Sources of black-owned business data

May 12, 2018 10:46 AM

I'm looking to identify black-owned businesses in the metro Atlanta area. Are there databases, APIs, or other data sources available with this information? I've poked around on data.gov, www.programmableweb.com, and the databases available via my local library and haven't found anything promising.
posted by braveterry to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Stats are available as part of the Survey of Business Owners, but it does not list individual businesses. You could check to see the US Black Chamber of Commerce or the National Black Chamber of Commerce make their member lists public. You could also talk to the Atlanta regional affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council.
posted by emkelley at 11:16 AM on May 12, 2018

Fulton county has a certification program for minority and female owned businesses for purchasing and contract compliance reasons. Here is the main page: M/FBE Directory. From that page go here: Compliance and Certification Online System, and then click on Search Registered Directory under the Vendor Certification heading. This will let you filter by business type, which are Female Business Enterprise, Minority Business Enterprise, and Service-Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise.

I would not be surprised to find that Dekalb, Gwinnett, and some of the other metro counties have a similar list available.
posted by ralan at 1:16 PM on May 12, 2018

This isn't entirely what you want, but until you locate an ideal database, perhaps a start would be using Support Black-Owned Businesses, the Georgia section? You can select "Atlanta" from the drop-down, but you'd be filtering out Kennesaw and Alpharetta and all the other Atlanta suburbs, so I linked you Georgia-wide. There's also a keyword search and a business category drop-down.

Other starts might be:
I Am Black Business
Official Black-Owned Wall Street
US Black Chambers Directory
That last one, I found via the Clinton Foundation blurb, which makes it sound the most official.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 4:42 PM on May 12, 2018 [1 favorite]