Breaking Barriers: Catalyzing Indigenous Entrepreneurship Toward Financial Inclusion
Above: Elyse Dempsey, team member at Roanhorse Consulting works to change power dynamics in health and wealth systems by using an Indigenous worldview to co-create solutions to complex problems. Photo courtesy of Roanhorse Consulting.
Starting a business in the United States and being an entrepreneur are two related yet distinct experiences. In 2019, the Kauffman Foundation launched the Capital Access Labs and found that 83% of all entrepreneurs in the U.S. could not access formal financing to start or grow their businesses. By 2023, another national landscape analysis revealed no significant change. For many entrepreneurs, access to capital begins with a “friends and family” round — a privilege often unavailable to Indigenous individuals raised on reservations where generational wealth is more about shared community values than financial assets.
Entrepreneurship is a tool for agency and mobility, particularly in Indigenous communities. In 2020, Indigenous businesses generated over $50 billion in revenue, with approximately 60% of these enterprises led by women – who are paid less than .58 cents to the dollar, are two-thirds the breadwinners in their families and one in three women will experience violence in their lifetimes. Yet, these women are starting companies two times faster than their white non-Hispanic counterparts and are an $11 billion dollar industry with little to no help or support. Despite this growth, Indigenous women founders still face unique challenges, including a lack of technical assistance, limited access to networks and, most critically, insufficient access to capital that fundamentally understands their lived experiences. Geographic and legal barriers exacerbate these challenges, as many investors remain unfamiliar with Tribal legal systems and protocols, resulting in hesitancy to navigate them.
In 2024, Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) received unprecedented funding — $76.32 million from philanthropic sources, with an additional $3 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury. MacKenzie Scott contributed $103 million to Native CDFIs, signaling a historic opportunity to address the capital gap faced by Indigenous founders. These investments have the potential to catalyze new lending and investment products tailored to Native communities’ needs. For many Native bankers, financial champions and innovators, this level of deep investment has the potential to be transformative and catalytic for Indigenous people and communities, if we can create space and runway for the desperately needed broad landscape of diverse capital products that redefine risk and innovative strategies for more inclusive and meaningful underwriting due diligence practices and frameworks.
As part of the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion, the U.S. Treasury released a report in December 2024 outlining several recommendations to improve financial access for Native communities. These include promoting low-cost transaction accounts, expanding alternative data to improve credit access, and supporting special-purpose credit programs tailored to underserved communities. Expanding financial services on Tribal lands and providing technical assistance to Native-owned small businesses are critical steps.
Reauthorizing the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) under the American Rescue Plan Act marked one of the most significant federal investments in Tribal small business financing in history. The Treasury approved over $500 million for more than 200 Tribes, potentially resulting in $5 billion in additional financing for Native entrepreneurs. These programs are vital in creating accessible and sustainable financing solutions on Tribal lands. For example, the Treasury’s Native American CDFI Assistance Program (NACA) has awarded nearly $270 million since 2001, increasing the number of Certified Native CDFIs from 14 to 64. These funds support lending capital, loan loss reserves, and financial services that enhance access to capital in Native communities.
Alongside these critical federal programs, Indigenous founders and communities need Indigenous-led intermediaries designing investment vehicles to bridge the gap for what is happening on the ground, testing new products to redefine risk and who should bear the most significant impact.
Catalytic and integrated capital, as outlined in a 2023 report by First Peoples Worldwide at CU Boulder, Integrated Capital Investing and the Croatan Institute, can advance Indigenous-led solutions and foster long-term infrastructure development. One key recommendation is to invest in “Indigenous-led intermediaries, which are the most effective conduits for increasing catalytic capital flows to Native entrepreneurs.” These include CDFIs, social enterprises and nonprofit organizations developing funding vehicles to serve Native founders and their communities. For example, Roanhorse Consulting LLC, (RCLLC) co-created Native Women Lead’s Matriarch Funds, a scaffolded lending platform that leverages character-based lending to support Indigenous women founders. This effort was possible due to a deep partnership with Nusenda Credit Union to leverage their financial back office infrastructure and assets under management to develop a micro-loan program designed for overlooked and under-invested founders. This catalytic opportunity has since provided close to four million dollars in lending capital to entrepreneurs across the southwest region by bringing together program-related investments, grants, low- to zero-interest debt and working with community partners. It has empowered Native-led organizations to determine their potential as lenders and investors, with some launching their funds, like Change Lab’s Kinship Lending platform.
RCLLC’s efforts focus on building institutional alternative financing infrastructure that aligns with Indigenous values of community health and access to land, language and culture.
Recent partnerships with Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC), with resounding support from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, have enabled the partnership to design and pilot a new lending program, Rooted Relative Fund, providing $30,000 to $250,000 loans. These loans are for established Indigenous entrepreneurs who demonstrate a need for growth. This initiative aims to increase capital flow while empowering Native-led organizations to become lenders and investors in and where they serve. As a CDFI, RCAC can activate the innovative power and structure this model to leverage unsecured capital to create new opportunities for underwriting strategies that are powered and led by the organizations on the ground to co-define.
RCLLC’s work involves bridging ecosystems, capital, institutions and policymakers to develop sustainable strategies beyond pilot projects. This is where RCLLC sees a clear opportunity to push progress forward by investing in and supporting the missing middle, especially for Indigenous founders and Indigenous community markets. Micro, small and midsize enterprises (between 10 and 250 employees) are too large to be served by microfinance institutions and too small and high-risk for the more formal banking sector to support. Despite their significant role in local and reservation-based economies, they do not have access to critical financial services. This isn’t new or groundbreaking, but it is a challenge emerging markets globally face, which we know most entrepreneurs in the United States face.
In 2024, RCLLC took its nine years of learning and programs and decided to launch its venture studio, Return on Indigenous (ROI), to address gaps in the lifecycle of the Indigenous-led ecosystem. This studio takes an ecosystem approach by developing and financing new businesses that fill the gaps for Indigenous people while working across networks to increase and enhance learning, data collection and resource flow sharing. ROI incubates ventures like the Rematriating Economies Apprenticeship (REA), Monsoon Fund (MF) and Center Native. Each initiative targets specific needs, from placing Indigenous women in investment management roles to providing revenue-based financing for Indigenous femme founders experiencing the missing middle financing gap. This approach ensures we have seats on both sides of the capital table.
Despite progress, much work remains to dismantle systemic barriers and ensure equitable access to financial resources. With unknown challenges ahead, the federal, philanthropic and private sectors must commit to work together so Indigenous people can access the capital needed to drive innovation to build meaningful wealth. These efforts show that with the right investor relationships and committed funding support, it is possible to make a financial system that meets the potential that is on the horizon for Native people. Our concerted job is to weave and bridge financial solutions and products that don’t exist so that Indigenous people can have agency, mobility and liberation. As the original inhabitants of these lands, Indigenous wisdom and innovation will continue to shape the future far beyond this time.
Article by Vanessa Roanhorse, founder of Roanhorse Consulting, leads initiatives in ecosystem building, access to capital, and community-driven economic development. She co-founded Native Women Lead, advancing Indigenous women in business through initiatives like the 5R’s of Rematriation and the Matriarch Funds. A champion for Indigenous-led economic solutions, Vanessa is co-building the Rematriating Economies Apprenticeship to empower women in fund and asset management. She serves on boards including Delta Institute, Seven Fires, and Potlikker Capital. Recognized with awards such as the 2021 PayPal Maggie Lena Walker Award, Vanessa lives in unceded Tiwa Territory with her partner and son.