A group of panelists discussed greater entrepreneurship in Native American/Indigenous communities
Our most recent webinar dealt with a serious issue that is not frequently discussed by the general public or amongst entrepreneurs: how to start a business at a Native American, amidst such high levels of unemployment and proverbial mountains of red tape. Native American Nations or Tribes, on or off reservation land, face particular challenges rooted in historic mistreatment by colonialists and settlers, as well as structures of racism written into law, and fallout from ignored unemployment, lack of access to adequate services, and few economic opportunities.
Overall, Native unemployment is around 11%, but the true number is likely higher when one considers underemployment. Within one of the largest nations, the Navajo Nation, it is somewhere between 40-65%! This is a crisis. Entrepreneurship can provide a way to reach financial success and the skills of creating a lasting business can be passed from person to person and generation to generation.
Dr. Deju uses his experience leading multiple companies and has put that knowledge into his course material to reach as many people as possible – to truly help others. Given Dr. Deju’s decades-long connection to New Mexico (his alma mater being New Mexico Tech in Socorro), we reached out to multiple experts across the state to help us understand what Native entrepreneurs—most of whom are Navajo—there must do to build a successful enterprise. Two of our panelists work at Navajo Technical University and another works alongside it and helps entrepreneurs in a different area of the state. Dr. Deju is also close friends with the Director of the Montana state Department of Commerce. We spoke to leaders at their Office of Indian Country Economic Development, in part to understand challenges and opportunities there, and to speak directly with a Native entrepreneur who could share their personal perspective. To round out the panel, we spoke with a woman here in California who is breaking barriers for women and people of color in a historically male-dominated industry, and another Californian with dozens of patents and decades of entrepreneurship and his own connection to New Mexico.
We encourage readers to watch the webinar here and to continue learning about entrepreneurship by taking Dr. Deju’s course. Don’t stop there — let’s continue the conversation about how to improve opportunities for our Native brothers and sisters. There is work to do and Dr. Deju is committed to help.
Thank you,
The Deju Course Team
p.s., For those of you who want highlights from the webinar, here are quotes from our panelists that really stood out to us. What did you find noteworthy?
Quotes from our panelists (some wording may be different here for clarity):
Jill Osur:
- Why not use wine as a conduit for change, because every time I’ve opened up a bottle of wine, I’ve opened up the necessary conversations, so I wanted to be very intentional about disrupting the industry so that it would reflect its largest customer [67% of all wine is purchased by women]
- We have a beautifully diverse team; 100% of my vendors and suppliers are women-owned businesses. That to me is the disruption. If it’s only 50/50 or if it’s more than it used to be, we’re not really making the change that we want to see
- We are trying to close that gender gap and pay equity gap and do it one bottle of wine, at a time
- People wouldn’t be on this panel if they didn’t believe in lifting up those that are disenfranchised or don’t have the equitable opportunities that others do
Larry Udell:
- I believe that the Native Americans throughout the United States are not being considered (in conversations), but they are vitally important in our nation and should be considered to be a part of entrepreneurship in every way possible
- The tribes within New Mexico can proliferate into all types of businesses, not only what they want to do individually, but collectively
Dr. Colleen Bowman:
- What Mr. Udell talked about, having that hand holding—somebody showing us how it can be done—is so critical and important for our students for them to be able to see that. This is the path you can navigate, these are the tools that you can use, you need to learn these first in order to be successful.
- If we have the tools shown to us, we can utilize those skills, all that knowledge, in order to create the type of world and the type of jobs that we want to benefit our Nation. And I think part of what is lacking is that people are not understanding the layers of oversight that we experience as Native Americans who live on federally designated lands. We have everybody regulating our lives from the state, from the feds, from the counties, from our own tribe, in every layer of that bureaucracy is discouraging to entrepreneurs.
Jason Arviso:
- The event that the Navajo Nation is hosting is the Navajo Nation Economic Summit…next week. There, we’ll see a group of entrepreneurs. NTU [Navajo Technical University] is going to host an group there and we’ll be able to share the information that we’ve gained from the Deju Institute and the modules that are available to our students and to those in our incubator.
- NTU has the only tribal incubator within the state of New Mexico that does receive some funding
- The one that comes to the forefront, is the inability to acquire startup financing or financing in general, to help them really build that opportunity for themselves and to grow
- There’s also the process of land status. The Navajo land is held in trust so essentially that can’t be used as collateral…there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before you’re even given the ability to develop or even grow that piece of property. Some have stories of it taking two years or more to get that type of business opportunity. That shouldn’t be occurring; they should be able to set up shop within a months’ timeframe if they have financing, etc.
- Through our association with the Deju Institute we can address some of those challenges
Steve Grey:
- Four Corners Economic Development is in Farmington, New Mexico. It is a border community. We’re surrounded by five tribes, with the Navajo Nation being the largest.
- Navajo Nation has a Dine Chamber of Commerce
- Navajo Nation: over 27,000 sq miles spread across three states and over 420,000 tribal members and counting
- When you’re on Federal Trust Land, that’s what Tribal lands are. You don’t actually have the deed to the land. We were captured people and we were put on reservations, so the Government controls a lot of things.
- We’re very proud of what we do, but we really leave it up to the organizations on tribal land to take the lead and tell us what is it that we can do to help them get started.
Major Robinson:
- Access to capital is really a deterrent.
- Between the State of Montana, the Tribes of Montana, and Indian entrepreneurs, we came up with what’s called the Indian Equity Fund. It provides $14,000 to Indian entrepreneurs to help them get started, investing in their business…and it is a grant.
- There’s other programs that [Montana] has, too, like Native American Collateral Program, which really helps to bring capital to your business.
- There is an entity in Montana called the State Tribal Economic Development Commission. It’s actually housed within the State of Montana but it’s comprised of all of the tribal leaders and their representatives that do economic development, so it’s actually Native-run. There’s funding that was set aside by the state legislature for those Tribal enterprises.
- The Tribal representatives recognized that there’s a difference between Tribal enterprise and private Native business ownership. They took some of their money and invested it in the individual Native business owners. They set up grants, one for each of the Tribes in Montana: $14,000. It started off with $7,000 but then they also worked on bringing in other investors to bring it up to $14,000. That’s given out every year. Both for Native-owned businesses on the reservation or off the reservation.
To take Dr. Deju’s course, simply go to DejuCourse.com and register online. It’s entirely free – no gimmicks or caveats there. If you have questions, feel free to contact the DejuCourse team at rdeju@deju.net.