There are about 65 certified Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) in the United States — roughly the same number as a decade ago.

But that’s starting to change.

In Episode 5 of Difference Makers 3.0, Brian Edwards speaks with leaders building new Native CDFIs in Oklahoma, Hawai‘i and the Northeast — part of a growing wave of more than 30 emerging efforts working to expand access to capital in communities that still don’t have it.

The episode features Kristen Wagner of the Native CDFI Network, along with Riley Logsdon and Chris Coburn of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Community Development Corporation, Olani Lilly of Changemakers Community Economic Development, and Alexander “Brave Journey” Sterling of Turtle Island Community Capital.

Together, their stories show how the next generation of Native CDFIs is taking shape — not through a single model, but through approaches grounded in the needs, values and realities of the communities they serve.

In Oklahoma, a tribally affiliated lending organization is building toward certification while expanding access to small business and consumer lending in communities where predatory lending remains common.

In Hawai‘i, a community development organization is using finance as one tool within a broader, relationship-based approach — rooted in culture, community and long-term resilience.

And in the Northeast, a new Native CDFI effort is identifying significant unmet demand in a region that has historically lacked access to Native-led capital, with one estimate pointing to at least $180 million in investable opportunities.

In this episode:

• Why the number of Native CDFIs has remained relatively flat — and what’s changing
• How more than 30 emerging Native CDFIs are working toward certification
• What it takes to build a Native CDFI from the ground up
• How tribally affiliated lending models are developing in Oklahoma
• Why consumer lending matters in communities facing predatory lending
• How Native Hawaiian leaders are rethinking finance as a relationship-based system
• The scale of unmet demand for capital in regions like the Northeast
• What drives the next generation of Native CDFI leaders

Reading & Resources

🔗 Native CDFI Network RISE Initiative
https://nativecdfi.net/institute/ncn-ris

🔗 Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Community Development Corporation
https://cheyenneandarapahocdc.org/

🔗 Changemakers Community Economic Development
https://changemakershawaii.org/

🔗 Turtle Island Community Capital
https://turtleislandcommunitycapital.org/

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.

Large-scale economic development deals in Indian Country are typically financed through complex capital stacks — combining banks, tax credits and outside investors — with Native CDFIs often left out.

That may be starting to change.

In Episode 4 of Difference Makers 3.0, Brian Edwards and Pete Upton speak with Ted Piccolo and Stephen Nunes of Mission Driven Finance about a $65 million flour mill project on the Umatilla Indian Reservation — and how Native CDFIs helped finance a critical piece of the deal.

The Blue Mountain Mill project brought together tribal equity, senior debt from Native American Bank and a $9 million subordinated loan from eight Native CDFIs across the country.

In this conversation, Piccolo and Nunes explain how that financing came together, why Native lenders were brought in early, and how a collaborative structure — what Piccolo calls a “capital weave” — could shape future Native-led projects.

In this episode:

• How eight Native CDFIs came together to finance a $9M gap in the capital stack
• Why Native lenders have historically been left out of larger deals
• How the “missing middle” can stall projects — and how it was filled
• What a “capital weave” is — and how it works in practice
• How participation builds capacity for Native CDFIs to take on larger deals
• Why this model could extend to energy, infrastructure and other sectors

Reading & Resources:

🔗 Mission Driven Finance
https://missiondrivenfinance.com

🔗 Native CDFI Network
https://nativecdfi.net

🔗 Tribal Business News coverage of the Blue Mountain Mill
https://tribalbusinessnews.com

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.

Native communities receive less than one-half of 1% of philanthropic funding in the United States — roughly four or five dollars for every thousand dollars foundations give away.

In Episode 3 of Difference Makers 3.0, Brian Edwards speaks with Kevin Walker, President and CEO of the Northwest Area Foundation, about why Indian Country remains on the margins of mainstream philanthropy — and what changes when foundations choose to build deep relationships with Native communities.

Under Walker’s leadership, Northwest Area Foundation made a public commitment that 40% of its grant dollars go to Native-led organizations — a level of sustained investment that stands out in the philanthropic sector.

In this conversation, Walker reflects on how that decision emerged, what philanthropy often misunderstands about Indian Country, and why Native CDFIs represent one of the clearest opportunities for measurable economic impact.

In this episode:

• Why Native communities receive less than 0.5% of philanthropic funding
• How NWAF committed to directing 40% of its grants to Native-led organizations
• What philanthropy often gets wrong about Indian Country
• The difference between a deficit mindset and an opportunity mindset
• Why Native CDFIs are powerful drivers of local economic development
• How foundations can move beyond land acknowledgments toward real accountability

Reading & Resources:

🔗 Northwest Area Foundation
https://www.nwaf.org

🔗 NWAF Native-led work approach
https://www.nwaf.org/approach/native-led-work/

🔗 NWAF strategy supporting Native CDFIs
https://www.nwaf.org/approach/native-cdfis/

🔗 Native CDFI Network
https://nativecdfi.net

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.

How Native CDFIs grew from federal study into a sovereign finance movement

In 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department released the Native American Lending Study, identifying 17 structural barriers to capital access in Indian Country. The report helped catalyze what would become the modern Native CDFI movement.

Fifteen years later, Treasury published a follow-up report, Access to Capital and Credit in Native Communities (2016), examining how the sector had evolved.

In this episode of Difference Makers 3.0, researcher Miriam R. Jorgensen of the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and the Native Nations Institute joins Brian Edwards and Pete Upton to discuss:

• Why the 2001 study was pivotal
• How Native CDFIs grew from roughly 10 institutions to nearly 70
• Why capitalization remains a challenge
• The role of tribal government investment
• How Native CDFIs evolved from microloans to complex capital stacks
• What happens if federal support changes

🔗 Read the 2001 Native American Lending Study (U.S. Treasury PDF).

🔗 Read the 2016 report, Access to Capital and Credit in Native Communities. Written by Miriam R. Jorgensen, Research Director at the Native Nations Institute and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Funded by the U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, with additional support from the Morris K. and Stewart L. Udall Foundation.

🎧 Listen now:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2352819/episodes/18718249

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.

The legal foundations of tribal economies

Long before federal banking systems or modern economic policy, Native nations were building trade networks, governing territory and sustaining complex economies.

In Episode 1 of Difference Makers 3.0, legal scholar Robert J. Miller — a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and professor of law — joins Brian Edwards and Pete Upton to examine the historical and constitutional foundations of tribal sovereignty.

From pre-colonial trade systems to the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, Miller makes the case that tribes are sovereign governments, not racial groups — a distinction that shapes everything from treaty rights to modern Native finance.

In this episode, Miller discusses:

• Why Indigenous economies were sophisticated long before European contact
• How property, inheritance and trade operated in tribal nations
• What the Constitution says about commerce with Indian tribes
• Why Native CDFIs are expressions of sovereignty — not DEI programs
• How modern Native finance reflects government-to-government relationships

🎧 Listen now:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2352819/episodes/18669874-before-the-banks

Reading material:

🔗 Reservation Capitalism by Robert J. Miller, Adam Crepelle

🔗 Morton v. Mancari (1974)

🔗 U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 (Indian Commerce Clause)

🔗 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975)

🔗 Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (UNESCO page)

🔗 Chaco Culture National Historical Park (National Park Service)

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.

Difference Makers 3.0 is a yearlong podcast series from the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News that explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are reshaping the future of tribal economies — one loan, one partnership, one bold idea at a time.

This season, the podcast moves beyond small business stories to spotlight the full spectrum of what Native CDFIs do — from consumer lending to homeownership, credit repair to capital stacking — and why they matter more than ever.

Through in-depth interviews with Native CDFI leaders, funders, tribal partners, and clients, Difference Makers 3.0 traces the movement’s history, the policy fights shaping its future, and the collaborations that are helping Native CDFIs grow their impact and build long-term capacity.

Difference Makers highlights how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) work alongside their small business clients to accelerate change and create economic opportunities in Native communities. Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they shine a spotlight on the people accelerating economic change in Indian Country.

In the season finale of Difference Makers 2.0, host Elyse Wild revisits Native entrepreneurs nearly a year after their first interviews to see how their businesses have grown—and how Native CDFIs continue to fuel their success. From rebuilding after Hurricane Helene to expanding RV repair services and turning a beloved food truck into a brick-and-mortar restaurant, these stories highlight resilience, innovation, and the critical role of Native CDFIs in strengthening small businesses across Indian Country.

Difference Makers highlights how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) work alongside their small business clients to accelerate change and create economic opportunities in Native communities. Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they shine a spotlight on the people accelerating economic change in Indian Country.

Pete Upton, CEO of Native CDFI Network, warns of an "existential threat" to the NACA program—the only federal funding stream specifically for Native CDFIs. With 86% of this year's funding at risk and potential complete elimination next year, 69 Native CDFIs serving banking deserts across Indian Country could lose their lifeline. The stakes? 46% of Native lands are banking deserts (12x the national average). Without Native CDFIs, there are no small business loans, no home loans, no economic development. But there's hope. Pete outlines solutions including a $50 million Treasury set-aside and leveraging SSBCI funds. He's calling for a seat at the table with the new administration to find common ground. "Native CDFIs are about economic freedom, not dependency—building businesses, creating jobs, keeping government out of the way where possible."

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.