Investing in Indigenous Power to Build Regenerative Futures Youth canas harvesting.
PennElys Droz and Nikki Pieratos
Photo by Sarah Manning, NDN Collective.
ndigenous people across the world have been building power. We build power through maintaining and passing on our songs, stories, and languages; through prayer, healing, and speaking truth. We build power through defending our lands, waters, and communities through grassroots direct action and international human rights work. And we build power through visioning and creating economic models and practices that reflect our teachings and values and honor our relationships. Our Indigenous governments, seeking to recover from colonial subjugation and dependence, now sometimes engage in the same exploitive economic practices used to decimate our Peoples, causing intense internal conflict. For example, we may forego environmental protections on our lands or sign away our rights as legal sovereigns to attract capital investment. Collective land ownership and community decisionmaking processes are not attractive to most investors, leaving many Nations feeling like they have to set their cultural responsibilities and spiritual values aside as they pursue economic opportunities for their people. As Anishinaabe scholar and activist Renee Gurneau said, “We have become financially dependent on our own cultural destruction.” This has never been acceptable, and now is the time to recreate and reimagine our futures and economies, carrying on the legacies of those who have kept our people, cultures, and values alive. We understand that an inherent part of the liberation of Indigenous Peoples, and all Peoples, is the re-establishment of thriving economies that are independent of colonial control, and, critically, that are based in and reflective of our traditional teachings, understandings, and values. These values are the basis of building a more inclusive and regenerative future that braids together strong economies, equity, planet, and health. NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power, is centered in these values to transform narratives, investment, philanthropy, and build connected movements to advance the defense, regenerative development, and decolonization efforts of Indigenous Peoples. We believe that by building Indigenous power, we are
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inherently supporting the movement towards equity and justice for all people and the planet. Our work to transform the capitalist space and systems in which we operate is as much a part of our movement building work as our community organizing efforts to stop the Keystone XL pipeline or the border wall construction on Kumeyaay and Tohono O’odham lands. In recognition of this idea, NDN Collective created NDN Fund, the impact investing and lending arm of the Collective. NDN Fund is an emerging national Native Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) providing financing for large scale Indigenous regenerative community and national development projects that dramatically scale up investment and shift all decisionmaking power to Indigenous Peoples. NDN Fund’s investment strategy is grounded in recognizing the interconnectedness of all things and our responsibilities to our homelands and each other. We provide blended capital, offering debt financing at low rates with flexible terms, and also help align and obtain capital from grant, equity, and other sources where it aligns with our mission. We are developing our capacity building programs so that we can provide customized technical and business services to communities to support development that reflects what is most important to our people and way of life. Our technical assistance also supports advanced industry expertise across our lending areas to help our communities innovate in areas like renewables, housing, social enterprise, and agriculture. NDN Fund is leading the nation in resilient and regenerative finance principles based on our Indigenous values of relationship and kinship. We understand that relationships create life, and it is the quality, balance, and health of our interconnected relationships that determine whether an act is going to be healthy and regenerative of life or not. We place central value on maintaining and regenerating healthy and balanced relationships with the land, all of the beings that give us life, and with each other. NDN Fund prioritizes green and sustainable development practices into our underwriting process, but we equally stress the importance of building resiliency and self-determination among our people. Our Resilient & Regenerative Capital Screen includes questions that prioritize
