Direct Assistance for Native Farmers, Fishers, and Food Producers

The Northwest Native Chamber is a 501c3 organization located in Portland, Oregon. The Chamber provides services to Native American business owners and food producers in Portland and in Tribal and rural areas throughout the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Through their internal research the Chamber identified that their Tribal and rural clients routinely requested technical assistance in five critical areas that the Chamber organized into a suite to improve regional agribusiness. These focus areas included financial management; accounting/bookkeeping; marketing; improved access to capital; and basic business management. According to the Chamber the Pacific Northwest faces the unique challenge of having Tribal Nations in the interior facing complicated land issues while the Coastal Nations are challenged by limited access to sufficient land and sea. And both faced issues of labor and compliance. The Chamber developed a project called Direct Assistance for Native Farmers, Fishers, and Food Producers, a project that they believe they con complete in 12 months. The primary goals of the project are, first, to develop a Native Agriculture curriculum for comprehensive economic advancement using site-specific video resources on agribusiness development. They will add these agriculture-specific modules to their partner StartUp Northwest platform; Second, they intend to expand technical assistance for Native producers by hiring a Resource Navigator for agribusiness; Third, they will foster collaboration to leverage resources for Native producers and develop a support network of collaborators; and Fourth, they will increase access to capital for Native producers throughout the Pacific Northwest by researching funders, developing educational materials, hosting workshops, doing capital needs assessments, and providing one-on one mentorships to clients. Native Northwest Chamber believes that Tribal entities have been systematically shut out from acquiring working capital. They intend to attempt to repair historic harms by providing technical assistance to prepare clients for capital readiness by utilizing best practices then guide clients to direct capital acquisition through their Equity Entrepreneur Program. They will facilitate connections to culturally specific lenders such as Native CDFIs. In addition, the Chamber intends to add this agriculture-focused technical assistance to their existing Native Technical Assistance Program (Native TAP) while connecting clients to professional service providers (PSPs). They intend to significally impact the operations of up to 30 farmers, ranchers, fishers, gatherers, and producers. The project aligns with NAAF’s access to capital mission by providing community-centric cultural models of economic development, educational activities, and technical assistance.