Protect Native Money

Native Financial Education Coalition

NCAI serves as the lead steward of the Native Financial Education Coalition (NFEC), which was founded in 2000 as a result of a Department of Treasury initiative on financial literacy. The initiative’s original Native working group evolved into NFEC and expanded their members and services, supported until 2009 by First Nations Oweesta Corporation (Oweesta). After a period of dormancy, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Oweesta, and many interested partners revived NFEC in 2012.

NFEC’s mission is to increase awareness of the need for adequate personal finance skills in Native communities, build the capacity of tribal governments and Native organizations to provide financial education; and support each other’s efforts to promote financial management skills through information sharing and collaboration.

To learn more about NFEC, click here.

Cobell Settlement and Land Buy-Back Program Financial Education Initiative

NCAI is partnering with the Center for Indian Country Development (CICD) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and Native American Community Development Corporation (NACDC) Financial Services to engage in financial education around the Cobell Land Buy-Back Program. Building on its years of educating about the Cobell Settlement itself, NCAI’s current partnership is working to support offer recipients of the Cobell Land Buy-Back Program in making informed financial decisions as they decide whether to sell and what to do with the money if they do. The partnership does so by sharing effective financial education strategies emerging from the implementation of the Program, notably the Blackfeet Nation’s Piikani Money Campaign.

To learn more about this initiative, click here.

Keepseagle Settlement Financial Education

The Keepseagle Settlement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for discrimination in the USDA Farm Loan Program was settled on December 27, 2011 for $780 million. Payments to the first two rounds of recipients were mailed several years ago; a new round of payments was issued to recipients in May 2018. Included with all Keepseagle payments was a financial education alert developed by NCAI.

For more information about the Keepseagle Settlement, click here.