The Native CDFI Network (NCN) and National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) have jointly launched a sign-on letter specifically from Tribal Nations to the Trump Administration requesting the immediate release of FY 2025 funding for the Native American CDFI Assistance (NACA) Program that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has refused to apportion to Treasury for the past year (this funding is set to expire on September 30, 2026).
Native CDFIs are often the only financial institutions serving Tribal citizens on Tribal lands. They provide affordable housing and homeownership loans, small business and micro loans, consumer lending, and critical financing for Tribal infrastructure and economic development projects. Since FY 2010, NACA Financial Assistance recipients alone have originated nearly $2.6 billion in loans and investments in economically distressed communities.
Continued withholding of this funding is:
Continued withholding of this funding is:
- Blocking first-time American Indian/Alaskan Native homebuyers and entrepreneurs from accessing capital;
- Delaying urgently needed new loan products in communities facing severe economic distress;
- Hampering young, emerging Native CDFIs from growing to scale; and
- Preventing Native CDFIs from leveraging hundreds of millions in additional private-sector capital.
This call to action is backed by the full weight of the National Congress of American Indians. NCAI Resolution #SEA-25-109 strongly affirms NCAI's support for Native CDFIs and the NACA Program, underscoring that the federal government's trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations include providing ample and reliable funding to Native CDFIs. As the resolution makes clear, the NACA Program is not a "woke" program — it is a practical, bipartisan fulfillment of the federal government's solemn obligations to Tribal Nations, who prepaid those obligations with their lands and resources.
The letter also requests the Administration work with OMB to formulate and publish new OMB apportionment schedules for FY 2026 and, eventually, FY 2027 that delineate OMB’s approval and release of funding for the NACA Program no later than 30 days after receiving apportionment requests from Treasury for said funding.
Please add your Tribal Nation's information below to be included in the joint letter.
The letter also requests the Administration work with OMB to formulate and publish new OMB apportionment schedules for FY 2026 and, eventually, FY 2027 that delineate OMB’s approval and release of funding for the NACA Program no later than 30 days after receiving apportionment requests from Treasury for said funding.
Please add your Tribal Nation's information below to be included in the joint letter.
To read the joint sign-on letter, please click here.
The deadline to sign on to the joint letter is EOB next Monday, April 13.