So You Have a B Corp…Now What?

Minnesota Public Benefit Corporations are required to submit an Annual Report each year by April 1, along with a $35 fee, which assesses their successes and roadblocks to achieving their public benefit mission. Minn. Stat. 304A requires that B Corps judge their progress by an independent “third party standard.” The definition of “third party standard” is open-ended:

(1) a publicly available standard or guideline for defining, reporting, and assessing the performance of a business enterprise as a social or benefit corporation;
(2) promulgated by a natural person or an organization; and
(3) that is independent of the public benefit corporation.

There are many existing third party standards available for companies to use. B Labs’ B Impact Assessment is the most widely-known. Others, such as Food Alliance Certified and Sustainable Farm Certification are geared toward specific industries, such as agriculture, farming or the food industry. We’ve seen an on-going need for small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs to have a flexible, easy-to-use third-party standard so they can quickly assess the health and success of their company throughout the year.

In response to this need, we thought we’d share the B Corp Annual Assessment that we use with our clients. Feel free to use this tool yourself, pass it along to a company in need, or be in touch with any questions.