Has your application for the SBA 8 (a) program been rejected due to your social / economic disadvantage narrative? Don’t be discouraged, this is not the time to give up, this is the time to complete your narrative and this is how.
With fewer than 8,000 SBA 8a-certified businesses currently in operation (based on March 2010 data), getting certified remains a complicated and complex process. And there are some unwritten rules for writing the narrative to prepare it to meet SBA requirements, known as “preponderance of evidence,” that we will share with you.
Depending on who the designated owner of the business is, it will determine what type of narrative you will need to prepare. For example: if you are a designated minority, your narrative should only demonstrate an economic disadvantage. If you are a female, non-designated minority, or service-disabled veteran business owner, your narrative must demonstrate both a social and economic disadvantage. If your business is owned by multiple minority owners, each will also need to prepare a narrative.
If you are a woman in addition to a minority, you can only choose one category. We recommend that you prepare your SBA application as a minority owner, as you will only need to prepare the economic narrative rather than both.
We find that most narratives are rejected for the following reasons:
– Not providing enough information to “tell your story”. Most of our client narratives we prepare are between 5 and 9 pages long. While the SBA 8a application instructions do not give any clues as to the length of the narratives, we believe that to tell your story and meet the SBA’s expectations, you need to write more than a couple of paragraphs.
– It does not include specific details or extended documentation. While most SBA 8a applicants do not have court-related documents related to discrimination and harassment, many of our clients have documents or emails that support their stories of nightmares at work. We recommend that you refer to these documents in your online application and include them with your printed documentation to support your narrative.
– Include events in your narrative that address education, career, and business history. It is not enough to write about just one aspect of your life, you need to address how you have experienced discrimination in your ability to obtain an education, working for companies in professional development experiences, and the variety of business disappointments you have experienced. The best narratives address all three areas.
– Include first-hand accounts of your experiences to confirm that they really happened. We encourage clients to ask former supervisors, co-workers, and other staff members who witnessed events of discrimination and harassment to prepare written statements recounting the events you’ve mentioned in your narrative. This gives credibility to the events mentioned.
