Promising Practice 3: Recognition of Strengths Within Participants and the Community

Promising Practice 3: Recognition of Strengths Within Participants and the Community NAYA’s IDA program supports participants in identifying, articulating, and building strengths in themselves and the Native community. NAYA seeks to change the narrative about the Native community, the IDA program, and Native finances. The perpetuation of negative stereotypes about the Native community has been deeply harmful to many and continues to impact Native Americans’ experiences with the police, hospitals, housing authorities, and the wider community. NAYA’s consistent messaging is that the Native community in Portland has existed for thousands of years, the Native community is strong and resilient, Natives are homeowners and entrepreneurs and pillars of the community, and Native culture is to be celebrated. While some might see the IDA program as an ineffective means of encouraging individual growth of large assets, NAYA’s IDA program proves the opposite, with numerous stories of participants leaving with down payments for homes, starting or expanding businesses, and graduating from institutions of higher education. Native participants are diverse, a result of NAYA’s resistance of the narrative that Natives must look or act a certain way. Graduates of the IDA program walk away with a renewed sense of cultural identity and community pride, understanding the richness of Native history and culture, economic and relational. Participants develop financial skills in a culturally connected way, changing the narrative surrounding finances and their purpose. With a clear vision and great intentionality, NAYA brings participants along in building new narratives for the Native community. Participants who complete the IDA program often reenroll in a different asset category, building on their newfound skills and discovered strengths to continue their goals of wealth-building. One participant who is a single parent first enrolled in the IDA program to invest in their own education and “learn how to support themselves, kids, grandkids and future.” When an opportunity arose to do an IDA for homeownership, this person reenrolled in NAYA’s IDA program and used their matched savings to fund the down payment for a house, a story that has inspired other community members to pursue homeownership and enroll in the IDA program. The flexibility to use their matched savings for their own goals helps participants invest in ways that fit their needs, life stage, and dreams. For example, a participant who described themselves as a stay-at-home person “with no viable credit or savings” does not yet have the portfolio to work towards homeownership. However, through the IDA program, they used their matched savings to acquire greenhouses and raised beds for growing food—to “make something out of nothing.” While the harvests from their farm grew, this participant connected with credit-builder services to identify and plan for new asset goals such as expanding and creating satellite farms, owning a home and land, and connecting with other Native and nonNative farmers.

Equipped with the relevant knowledge, community supports, and matched savings, IDA participants build on their strengths to determine their progress and path in the program. Through working towards a self-selected wealth-building goal, participants see their power and ability to shape the futures of themselves, their families, and their community.