The United States Mint will initiate the formal design process by contacting the chief executive of the District of Columbia or the territory being honored. The chief executive, or such other officials or group as the chief executive officer of the District of Columbia or the territory may designate for such purpose, will appoint an individual to serve as the liaison to the United States Mint for this Program.

The District of Columbia and each territory will conduct a concept selection process as determined by the District of Columbia and each territory. The District of Columbia and each territory will provide to the United States Mint at least two, but no more than three, different concepts or themes emblematic of the District of Columbia or the territory; each concept or theme will be in narrative format. The narrative must explain why the concept is emblematic of the District of Columbia or the territory and what the concept represents to its citizens. A narrative that merely describes a particular design is not acceptable.

Based on the narratives, the United States Mint will produce at its discretion one or more original candidate designs for each concept, focusing on aesthetic beauty, historical accuracy, appropriateness and coinability.

The United States Mint will contact the District of Columbia and each territory to collaborate on the candidate designs. The District of Columbia and each territory will appoint an historian, or other responsible officials or experts, to participate in this collaboration to ensure historical accuracy and proper representation of the candidate designs. The United States Mint will refine the candidate designs, as necessary, before presenting them to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) and the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA).

The CCAC and the CFA will review the candidate designs and make recommendations, and the United States Mint, in consultation with the District of Columbia and each territory, may make changes to address such recommendations.

From among the final candidate designs, the District of Columbia and each territory will recommend its primary and secondary candidate design choices through a process determined by the District of Columbia and each territory, within a time frame specified by the United States Mint.

The United States Mint will present the primary recommended design from the District of Columbia and each territory to the Secretary of the Treasury for approval.