Hi, I'm S. Tabon Kelly, Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Co-Ops, and we are here in Buffalo for CommonBound 2016. I'm talking with Crystal Cornelius from the First Nation OEASDA Corporation. And my first question for you is if you could tell us a little bit about the work that you do. Wonderful. So First Nation's OEASDA Corporation is a certified native CDFI, and we are the only intermediary lender in the nation that specifically serves native CDFI throughout the country. So what that means is we are essentially non-regulated banking institutions that serve the underserved. So our organization provides capital to all of the 70 native CDFI's so we can propel reservation economies to bolster asset building in terms of homeownership, entrepreneurship, private sector economy, as well as consumer lending for generation upon generation native communities have lived in cash economies. We have not had the accessibility to conventional banking institutions for in my rate of reasons. I would say the most. Tell us about some of those reasons. Yeah, so one of the major reasons is the location of reservations throughout the United States. And my language reservation it equates to a schgunigun, which literally means leftovers. That's the English translation. So when you look at a majority of the 566 federally recognized tribes, we're all in extremely, extremely remote areas. Areas that the federal government deemed at the time was not good for agricultural type of purposes, timber, whatever type of resources. So we would somewhat be put on the outskirts. That being the case, we're still residing there today. Most of our tribal members or some I would say about half throughout the United States, we have to drive over 100 miles to get to a bank. That's not going to happen. So with that, we find that economies really stagnate within private sector development. Tribes in and of itself are able to accommodate basic living type of services per se, but don't have enough resources to really propel economies in different measures. So what our organizations do native CDFIs throughout Indian country is we provide that essential capital in conjunction with education. You cannot get alone unless you take education. And we are finding extreme rises within entrepreneurship, homeowners, or even financial literacy in and of itself is something that we provide. Being again, as I previously indicated, living in cash economies, we haven't really had to manage cash. So when it comes to a point that we want to buy a home, buy a car, we understand goodness. We have no credit. We didn't know that credit card would do this. And now where did we go? There's nowhere to go. So CDFIs really provide that outlet to build community members up and to build private sector development. And are you federally regulated? How much of this is relates to issues of sovereignty, regulation, how does that work? It really doesn't in that accord because the CDFI movement in and of itself is a special program housed under the Department of Treasury. So with that, there's certain certification rules that these nonprofits, which are called CDFIs, community development financial institutions have to follow. We regulate ourselves in so far as our loan policies and so far as board governance, whatever be the case. As I indicated, there's 70 CDFIs native led throughout the country. There's 990. So we're just a very small subset of this movement going on that's really helped to serve the underserved, whether that be minority populations, urban populations. There are probably about 30 CDFIs in New York, as we speak right now, to help with these issues that I'm talking about, not necessarily dealing with rural communities, but with underserved populations within each and every state. So this relates to redlining as well? It does in effect that we are banking and we are not necessarily banking. We're not in a depository institution, so I digress there. We're serving the individuals that the banks would never serve anyway. So redlining as far as that would go, even though that's illegal, as of the 60s, we know that it still somewhat does happen within certain areas. So these institutions really are meant to combat those type of historical practices and break that institutional barrier down to help each and every person attain whatever they dream to attain and have the resources and education to help them with that. And of the 70 or so CDFIs that you mentioned, were they mostly started around the same time or how did those efforts get on the grid? No, so what happened within the CDFI fund itself? In 1990, the Congress mandated that there is a study of Indian country. And so what that study in 2001, the Native American lending study was issued, essentially what Congress was asking, and they did interviews throughout Indian country for about two years. So their question was, hey, we're giving so much money to Native tribes. Why are they still in perpetual poverty? What's going on here? Why do we still need to keep giving these Indians money? One of the main barriers they found there was 16 major barriers to economic development, but the first barrier was they have no access to capital. There is no access to capital. So there is no divestment within Indian country because nobody's invested in the first place. So with that, there is a special set aside that was made for Native Americans under the CDFI fund. And from that time, in 1991, there was two Native CDFIs. Now we've got 70. And we see that it's growing because it's working. They're the only financial outlet most of the time within Native communities to help bill tribal members assets. Banks aren't coming in. Banks aren't putting in satellite offices. A lot of foundation footprints, reservations are out of footprint. So really these institutions and in of itself become a major hub for economic development. And is there a lot of difference in terms of the assets that are held from one to one CDFI to another, or is there generally an average? No, what's very interesting there is fundraising ability. Number one, we have some Native CDFIs. For instance, citizen Potawatomi, CDC, and Oklahoma, they have about a $20 million portfolio. They're about a $30 million organization. If we look at the COTA funds in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, they're about a $12 million organization. So assets are really going to be contingent on where they're able to get their funding. Some tribes are lucky enough that they have excess revenue that they can invest within these organizations. Some tribes do not have that money, so it's really contingent upon how well you can get foundations, how well you can get investors, how well you're able to get federal granting dollars to help with that aspect. So I would say generally we're looking at around $100,000 organization up to about a $20 million. It's really dependent on location and what the market is. Sure. My last question is really if you could paint a picture of what the impact has been on the lives of Native people in terms of the different kinds of financial products that they've been able to access and how that's shaped or changed their daily life. So I would say one of the biggest changes that we've seen within our communities is the advent of financial literacy and what that means on how our people are really looking at money and economies in and of itself. Within the financial literacy curriculum that is a prerequisite for any type of loan that you're going to get, we indicate short-term and long-term saving schools. One of the classes that I was teaching on my home reservation, I had an elder that was participating in the class. And when I was asking her what her short-term or long-term savings goal would be, she got very upset and she indicated that I was asking her to be individualistic and that that is not how our people have survived for 500 years. So who am I to come in and start talking about money and you need to save money, you need to start putting money in a bank? I had to really change and a lot of our practitioners and CDFI leaders throughout the country who are providing this type of education. We realize on a cultural level that we look at money differently, we look at assets differently. So in that measure, I gave an example recently she had a death in her family and she had to go to predatory lending institutions to borrow funds to bring family members back home on a bus so they could attend their funeral. And that juncture indicated if you had had a savings account and you wouldn't be paying $3,000 more in interest than you would on this $2,000 loan, you could help more. So the ability to really change people's mindsets and what it means to collect assets is different within native communities and in of itself based on the scarcity, the location and our huge cultural differences that we have and we've been so fortunate to retain for generation upon generation. So I would say really the greatest aspect that we've seen aside from the promotion of private sector development is people really being able to take control of their personal finances and have their own personal financial freedom for whatever that means to themselves in their lives to their families and that has been phenomenal throughout Indian country. That's great. Well, Chris, Cornelius thank you so much for taking time to share some words about the work. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.