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2024 DEI 2.0 Plan Report

Enhancing Supplier and Investment Diversity

Procurement Services devised supplier engagement strategies to grow the MConnect database, which enables U-M units to locate small and/or diverse businesses, and will launch newly developed Socially Responsible Procurement Guidelines that will be distributed throughout campus in Fall 2024; while the Treasurer’s Office partnered with ten banks to develop and refine a series of impactful and nationally replicable subprograms focused on housing affordability, neighborhood revitalization and a financial literacy program that leverages expertise of the Ross School of Business and the Marsal Family School of Education.

The Cube at Regents Plaza

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Progress to Date

The Treasurer’s Office made significant progress in developing its Community Impact Banking pilot program as a national model of how organizations can positively impact their communities in creative ways and as a means to invest for social return as opposed to purely financial outcomes. The pilot is expected to launch in early Fall 2025, with the subsequent year devoted to collecting feedback and further refining the program.

During Year 1, Procurement Services (PS) worked to expand supplier diversity by creating engagement strategies aligned with the unit’s core values, leveraging current data and identifying resources for departments to enhance the opportunity to engage with diverse and small businesses. Focusing on engagement, the unit continued its relationships with the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council (MMSDC) and Great Lakes Women’s Business Council (GLWBC). A presentation to Ypsilanti Chamber of Commerce members resulted in new registrants for the MConnect platform. Available to all U-M users, MConnect now contains documented information from over 860 suppliers, 632 of whom self-identify as small and/or diverse businesses.

The unit also developed Socially Responsible Procurement Guidelines to help ensure that all U-M procurement follows responsible criteria for sustainable, diverse, and community-oriented products and services.

Between FY 2021 and 2024, the number of diverse and small businesses invited to request for proposals (RFx) events increased by over 2,229 firms. In FY24 alone, U-M’s spending with these suppliers reached $337M, with significant portions allocated to small businesses ($263M), women-owned businesses ($49.5M), and minority-owned businesses ($18.5M).

Year 2 plans call for enhancing the infrastructure of our Social Impact programs, building community partnerships, refining the process for tracking and reporting performance metrics, and transitioning from MConnect to M-Marketsite to support the identification of suppliers with federally recognized diversity certifications.

Responsible Unit: Business & Finance