On Monday, January 28, Confluence was honored to co-sponsor a webinar with the Investors and Indigenous Peoples Working Group (IIPWG). The subject: How do we bring investment to American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities?
The lack of investment in Indian country is dire. “Resources just aren’t coming to Native America,” said Confluence’s CEO Dana Lanza. “In grantmaking, less than 1% of dollars come to tribal communities. It’s hard to understand how that could be possible, but it’s the truth.”
Without vigilance, she said, this inequity will be perpetuated by mission-driven investors. “We didn’t want to create the same unjust paradigm among our members.” But as the group of over 70 investors and advocacy partners on the call heard, the opportunities are also immense, and largely not well understood.
Building bridges
This webinar was the first of two devoted to discussing how to build bridges between investors and the native communities. Moderator Eva Schulte, VP for Economic Opportunity at Travois, set the tone up front, asking how we can advance advocacy that “supports indigenous groups and their leadership in developing regenerative economies.”
The first speaker, Mike Tedesco, Executive Director of the Spokane Tribe, started by outlining the advantages of investing in Indian Country—but first, he described how he discovered them.
The tribe owns 300 acres just outside the city of Spokane. Half of that acreage is devoted to gaming; the other half is intended for a green industrial park. In 2017, when Amazon announced it was looking for a site for a new headquarters, the tribe decided to apply—and they ended up being one of just two tribes to put forth a proposal.
Although not selected, they learned about a number of programs during the proposal process that collectively led to a competitive proposal:
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Accelerated depreciation
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Indian Employment Tax Credit
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Guaranteed federal contracting
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Poised for a foreign trade zone
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No Sunshine laws
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Opportunity Zone
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Promise Zone
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HUB Zone
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Incentivized leasing
Balancing investment with community needs
Next, Dana Lanza described the work Confluence is currently doing to jumpstart investment in Indian Country in the Southwest. So far, she said, Confluence has raised $2.25 million for programs and $1.1 million in grant dollars to learn how to partner effectively with native communities.
Recent deals have centered around energy efficiency and bringing the first Zuni-owned grocery store to one community. With any investment, Lanza said, it’s important to align the vision with the reality on the ground: “We want to make sure our projects are building the wellbeing of the communities.”
Wellbeing is of paramount importance for native peoples, who suffer from high rates of unemployment and often lack basic health care and mental health care. Little Fawn Boland, attorney and tribal member of the San Juan Pueblo Tewa, described the scale of the need on reservations: “We have to provide medical services, education services, health, social services—tribes must do this on a shoestring budget with little or no money.” Unfortunately, reservations are often tasked with providing all the services of a large municipality—but without the tax base.
Boland also spoke to why some investors might hesitate. “When I meet people who have not been exposed to Indian Country, there’s a lot of fear around investing,” she said. “But these are low-risk investments. A lot of people talk about sovereign immunity, but that can be waived. We have less governmental hurdles to deal with, so we can fast-track investments in a way that can’t be done outside.”
Of course, fast-tracking investments isn’t always good for the community. Lanza described two reports Confluence has released which help investors shield themselves from companies doing harm in tribal communities. But with good planning and robust community buy-in, Boland—who’s worked deeply with credit transactions and sees “a lot of opportunity” in the New Markets Tax Credit allocations—says investors can take advantage of these programs to make a difference.
Lanza encouraged listeners on the call to get involved, particularly those from tribes looking to access investment dollars: “Reach out, join Confluence—it’s a great way to access the hard-to-reach world of private wealth.”
Thinking bigger
Imogen Rose Smith, Investment Fellow at the University of California, spoke from the larger institutional investor’s perspective.
Historically, Smith said, institutional asset owners have interacted with Indian country in an advocacy role. She said the Dakota Access Pipeline became a big advocacy issue, and UC ultimately divested its fixed income holdings from companies funding that pipeline project.
That kind of advocacy is invaluable to movements. But what about investing? As endowments get more interested in impact investing, Smith predicts the dollars flowing towards tribal communities could increase—if managers can find projects that fit the scale needed.
As the webinar wrapped up, one participant asked how you ensure free, prior, and informed consent is implemented in projects on tribal lands. Every speaker agreed that ensuring tribes want the projects are key—and say that tribal-led projects are the best way to ensure community buy-in.
Interested in attending the next webinar? In the second of this two-part series we’ll take a deeper dive into intermediaries, tribal LLCs, renewables, and native food sovereignty. It will take place on March 1, 2019—mark your calendars! Email accounts@confluencephilanthropy.org for more details.
