Difference Makers

From Policy to Practice

Feb 26, 2026 31:20

How Native CDFIs grew from federal study into a sovereign finance movement

In 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department released the Native American Lending Study, identifying 17 structural barriers to capital access in Indian Country. The report helped catalyze what would become the modern Native CDFI movement.

Fifteen years later, Treasury published a follow-up report, Access to Capital and Credit…