News from the OWEESTA Office

Oweesta Job Opportunity:
Program Officer, Capacity Building

Join our amazing team as the Capacity Building Program Officer. The Program Officer and Technical Assistance provider will offer technical assistance and training to Native CDFIs and Native non-profits while maintaining partnerships, subcontracts and other collaborative efforts. For more information on applying for this position, please follow the link below.



If you are interested in applying for this position, please submit a resume and cover letter to evette@oweesta.org.

 

             

Oweesta receives $25,000 Grant Award from
Financial Home Loan Bank Topeka in partnership with
Home State Bank of Colorado

Oweesta has been awarded a $25,000 economic development grant to fund the upcoming Building Native Communities:Train-the-Trainer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. FHLBank, a wholesale financial institution of which Oweesta is a member, awarded the grant through its Joint Opportuniities for Building Success (JOBS) program in partnership with Home State Bank of Colorado. JOBS helps financial institutions throughout Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma promote jobs and economic growth in their communities.

The funding provided through the JOBS grant provides free tuition for all participants of the Building Native Communities: Train-the-Trainer in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 4-6, 2015.
Registration for this training in now open!

Lending

Oweesta is the only existing Native CDFI intermediary offering financial products and development services exclusively to Native CDFIs and Native communities. Oweesta's mission is to provide opportunities for Native people to develop assets and create wealth by assisting in the establishment of strong, permanent institutions and programs, contributing to economic independence and strengthening sovereignty for all Native communities. They accomplish this mission by following an integrated asset-building strategy. Specifically, Oweesta provides training, technical assistance (TA), investments, research and advocacy to help Native communities develop an integrated range of asset-building products and services including financial education and financial products.

Oweesta also understands how crucial investment capital is to a Native CDFI; therefore investing in the communities served is a priority. As the only intermediary lender to Native CDFI’s in the nation, Oweesta has the ability to directly impact and create capital opportunities that flow through tribal communities and create sustainable change within their respective markets. Oweesta makes every effort to provide loans to qualifying organizations, enabling them to reinvest the capital back into their communities and/ or to use as leverage to attract other capital. Oweesta makes loans to various types of Native CDFIs such as small business loan funds and credit associations that make consumer, business and housing loans.

For more information on our lending products, please follow the link below!

Community Spotlight

Funding Opportunities

Congress Eliminates NACA Match Requirement

The CDFI Fund's fiscal year (FY) 2015 appropriation includes a waiver of the matching funds requirement for entitites applying for Financial Assistance (FA) awards through the Native American CDFI Assistance (NACA) Program, the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), and the Small and Emerging CDFI Assistance (SECA) component of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Program. 

Native Asset Building Initiative Opportunity

The Administration for Children and Families Native Asset Building Initiative has announced a new funding opportunity open now until March 25, 2015. 

Asset building is an approach to overcoming poverty that emphasizes the value of sound family budgeting, money management, savings, and investment in long term assets. The Office of Community Services (OCS) and the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) have partnered to increase access to and awareness of asset building opportunities in Native American communities. 

Partners

Oweesta has been extremely grateful to be a subsidiary of First Nations Development Institute, working together to build sustainability throughout our Tribal Nations and Native communities.

Please follow the link below to learn more about this amazing powerhouse organization and the ways they serve Indian Country.



 

Michael Roberts, President of First Nations Development Institute and Chairman of First Nations Oweesta Corporation, has been featured in the March 2015 issue of Cultural Survival magazine.


 

Job Opportunities

Upcoming Events

Resources

2015 VITA Marketing Materials

Oweesta is excited to share our new, customizable 2015 Native VITA Marketing Materials. These documents contain the resources to support a multifaceted marketing campaign, including flyers for volunteer recruitment and community marketing, paycheck stuffers, and business cards.

More information on Native VITA Sites can be found at the First Nations Development Institute Knowledge Center. Please contact krystal@oweesta.org for questions or concerns regarding these documents. We greatly appreciate any feedback, especially as we plan and prepare future Native VITA marketing materials. 

Assets & Opportunity Scorecard

In order to advance policies that empower families to be part of the financial mainstream, advocates need data that communicate the extent of financial insecurity facing their constituents. To help meet that need, CFED has released its 2015 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard.

This year's scorecard assesses 135 different outcome and policy measures to examine how all 50 states and the District of Columbia are doing when it comes to the financial security of their residents.

Oweesta Products and Services

Let Oweesta check off some of your organizational New Year's resolutions with our state-of-the-art Institutional Development and Training Programs.

Check out our 
Products & Services Guide 
and see how Oweesta can be of service to you!

Pathways to Sustainability

First Nations Oweesta Corporation's 2014 Webinar Series

In case you missed any of our webinar series from 2014, check out the recordings in our
Pathways to Sustainability page.

Stay tuned for our upcoming 2015 webinar series!