Financial management and asset building skills encourage and assist individuals, families, and communities to build economic security by fostering the accumulation of wealth. While this is important for all Americans, asset building strategies that foster community and economic development for Native communities are especially critical.  By providing opportunities for building assets and financial skills, Native communities can improve the well-being of their residents, create self-sufficiency and enhance their tribal and economic sovereignty.  Oweesta Corporation was established to help Native institutions build their capacity to do just that.

Oweesta is the only certified Native community development financial institution (CDFI) intermediary in the country.  Its main focus is helping to develop Native assets for indigenous peoples living on reservations, traditional Indian lands, Hawaiian homelands, Urban Indian areas, and in Alaska Native villages through the creation of Native CDFIs, entrepreneurship development systems, and financial education and asset building programs.  Oweesta and the local organizations it supports strive to empower Native people to take control of their lives, communities, and their resources by providing access to capital for home ownership, assisting in the development of small business and community facilities, assisting with land acquisition, and increasing financial education skills. 
 
Since the days when Native nations were first placed on government controlled reservations, Native peoples have been forced into a dependent “trust” relationship with the U.S. government.  But, under this slowly developing government-to-government relationship between Native nations and the United States, economic growth remains far behind the rest of the country and is often hampered by bureaucracy; individual entrepreneurship has been slow to appear in the economy; and the majority of Native people continue to live in poverty, substandard housing, and without a thriving Native-owned private sector.  While many factors contribute to this reality, the most prominent is the lack of an efficient and effective combination of training, technical assistance, investments, and advocacy for Native communities.  For example, Native communities are often provided with funding, but not the tools to use it efficiently; or, an individual tribal member will gain the knowledge to start a business, but will be unable to access the funding to do so.  This is the vicious circle many Native communities continue to find themselves in and the traditional approach thus far for building Native economies.
   
Oweesta’s approach is unique in that it focuses on creating an effective synergy between the elements of training, technical assistance, investment, and advocacy.  Its primary method is the development of Native CDFIs.  Oweesta not only assists in building organizations that create a strong sense of community, but also helps to make them sustainable.  These organizations in turn create local entrepreneurs, homeowners, and tribal businesses as well as develop the infrastructure and knowledge that lead to solid and culturally appropriate governance, legal systems, commercial practices and community-focused financial management. 
 
To ensure success and sustainability within their communities in the start-up to maturity stages, Oweesta offers ongoing technical assistance and training to these organizations every step of the way.  A key component of this assistance through its Financial Education and Asset Building Program is to help develop the capacity of tribes, Native organizations, and individuals to better manage their assets and expand their financial skills. With respect to these goals, Oweesta promotes developing an integrated asset building strategy that will provide Native CDFIs with the necessary tools to start asset-building programs in their communities, drawing from and combining local resources. Work in this area includes:

Native Financial Education Instructor Training - Utilizing the Building Native Communities (BNC) series of culturally appropriate financial education curricula including the Financial Skills for Families materials, Oweesta provides instructor training workshops around the country with the goal of increasing the number of qualified Native financial education trainers. 

The Native Financial Skills Initiative is sponsored by the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund and provides for three-day financial education workshops based on the BNC financial education series tailored to a Native CDFI audience.  Accompanying this training is up to six days of technical assistance per attending group to help them develop financial education programs for their communities.  The trainings will cover the Financial Skills for Families core curriculum and an introduction to related asset building programs. The program provides participants with the tools and the guidance to engage other community organizations, to combine resources and work together to build an effective program that is user friendly to all age groups. More importantly, the program cultivates local trainers, with whom the community can identify and vice versa. Ultimately, community members will gain a stronger awareness of financial education concepts and will serve as role models for their families and the community as a whole.  This training model allows community organizations to learn the basics of teaching financial management skills, then customizing a program for their communities, including to special needs clients like at-risk youth, individuals with disabilities, or survivors of domestic violence.

Native Individual Development Account (NIDA) Initiative- Oweesta and partners CFED and First Nations Development Institute have developed a Native focused IDA curriculum and training and technical assistance program sponsored by the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund.  This includes regional trainings across the country for Native communities and organizations interested in creating IDA programs in their communities.

Free Tax Preparation Services and Earned Income Tax Credit Outreach – Oweesta helps to train Native organizations including Native CDFIs, housing authorities, and tribal colleges and universities to offer free tax preparation services outreach to help community members access tax returns without paying high fees through Refund Anticipation Loans.  Oweesta also offers free outreach tools to promote awareness about EITC and how these benefits can be integrated into a financial plan.  And most importantly, Oweesta supports the Native EITC Network so that Native organizations can provide peer networking and learning amongst each other.

Another important component of Oweesta’s financial education work is its coordination of the Native Financial Education Coalition (NFEC).   Oweesta helped establish, and currently spearheads, fundraises, and manages funding for this group of national organizations representing Native communities, foundations, federal agencies, financial sector regulators, and non-profit organizations.  The NFEC is focused on increasing awareness in Native communities of the need for adequate personal finance skills; building the capacity of tribes and tribal organizations to provide financial skills training; and supporting each other’s efforts to promote financial management skills through information sharing and collaboration.

More information on the specific products and programs Oweesta offers can be found on their website: www.oweesta.org.