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Q3 Update: The Work Continues · Difference Makers

• 0:02
  Brian Edwards: What's happening in Washington D.C., and what does it mean for Native lenders and the communities they serve?
• 0:10
  Brian Edwards: With midterms coming up, we're wondering what's the potential impact on policy and access to capital in Indian country. On this episode of Difference Makers 3.0, we're checking in with Native CDFI Network CEO Pete Upton and NCN policy consultant Ian Record. We'll take a look at NCN's recent advocacy, what they're working on now, and how they're approaching 2027. I'm Brian Edwards. Here's my conversation with Pete and Ian,
• 0:42
  Pete Upton: Pete, let's start with you and what you're hearing from native CDFIs right now.
• 0:45
  Pete Upton: What's on their minds, and how's that shaping the policy work you're doing? We spent a week in New Orleans last week at the OFN annual conference. I would say the overall mood down there was very optimistic, very positive.
• 1:00
  Pete Upton: There's still concerns with the administration and what they are going to do, but overall, I think maybe some uncertainty, a little bit about federal funding and certification, came up a lot. The uncertainty over the last 18 months has reminded us of how important it is to maintain relationships. So I think that's been my focus. I go to Washington D.C. this Thursday to meet with Chris Miller, the new CDFI Fund director, at a meeting upon their requests.
• 1:24
  Pete Upton: I'll be meeting with him Thursday morning, and Clint Hastings, and hopefully a few other staff members there at the CDFI Fund. The native CDFIs they're just focused on doing their jobs, financing homes, supporting small businesses, creating jobs, and building stronger native economies, and that's what's so important that they're doing their jobs. So when we go to Washington D.C., we can speak to their congressional representatives and be very specific on what their constituents are doing with the funding that they're receiving. So our work is not Republican; it's not Democrat.
• 1:59
  Pete Upton: Our work is native to speak for our native communities.
• 2:07
  Brian Edwards: Ian, let's take a little look back at the third quarter. Where did NCN focus its advocacy? Talk a little bit about what was accomplished.
• 2:17
  Ian Record: First and foremost, it's making sure that the CDF fund gets the NACA FY25 money out the door before the end of September, which was the expiration date on that money.
• 2:28
  Ian Record: They kept us waiting with bated breath until the last minute or close to it. But all the money did get out the door. In fact, because the CDFI fund used some leftover FY24 money to fund the TA awards for FY 25. They actually were able to use all of the FY 25, the full 28 million, for FA awards, and they're going to obviously be working to deploy that as as quickly and effectively as possible. And now we're turning our attention to FY 26 and making sure that we ideally avoid a repeat of all the angst and the back and forth and the obstruction that we saw with the 25 money, the Community Reinvestment Act, NCN submitted formal comments on the proposed rule that the FDIC and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency at Treasury put out regarding how they plan to administer or regulate the CRA and banks' performance under CRA. Make a long story short, this proposed rule would be very harmful to incentives that banks currently have to invest in low and moderate income communities, particularly in rural areas, which of course includes much of Indian country. And so, we were opposed. I think one of the things we always stress with native CDFIs is that CRA is really important to not just banks' investments in you as an entity, but also in the communities that you serve. And often CRA works behind the scenes. Often banks are making CRA qualified investments or engaging in other CRA qualified activities in and with native CDFIs and tribal communities that the recipients of the of those benefits aren't even aware of because the banks are under no obligation to tell a CDFI or to tell a tribal nation or to tell a a tribal enterprise like hey this grant or this investment or this loan, we're getting CRA credit for this.
• 4:21
  Ian Record: They don't have to tell them anything, so we know that CRA does bring benefit to Indian country, and we're concerned that this proposed rule will decrease that benefit. And then finally, I think the last thing I would just briefly mention is OMB's proposed guidance on federal financial assistance.
• 4:35
  Ian Record: We're greatly concerned about that. Fortunately, the Congress delayed OMB's implementation of that guidance until December, when the current CR runs out, and we're working with our partners to aggressively push Congress to extend the the delay on OMB's implementation of that.
• 4:59
  Ian Record: Unfortunately, that. That rule went out. That proposed rule went out without really any input at all from Indian Country, and it's going to have pretty significant harm on the stability of federal funding in Indian Country. The ability to to avoid having your grant somehow become politicized because of what some bureaucrat in D.C. how they interpret various Trump executive orders and applying that to a grant that the federal government might give an Indian country recipient.
• 5:26
  Brian Edwards: Pete, you're going to Washington. You're going to meet with Chris Miller.
• 5:27
  Brian Edwards: You said from CDFI Fund. What's your message going to be to him?
• 5:34
  Pete Upton: Just building again, just building a relationship, finding a little bit out about him, what makes him tick, and what he wants, and the same thing with us. I'll be taking along some information regarding what the Native CDFI network has been up to, and what the Native CDFIs have been up to, and really inviting him to do what we did with Treasure Beach: is get his boots on the ground in Indian Country and connect with us. I know he is from the Tennessee area, so it's just getting him out from behind that desk in Washington D.C. and getting some res dust on his boots and seeing what goes from there. And I think the thing that I see, you know, just in the last couple of years here, you look at how many directors there have been at the CDFI fund. So it goes back to my point. What I was talking about up in Wisconsin is it's it's a constant revolving door, whether it's in Congress or with the administration or with agency directors. They come and go, but the only consistent is us in Indian country. So our job is going to remain solid long after everyone else is gone. Ian, how are you thinking about the election and what it might mean for the 2027 agenda for NCN and Native CDFIs?
• 6:53
  Ian Record: To me, it's about the vote and what happens after the vote, and are the outcomes going to be respected by all involved? And in the case, it's not. What does that mean? I think if you follow the polls and you follow the pundits, they will say that at least one chamber of Congress, if not both, are going to change hands here, which obviously will have an impact on. I would say somewhat of an impact on our work. I think if you do see both chambers change hands from Republican to Democrat, I could see greater pressure being placed on the administration to do things like apportion and disperse funding on time, which has obviously been a major concern of ours over the past 18 plus months. As Pete mentioned, it's an ongoing, never-ending education process because of the revolving door. If you look at the composition of the Senate Community Development Finance caucus, for example, an equal number of Republican and Democrat members of that caucus, which is up to I think 34 members, which is great. But you have several who are retiring, several who are have lost primaries, several who are based in the polls, not likely to to return, and it's going to be incumbent upon us to really be proactive in educating the elected officials, their staff, many of whom will be brand new to Capitol Hill, about just the importance of CDFIs generally and just how extensive and invaluable the native CDFI industry is to native communities. And so, NCN is working with our partners. We have a group of about a dozen partners in the economic policy space, where we get together on a regular basis. This is NCAI, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, NAFOA, Native American Contractor Association, others to do periodically do briefs just focused on economic policy for either the Congress or the administration, and we are we've got a couple of new briefs coming out. We're going to have a short brief for the lame duck to try to move some key things in the lame duck, including the Afford Act, which we haven't talked about here today. And if you recall, that has four key provisions enhancing federal support of CDFIs, including native CDFIs, and there's one of those provisions would make the very successful USDA Section 502 native CDFI pilot relending program permanent, national, and given an annual authorization of$50 million. We've been pushing for that for a while. That's something we're really prioritizing here during the lame duck, and then we are going to have another brief, a longer brief for the incoming 120th Congress that will really uplift, among other things, the the key priorities of Native CDFIs across the country. One other thing I would mention too is that NCN is a member of the Coalition for Tribal Sovereignty, which was a an umbrella coalition that was formed back in the early months of the second Trump term to deal with the administration, really push back against any country being subsumed in this attack on DEI and woke things, and the coalition is getting ready to release a new brief that.
• 10:00
  Ian Record: Focuses on pulling together all of the relevant data that makes this case that when any country does better economically, so too do surrounding economies, non-native economies, non-native governments, and so it's in the best interest of policymakers at all levels to support tribal economic sovereignty in all of its forms, and that includes importantly economic sovereignty that takes the shape of native CDFIs. That brief will be uplifting the importance of native CDFIs. How, for for example, while they lend predominantly to native clients, they do also lend to non-native clients in rural and remote areas who do not have any other access to affordable capital for home ownership, small business development, or consumer credit repairs
• 10:55
  Brian Edwards: should be thinking about now.
• 10:57
  Pete Upton: Again, with the political changes coming up, we have to deal with the hand that's dealt to us, and I know there's a lot of things going on that I may or may not agree with. But at the end of the day, it's wake me up on November 3rd and tell me what we've got to face, and we go from there. and And then we just start out building relationships. We have to educate the incoming. We have to educate the investors, the foundations. Still to this day, leadership changes on a regular basis, and we continue to explain the unique challenges and opportunities in Indian country. And we have to document our impact. At the end of the day, be prepared to demonstrate how many homes, businesses, and jobs the institutions have supported. There was a senator from Louisiana that said, when you come into my office, I want to know about my constituents. I want to know about what they are doing in my district. At the end of the day, just point blank, nothing high level, very granular, and be very specific with me. So I thought that was really important, and we have to be prepared for the changes in certification. Understand our target markets, our lending data, and our compliance requirements. And I think more than anything, we have to continue to identify new capital sources. I told our audience down there and at OFN, if you're a foundation or if you're a bank, and you're going to see changes coming over the next year to two years in your funding source, and you've been funding native CDFIs on a continuing basis. Don't all of a sudden just we wake up january 1 and our priorities have changed?
• 12:32
  Pete Upton: Give us some advanced warning so that we can be proactive, and I think that's probably the biggest thing is being proactive as leaders and looking to build those new relationships, and I think the only other thing that I'd end on is we have to speak with one voice. NCN's collective advocacy is strengthened when native CDFIs participate and they share their experience, and even with what Ian was talking about, all of the collaborations that we have with NFOA, NCAI, NCAIED, and the Coalition for Tribal Sovereignty. I got a text, and Chairman Butler, he gave a huge shout out to NCNs for our engagement with the administration in avoiding inclusion in a pocket rescission. So it was huge that he's out there speaking, and it's working. Kind of like what Ian and I and our staff had talked about is we have to start cross collaborating. That when we have the opportunity to support NCAI or NCAID, we're doing it, and vice versa. So I think it's that collaborative effort, and we have to continue to do that because I think there's more power in that type of collaboration than anything that I've seen.
• 13:51
  Brian Edwards: Pete closed our conversation with a call for native CDFIs to speak with one voice. That starts with lenders sharing stories, sharing what's happening in their communities, and giving NCN and its partners the evidence to take to policymakers. We heard how that advocacy carried through the third quarter, pressing for federal funding to reach native lenders, responding to proposed grant rules, and defending incentives for banks to invest in native communities. Those priorities continue into year end, alongside the push to expand native home lending. The stakes are reliable capital for lenders, and more opportunities for people financing homes and businesses. The election is going to help shape who NCN needs to reach next. But as Pete Niean made clear, educating policymakers is continuing work.
• 14:51
  Brian Edwards: So is documenting the homes, businesses, and jobs. That show what native CDFIs make possible.
• 15:05
  Brian Edwards: Difference Makers 3.0 is a co-production of the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News. Thanks to Pete Upton and his team at the Native CDFI Network: Chantal Hogan, Pamela Bovine, Jody Fisher, and Stephanie Prater. Of course, thanks to the Native Story Lab team, especially Kristen Lilia, a proud member of the Boy Fort Band of Chippewa. She's our project manager, wrangler in chief, and on the ground recording expert. Thanks also to Elise Wild. She's working behind the mic this season as our sound editor and podcast maven. Check the show notes for links and more. Thanks for listening. See you next time.