- Details
- By Brian Edwards
- Finance
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has awarded more than $103 million in unrestricted funding to Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) across the country, marking one of the largest single investments in Native financial institutions.
The funding, part of a broader $2 billion giving initiative announced in a blog post Wednesday, includes grants ranging from $1 million to $13 million to 30 Native-led and Native-serving CDFIs nationwide.
The Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation in Oklahoma received the largest publicly disclosed grant at $13 million, followed by $12 million each to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and Hawai'i Community Lending. Several additional grants were made, but their amounts are being temporarily withheld for the benefit of recipients, including Four Bands Community Fund, Four Directions Development Corporation, NACDC Financial Services, and Pacific Northwest Tribal Lending.
Native CDFIs, which are Native-led financial institutions serving Indigenous communities, will use the funding to expand access to affordable housing, business loans, financial education, and clean energy projects in Native communities.
"No one knows better how to build up Native communities than Native CDFIs," Pete Upton, CEO of Native CDFI Network, told Tribal Business News. "As trusted, Native-led institutions, we are on the frontlines, leading the path toward opportunity, resilience, and economic prosperity."
The latest round of funding builds on Scott's previous support for Native-led organizations. Since 2020, she has provided $132.5 million to 37 Native American-serving nonprofits, representing approximately 0.8% of her total $17.3 billion in philanthropic giving, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Several organizations in today’s announcement received follow-on funding from Scott, including First Nations Community Financial, which received $8 million in 2020, and long-serving Native CDFI intermediary Oweesta Corporation, which received $3 million in 2020.
The unrestricted nature of Scott's giving allows Native CDFIs to strengthen their operations and expand services. According to 2019 research from Candid and Native Americans in Philanthropy, less than 0.5% of funding from large U.S. foundations traditionally goes to Native American nonprofits.
Scott outlined her giving strategy in a blog post titled “Investing” on Wednesday, emphasizing her focus on economic security and opportunity. She detailed plans to source future gifts from investments in mission-aligned ventures led by women, people of color, and leaders from the communities being served.
Ted Piccolo, founding executive director of Northwest Native Development Fund and current senior director of Indigenous Futures at Mission Driven Finance, told Tribal Business News that the scale and speed of Scott's investment is unprecedented in Native CDFI history.
"There's never been anything like this — this much, this fast, this focused - it's amazing," said Piccolo, who helped establish one of the first Native CDFIs in Eastern Washington in 2006. "When I started, I remember getting a $10,000 grant and that was like, I knew I could have revenue to pay my salary for three months. That's just how slim it was."
This is a developing story.
