The National Alliance for Black Business (NABB), co-founded by the National Business League (NBL) and National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), in partnership with the World Conference of Mayors (WCM) and the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance (HBTSA)  announced on January 27, 2023, the nation’s first-ever national Black Business Enterprise (BBE) certification and scorecard program at the WCM Black Business Breakfast and Press Conference presented by Comerica Bank. 

The landmark national BBE certification and scorecard program, designed and trademarked by the NBL, will certify businesses that are at least 51% Black-owned to be eligible for mainstream public, private, and philanthropic contracting and procurement opportunities. 

The BBE certification was created to address the fact that today, 59 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, less than 1% of the nation’s 3.2 million Black-Owned Businesses are certified as U.S. Minority Businesses according to a 2021 report published by the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). Of 3.2 million Black-owned companies, only 5,881 Black businesses have an MBE certification. 

Minority-owned companies not certified by a nationally recognized program are ineligible for U.S. government procurement equity programs, freezing them out of more than $100 billion in minority-designated U.S. government contracts according to data released by the White House. Further, less than 1% of Black-Owned Businesses are certified with any federal, public, private or minority certification programs in the U.S., since the 1968 expansion of the Civil Rights Act. 



Visit www.nationalblackcc.org  to learn more.