenges your business faced affected you personally- including financially. Make sure to also include individual disadvantages and relate them to delays or other problems in your education, employment, and/or business.
2. Focusing on the Experiences of Others
Some clients have gone into great detail about the experiences of their parents, grandparents, even great-grandparents. Unless these experiences relate back to you, this is not helpful material to include in your personal narrative. For example, discussing the economic disadvantage of your grandparents generally is not appropriate. However, if your grandparents raised you, then you should include it and discuss how growing up in poverty affected you.
3. Focusing Solely on Race or Sex-Based Examples
The new rule eliminated the automatic presumption of disadvantage based on race or sex. If your personal narrative focuses exclusively on situations framed solely as based on race or sex, you are not likely to receive recertification.
Some certifiers are saying that those experiences are okay to include as long as you provide other examples not based on race or sex. Other certifiers are telling individuals not to even mention these circumstances in their personal narratives.
One solution is to think about other motivations for what you faced- could it have been because of an accent? Was it sexual harassment? Age-based? Could you have wrongfully assumed that the experiences were based on race or sex when it is likely they were based on some other factor?
4. Leaving Out the Detail
Providing detailed information is very important for your personal narrative. Making vague claims that you have been disadvantaged will not make you successful. You need to tell your story- providing who, what, where, when, why, and how – whenever possible. Then it must relate back to how it affected your education, employment, or business, as well as how it contributed to your economic disadvantage.
5. Not Submitting a Personal Narrative
The #1 way to ensure that you will not be recertified is to fail to submit your personal narrative. If you are a DBE or ACDBE and the program has helped your business, you should make an attempt at recertification to continue to participate in the program. Having trouble thinking of material for your personal narrative? That’s not unusual. Consider working with a professional (such as an attorney) to help craft your personal narrative. That professional may be able to help identify experiences that are great personal narrative examples that you may have never realized.
If your company needs assistance with DBE or ACDBE certification or recertification (including drafting your personal narrative), please contact Danielle Dietrich, Esq. at ddietrich@potomaclaw.com or 412-449-9141.
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