Difference Makers

Why Only Three?

• Season 2 • Episode 7

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California is home to the largest Native population in the United States and 109 federally recognized tribes. Yet only three Native CDFIs currently operate in the state.

Recorded during and after the 2026 California CDFI Summit in Sacramento, this episode explores the effort to strengthen existing Native CDFIs, support the creation of new Native-led financial institutions and expand access to capital in Native communities throughout California.

Guests and voices in this episode:

• Nate Schaffran, California Coalition for Community Investment (CalCCI)
• Teresa Boardman, Five Rivers Loan Fund, Inc. 
• Pete Upton, Native CDFI Network
• Jodi Fischer, Native CDFI Network
• Jessica Kaczmarek, The James Irvine Foundation

Resources and Links

Native CDFI Network
https://nativecdfi.net

RISE Initiative (Native CDFI Network)
https://nativecdfi.net/rise

California Coalition for Community Investment
https://www.calcii.org

Five Rivers Loan Fund
https://www.fiveriversloanfund.org

The James Irvine Foundation
https://www.irvine.org

Tribal Business News
https://tribalbusinessnews.com

Difference Makers explores how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are expanding economic opportunity across Indian Country. From small business lending and homeownership to consumer loans, financial education, and technical assistance, Native CDFIs provide the capital and support that help Native communities build stronger local economies.

Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they spotlight the people, partnerships, and ideas driving economic change in Native communities.

Pete Upton:

"Why are there only three Native CDFIs in the state of California? Population is here, the need is here, and the opportunity is here, and yet we only have three Native CDFIs in the state of California."

Brian Edwards:

California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes, and it's also home to one of the largest community development finance systems in the country. Yet only three Native CDFIs currently operate in the state. This spring, lenders, banks, philanthropy, state agencies, tribal leaders, and Native finance leaders gathered in Sacramento for the California CDFI Summit. They were there to discuss the future of community development finance in California. Several of the conversations that took place focused on Native CDFIs. One question, what would it take to expand Native-led access to capital in a state this large? Also, how do Native CDFIs become part of the broader system of banks, CDFIs, philanthropy, and state programs that are already moving billions of dollars into communities across California. That's what we're going to talk about today. I'm Brian Edwards. This is Difference Makers 3.0 In April, I traveled to Sacramento for the California CDFI Summit, which was held just blocks from the state capitol. The event brought together lenders, banks, philanthropy, state agencies, and community organizations from across California. They were there to talk about the future of community development finance, and it's a future that's starting to change for the Native CDFI Network. The goal was straightforward, for the first time, bring Native CDFIs, tribal leaders, funders, and potential partners into the same room. Jody Fischer, who oversees the Native CDFI Networks RISE program, said the gathering was designed to build awareness and connections.

Jodi Fischer:

I think what we're hoping for out of the conference is one to raise awareness of the Native CDFIs that are here in California, the partners that they're already working with, but also reach some of the tribal leaders, housing coalitions that are potentially interested in starting a Native CDFI or working with one of our existing Native CDFIs.

Brian Edwards:

California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes. That's more than any state in the contiguous US. California also has one of the largest CDFI sectors in the country, yet only three Treasury certified Native CDFIs currently operate in California. That reality framed much of the discussion in Sacramento. Native CDFI Network CEO Pete Upton

Pete Upton: put it this way:

Why are there only three Native CDFIs in the state of California? Population is here, the need is here, and the opportunity is here, and yet we only have three Native CD advisors in the state of California for

Brian Edwards:

Upton and others. The issue isn't simply creating more institutions, it's building the support system around them

Jodi Fischer:

It takes an ecosystem, it takes funders, it takes partners, and it takes tribes or those that want to start a Native CDFI and are willing to see the process through.

Brian Edwards:

That theme surfaced repeatedly throughout the summit. The conversation, of course, wasn't just about Native CDFIs, but they were a focus of the overall event. The conversation was about the banks, the philanthropic organizations, the state programs, and community development lenders that helped move billions of dollars of capital into marginalized communities. Now there's an opportunity to start moving more of that capital into Native communities. Jessica Kaczmarek of the James Irvine Foundation said philanthropy has a role to play in that change

Jessica Kaczmarek:

To grow the number and reach of Native-led CDFIs in California. It's really going to take more investment and work from philanthropy.

Brian Edwards:

Kaczmarek described Native CDFIs as critical infrastructure institutions that help communities gain access to capital, support economic development, and strengthen local economies. The conversations in Sacramento ultimately centered on a simple. Question, what would it take to build a stronger Native CDFI presence in California, and connect those institutions to the broader capital system already operating across the state. To explore that question, I sat down with Nate Schafran of the California Coalition for Community Investment and Teresa Boardman of Five Rivers Loan Fund, one of California's three Native CDFIs. Nate, Teresa, thanks for joining us. I wanted to bring the two of you together because you represent two different perspectives on the same conversation. Teresa, you're doing the work every day through Five Rivers Loan Fund, and Nate, you've spent a lot of time building relationships across California's broader CDFI ecosystem. So, I was in Sacramento for the California CDFI Summit, and one thing I heard was this question of how Native CDFIs fit into California's larger capital ecosystem, and what it's going to take to strengthen Native-led access to capital across the state. So, let's start there. Teresa, you go first. But what stood out to you most from the summit?

Teresa Boardman:

What stood out to me the most in the summit was the singing banker Kate Taylor, and the other industry leaders. They seemed to be very open to innovation. They were willing to challenge traditional economic approaches, and I left feeling very hopeful that we might have a more equitable distribution of wealth in California.

Brian Edwards:

How about you, Nate?

Nate Schaffran:

First of all, the collaboration - this was the first time we had held a public forum bringing together all of the stakeholders in California's CDFI ecosystem, so we brought together CDFI practitioners with state government officials, foundation leaders, and bankers, all of us to talk about the future of California's community development financial system. That system, you know, is under threat, under pressure, because of changes to federal policy, but we are all very clear about what the mission is, which is serving underserved communities, whether those are based on geography, on demography, and there's no clearer example that than California's Native communities, and that was why it was important to us to partner on this first event with NCN to try to call attention to the need in Native California to drive community development investments. Teresa, that is your story. Do you want to retell that?

Brian Edwards:

Let's do that.

Teresa Boardman:

This Native CDFI had been developed a long time ago, I think 2004 but it lay dormant until I was recruited, I was taking a summer trip, and had come through Happy Camp, and they started recruiting me. I didn't even believe it. I was living in the Bay Area, and so what I did, I eventually took two years, and I moved here and I moved into the tribal community, which has been just eye-opening experience for me, and what I've concentrated on is building a foundation. It's been an incredible amount of work, because for two years it was just me and the Native CDFI had put this checklist together, and I was like, there it's in front of my mind, or right in front of everyone, so I did legal formation, staffing, and human resources, partnership, data, mission, fundraising, communications, tons more, including being the janitor. I still am, so

Brian Edwards:

that job will never stop.

Teresa Boardman:

That job will never stop. So it really opened my mind to everything it takes to run an organization, and I've concentrated on building a foundation, so now we have a staff. We have a part-time housing coordinator who is from the oldest Karuk family here in California. He's vital. His name's Rex Harrison, and he is in touch with what is going on with the community. Vital. We have a new marketing director, Megan Merlin, who is also Native. She comes from Grass Valley. She brings computer skills and marketing skills. Very lucky to have her. And then finally. The loan officer, who does a lot of work, who is also a Native, and so I have this very core foundation, and brought in the funds to support them, and now we're ready to listen to the community and follow the direction from the community. I

Nate Schaffran:

think it might be worth giving listeners some context for where Teresa and Fiverrs Glow and Fund are doing all this. You know, if you're from California, you're used to people in other states assuming that everything is like Beverly Hills or something, but Happy Camp is a town of 900 people up on the Oregon border, two hours from the nearest city that would have a grocery store or a hospital. This is a place where, if you run into an emergency, really the CDFI loan fund is your best support, and it's a really, really hard place to be working. It is not a place where there's a bank, where there are other financial services, so you know it's, it's not unique. California is full of communities like this in the inland parts of the state that probably look a lot more like what your listeners will be familiar with in Indian Country elsewhere.

Teresa Boardman:

Thanks, Nate, that's very true. And I'll add one of our ideas right now is to create a mobile office, and then have the marketing person go to these little pockets of communities very consistently as we build, build up and put more money into their communities, so that's kind of on our mind right now. How are we going to finance a mobile office now? How are we going to do this, but I see that as the only way

Brian Edwards:

to do it. So, Teresa, from the perspective of your Native CDFI, what are the biggest financing needs that you see and that you serve in your community?

Teresa Boardman:

I'd say the biggest financing need is larger amounts of money, because for loans, if we had somebody walk in the door right now and needed a housing loan for, let's say 250,000 which is pretty reasonable, we'd be wiped out. So I'm trying to get past this small dollar loan emergency and change it into wealth building, because everything's a crisis. People feel like they can't walk in the door unless they've got some terrible thing going on, and even just yesterday I said you could come in here for a loan to take a vacation, so the only way to help them build wealth is to give them more opportunities than just surviving some crisis,

Brian Edwards:

Nate. When you, when you hear that, how does the work that she's doing, and the other Native CDFIs that you've, you've talked with, how does that fit into California's broader kind of financial ecosystem?

Nate Schaffran:

Yeah, absolutely. So, California has about 110 certified CDFIs, of which a little bit over 60 are loan funds. There are 30 plus credit unions. California also has the second largest Native population in the country, largest in the lower 48 We've got three Native CDFIs, and as Teresa suggesting, each of those three Native CDFIs is a smaller organization, many of them a one person shop, but growing, but doing small business lending, consumer lending, and Teresa alluded to this very importantly, emergency lending for folks who have a car breakdown or a temporary job loss. Teresa shared a story of a couple that needed a small amount of money to put down the deposit to move into an apartment when they were expecting a baby. So, with our three Native CDFIs limited in their capital, they are primarily focused on individual consumer emergency lending and some small business, so what we'd love to see is two things: more Native CDFIs in other parts of the state. We see some tribes and rancherias that are working on developing CDFIs in Southern California, in Sonoma County, but we'd also like to see the existing Native CDFIs grow to the point where, as Teresa was suggesting, they can do growth loans for successful businesses, they can do housing loans to address our tribal housing shortage, which is acute in this state. So that's sort of the goal, is both more and larger and more capable in the. CDFIs,

Brian Edwards:

so at the summit, you know, were there kind of some recurring themes along the lines of how do we, how do we grow the Native CDFIs, and how do they do it as part of the larger ecosystem?

Teresa Boardman:

Well, when you were talking, Nate, what I was thinking is that it's going to be all through partnerships, because that's how I've gotten this far. We potentially have a housing loan right now. We need somebody that can help help us with that.

Brian Edwards:

Can you help, Nate?

Nate Schaffran:

Yeah, yes, yes, we can. And actually, I can speak to this in my personal experience. In 2017 I moved home, took a job with a CDFI called Community Vision, and the first loan I was handed was a loan to the Hoopa tribe in Northern California. It's a remote reservation, sort of in the north central part of the state, and the only grocery store on the reservation had closed down. The tribe at that time was running a shuttle an hour into Eureka to the Sam's Club once a week, and that was the way tribal members were getting groceries, they wanted to build a new grocery store in the show of the one that had closed down because they couldn't attract a private operator, a local CDFI, now North Edge, formerly Arcadia Economic Development Corporation, was working closely with the tribe, but didn't have the capital to put together the full deal, so they reached out to our CDFI Community Vision and to another great CDFI Rural Community Assistance Corporation, RCAC, who also do a lot of work with Native communities in the West, and together we were able to put together this deal, and so that is an example of one way that I think sort of the larger incumbent CDF eyes can use their resources and their capital in service of Native lending, but led by I think some of the Native lenders on the ground, so following the lead of successful native lenders around the country, in states where it's a bigger part of the movement, and then I think the last thing is really incorporating our Native CDFIs here as part of our state CDFI Coalition, that's the organization I lead the California Coalition for Community Investment, and we are almost 60 CDFIs around the state. Our big achievement so far has been the creation of a state CDFI fund, which was created in 2023 in the state of California, put $50 million into three years of funding for CDFIs.

Teresa Boardman:

We took that money and just put it out as loan capital. We need loan capital, so we can push it out there. And we have worked with the Northwest Indian Tribe. We did a business loan in Humboldt County together and split it. What we're trying to do is we're trying to listen to the community. I see my role is just implementing what they want, and what I'm.. what we're doing is we're collecting data right now. We're doing surveys, and Rex is out there, like going into the places that don't even have phones and getting information, so what's coming up is housing, because not only the limited housing, anyway, but the Slater fire wiped out about 50% of the existing housing, so but they want more of a housing program that includes rehabilitation to address the drug and alcohol problems within the community, and we have a counselor on our board. She just joined getting her PhD in addictive counseling, and so what we're not done collecting the data, but so far what we're seeing is more of a like community full service with I would say including things, activities that you can do that don't involve drinking,

Nate Schaffran:

that's a thing that we have seen elsewhere, I mentioned the Hoopa grocery store loan that I worked on several years later. The same set of CDFIs came together to partner with the Hoopa tribe to finance the expansion of their medical clinic to include behavioral health services, but

Teresa Boardman:

I'll add to that. One of the problems is the tribe just built this medical service, and it's a beautiful facility, but there's no one qualified to work in it, or there isn't housing available for them to come, so when I came here, I'll tell you, I rented a room in the house that houses the CD. Fi it's making it was it's a sacrifice, right? So you have to be a special kind of person that's going to come and be a doctor here and sacrifice the amenities that a city gives you.

Brian Edwards:

Nate, what? What does a successful partnership look like between Native CDFIs and the non-native CDFIs, as well as, you know, the banks and in the state philanthropy or the state's program?

Nate Schaffran:

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that's crucial to us is just including and uplifting Native CDFIs as part of the California CDFI ecosystem and movement, we see our Native communities as part of the broader California community that, as a coalition, we're here to serve. We think a lot about the sort of gaps in service places in our state where need is greatest, but where even community development capital hasn't reached to the extent that we'd like to see, and I'll be honest, like I grew up in the state, and Native California does not get the attention it deserves, not its history, not its present, not its needs, and I've been taking on this job, have learned so much from Theresa and from our other Native members, so you know, we do a lot of lobbying in Sacramento. We have an advocacy director, and one of the things that we are making sure that we do is to elevate the needs of Native CDFIs and their communities. When we did our advocacy day this year, we had a special track bringing together NCN and the Native CDFIs to meet with members of our Select Committee on Native American Affairs and Native leaders in the legislature. We've elevated the ways that this CDFI fund, the California Innovation and Investment Program, serves Native lenders. So I think just incorporating and mainstreaming and partnering is a really big part of it, and we can do that in addition with capital providers when we are talking to foundations and banks who are interested in investing with CDFIs, making sure that we highlight those opportunities and needs.

Brian Edwards:

If we have a conversation again three years from now, what would you hope has changed?

Teresa Boardman:

Well, I would say ultimately our success is going to be measured on our ability to respond to the community's needs and to build meaningful partnerships and create lasting opportunities, improve the quality of life. Something concrete. I would like to see a financial education program. I would like to see wealth development. I would like to see housing, but most importantly, it needs to come from the community.

Brian Edwards:

How about you, Nate? What does success look like three years down the road?

Nate Schaffran:

I like Teresa's answer, and one of the things that I see coming from the community is interest from other tribes and rancherias and creating their own CDFIs, that's what the NCN program is about. So I would imagine five years down the road there's another set of emerging Native CDFIs. I would like to see the CDFIs that we have growing, you know, growing their own balance sheets and growing their impact in partnership with some of the larger vendors, then maybe we formalize some of those partnerships, and I would love to see the economic needs of Native California higher on the agenda when we're in Sacramento.

Brian Edwards:

One thing that came through clearly in this conversation is that expanding Native CDFIs in California isn't just about creating more institutions, it's about building the relationships and partnerships that help Native communities gain greater access to capital, financial services, and economic opportunity. California has the largest Native population in the country, and one of the most developed community finance ecosystems in the United States, yet, and you may have heard this in the episode, only three Native CDFIs currently operate here, and they're all located north of Sacramento, as Nate Schafran explained, addressing that gap will require both strengthening existing Native CDFIs and creating opportunities for new ones to emerge. The leaders we met at this gathering are working to do both, supporting existing institutions, building new connections, and creating more pathways for Native communities to access the. Sources, they need to thrive. We're going to keep an eye on this and update you on the progress throughout the next year. Difference Makers 3.0 is a co-production of the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News. Thanks to Pete Upton and his team at the Native CDFI Network, Kristen Wagner, Shauntel Hogan, Pamela Boivin, Jody Fischer, and Stephanie Prater. Of course, thanks to the Native Story Lab team, especially Kristin Lilya. She's a proud member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. She's our project manager, Wrangler in Chief, and recording expert. Thanks also to Elyse Wild. She's working behind the mic this season as our sound editor and serving as our podcast maven. Check the show notes for links and more. Thanks for listening.