Indigenous Governance Database
citizen entrepreneurs
Vanessa Roanhorse Keynote Address: Native American Youth Entrepreneurship Program 2021
Vanessa Roanhorse (Navajo) is the CEO of Roanhorse Consulting, an Indigenous women-led think tank that co-designs wealth and power-building efforts that invest in Indigenous entrepreneurs. She is also the co-founder of Native Women Lead, a national organization dedicated to growing Native women…
Monica Simeon: Building Sustainable Economies: The Story of Sister Sky
Sister Sky CEO and Principal Partner Monica Simeon provides an overview of Sister Sky, a business Simeon co-founded with her sister Marina Turning Robe on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Simeon also explains how Sister Sky is working to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit among her nation's…
Spirit of Enterprise: Apache Warrior Stokes his Entrepreneurial Fires With a Firefighting Business
At 18, Clyde Campbell worked on the engine crew for the U.S. Forest Service and later, the Hot Shot crew in Payson, Ariz., fighting fires. Though the work was dangerous, difficult and demanding at times, Campbell said he loved every minute of it. “It was fun building trails and working out in the…
Hatching Economic Development: A New Business Incubator for Crow Creek
“I want to develop my breakfast-burrito business into a restaurant,” said Lisa Lengkeek, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and 2013 winner of the South Dakota Indian Business Alliance contest for best business plan of the year. “I make the burritos at home and sell them at a stand. I have a…
The Ways: Lake Superior Whitefish: Carrying on a Family Tradition
The Petersons are part of a long tradition of commercial fishing among Lake Superior tribes. Avid fishermen for subsistence prior to European settlement, the Lake Superior Chippewa quickly found Gichigami’s (Ojibwe word for Lake Superior) fish to be a valued trade item once explorers penetrated to…
Native Report: Sister Sky
This edition of Native Report profiles Sister Sky, an innovative Native American company that is really owned by two sisters. (Segment placement: 8:33-15:40)
Tribal-citizen entrepreneurship: What does it mean for Indian Country, and how can tribes support it?
The following feature, a special to Community Dividend, is the condensed version of a speech Professor Cornell delivered at the Montana Indian Business Conference in Great Falls, Montana, on February 2, 2006. The conference, which was cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, focused…
First Nation Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Canada
There are thousands of Aboriginal organizations in Canada. They are owned, managed and staffed, wholly or in part, by First Nation (status and non-status Indian), Inuit, and Métis men, women, and youth. They exist in every region in the country where they perform profit, not-for…