Cameraman Frank Tyro shoots Linda King, an artist who teaches at Salish Kootenai College. Tyro is the director and editor of the TBAC video series. SKC Media photo

From selling Indian fried bread at the county courthouse to selling traditional dream catchers on the World Wide Web, business students from Northwest Indian College and other tribal colleges around the country are finding success in commerce. They may not be starting up corporations that employ hundreds of people. But each day more and more Native people are entering the world of business. They are part of a trend of increasing business success among Natives nationwide.From 1987 to 1992 the number of Native American-owned businesses grew five‑fold to 102,234, while growing eight‑fold in sales and receipts to $8 million, according to First Nations Development Institute, a national, non-profit organization devoted to culturally appropriate economic development on reservations.Tribal colleges are encouraging that movement by offering an increasing number of business courses. Many of the courses are the expected computer, bookkeeping, and business writing classes you would find on any college campus. But an increasing number of the colleges are focusing on entrepreneurial courses as well as offering support for entrepreneurs through business assistance centers and chapters of the national American Indian Business Leaders association.

Michael Crow says the movement toward entrepreneurial programs matches the history of Native business and commercial ventures. “For generations, Native Americans have been entrepreneurs,” says Crow, who teaches business classes at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Wash. “This is the history. Think of the makers of drums, dream catchers, and jewelry and of generations of fishermen.” Entrepreneurial businesses are considered a viable way to stimulate the tribal economy. Although an entrepreneur could be someone starting a massive factory, it usually is thought of as someone starting a smaller operation. Tribal entrepreneurs can start with minimal expense, can operate in a home or small space, and can include extended family.

Debra Davis says small businesses are best suited for tribal college students. Most Native people want to be able to stay with their community on the reservation and earn a living. With an unemployment rate of approximately 64 percent on the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana, they have few other options for staying. “Very few of our students want to move to a big city and work for a corporation,” says Davis, a Blackfeet Community College business instructor and a tribal member. “We need to teach them business skills that will meet their professional needs.”

Technical and peer support

In addition to college classes, Native people get support from Business Assistance Centers or Tribal Business Information Centers, which are affiliated with more than a dozen tribal colleges. These centers offer a one‑stop, community-based location for business assistance and advice. They focus upon helping people transform a business idea into a solid business plan and also refer people to sources of financing. For direct and in‑kind support, the centers rely upon two federal agencies–the Small Business Administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs–as well as the tribal colleges and tribal governments.

Northwest Indian College (NWIC) has its own Business Assistance Center and has set up centers in seven other reservations in Washington state: Nooksack, Swinomish, Upper Skagit, Quinault, Makah, Jamestown S’Klallam, and Nisqually. Students can earn a one‑year certificate in entrepreneurship through this program, taking NWIC courses via satellite. Each of these centers has Internet access and e-mail and emphasizes getting people and their products marketed on the World Wide Web.

Lis Dilley, a student at Northwest Indian College, is beginning a business selling her dream catchers. So far most of her sales have been through word‑of‑mouth advertising, but she is experimenting with an Internet‑based auction service. Dilley, who is part Nooksack and part Aleut, anticipates non‑Natives will be her main market since other Natives make their own dream catchers or receive them as gifts.

“I want to ease into this so I am not bombarded,” Dilley says. “I like the idea of working from home because you don’t have to rent space, and it is less complicated.” She works closely with NWIC instructor Crow and relies upon him for his advice at the Business Assistance Center. Dilley is in the midst of a series of business classes, which she says have been essential for managing the paperwork of her business. “Thanks to Michael (Crow), I’ve started my own business,” she says. “That’s where I got my idea for entrepreneurship.”

Some small businesses have been started on tribal college campuses by chapters of the American Indian Business Leaders (AIBL), enabling students to get real‑world experience running a business. Founded in 1995, AIBL offers internships, training, career fairs, and support for students and professionals. AIBL recently published a small business guide for its chapters.

“AIBL is an education program designed to empower American Indian people socially, politically, economically, and culturally,” says Executive Director Michelle Henderson. Administered by and designed for American Indian people, AIBL builds self‑esteem and promotes tribal economic self‑sufficiency, Henderson says. Henderson is a member of the Fort Belknap Assiniboine Tribe. AIBL evolved from her MBA thesis. Based in Missoula, Mont., the organization has 27 student chapters and more than 200 student members nationwide. Nineteen of the chapters are located at tribal colleges and universities.

Building curriculum

Tribal college business instructors must develop and refine their curriculum to meet the shift toward entrepreneurial studies and their students’ unique interests. To do so, the colleges share ideas with one another. In June 1997 Davis was one of the organizers of the Tribal College Entrepreneurship Workshop in Billings, Mont., which was designed to give tribal college instructors an opportunity to network and exchange entrepreneurship curriculum ideas. The Theodore R. and Vivian M. Johnson Scholarship Foundation is the sponsor for the 1997 workshop and the upcoming 1998 workshop.

At the next entrepreneurship workshop in 1998, participants will learn more about the American Indian Entrepreneurship Curriculum Development Project. The project will videotape case studies of tribal businesses and tie those stories to business curriculum, thus combining traditional business teaching with storytelling by successful Native business people.

“Our business textbooks seldom have American Indian examples, and our students really respond when they can see other Indians in business,” Michele Lansdowne says. She says it is important to encourage more Native people to become entrepreneurs by providing them with examples of successful tribal members. Lansdowne, head of the business department at Salish Kootenai College (Pablo, Mont.), and Lisa Little Chief Bryan, a business instructor at Sinte Gleska University (Rosebud, S.D.), are producing the videotapes along with the SKC Media Department. The project also includes culling various business curricula to identify a few quality programs. Eventually the case studies will be paired with written curriculum. The curriculum development project is funded by grants from the Johnson Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. These two along with the Handsel Foundation provide substantial support for tribal colleges’ entrepreneurial programs.

The tribal colleges are part of a larger movement at universities toward teaching business courses aimed at the entrepreneurial, instead of corporate, level. “All over America, people are seeing the opportunities in new venture creation,” Lansdowne says. “It is the greatest area of business growth.”

Davis of Blackfeet Community College believes basic business principles apply no matter what color someone is. “People say that because we are Natives we do business differently or we need it taught differently,” she says. Davis thinks tribal college instructors should guard against teaching business basics differently because their students are Indians.

Nevertheless, Native people starting businesses on the reservation do have special problems and concerns that should be addressed in business classes, Lansdowne believes. For example, instructors need to talk about what happens to relationships when you own a business and you hire one of your elders. Most reservations don’t have laws that clearly define the rules of doing business there. Too often a tribal government ignores the needs of small businesses in its backyard while offering incentives to a large outside company to locate on the reservation, she says.

Michelle Henderson says Indian students can maintain their cultural integrity and still be successful business people.

Both Lansdowne of Salish Kootenai College and Henderson of American Indian Business Leaders believe that Native businesses reflect traditional Native values. In Lansdowne’s case studies of Natives in business, each person talked about the importance of protecting the land, protecting the family, and improving the community. “AIBL supports the premise that our Indian students can maintain their cultural integrity and identity and still be successful business people within mainstream society as well as within their own tribal communities,” Henderson says. “We let our student members know that it is okay to be proud of who they are culturally and that we don’t have to leave our cultural values at the door when doing business with mainstream society.”

Overcoming the barriers

Entrepreneurship programs are an important part of how tribal colleges are building students’ potential for economic success. The tribal college instructors recognize that their graduates face many hurdles, however, including those faced by other small business people and those peculiar to reservations. Not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur, Davis says. They must be self-motivated risk takers. The tribal business centers don’t always have enough resources to help them deal with the barriers. They are often understaffed, many of them run by the same people who teach the business courses.

The centers provide technical assistance but not start-up money or business loans to launch the businesses. Native entrepreneurs have problems finding financing for their business ideas. Often tribal members have no credit history or a credit history that isn’t strong enough to get them a business start‑up loan. If they don’t own a home or land for collateral, it is even harder. “We have all of these students that are interested in business and trained in business and have great ideas,” Davis says. “But when it comes to getting loans, they get discouraged.”

To address this problem on the Blackfeet Reservation, the tribally-owned bank has developed a revolving loan fund. Blackfeet National Bank is a commercial bank that cannot undertake high risk loans itself, according to Elouise Cobell. In 1997, the bank’s non‑profit section developed a revolving loan fund to complement the bank’s Community Development Center. Cobell directs the Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund, Inc. For example, an artist can receive a loan to buy supplies to expand. Gradually those who successfully repay their small loans will be able to qualify for larger, commercial loans from Blackfeet National Bank or other commercial lenders.

The Blackfeet National Bank works very closely with the tribal college business program and won’t offer a business loan to people until they’ve completed the program. “The college has a great program,” Cobell says. “They develop their own business plans there, and their teachers evaluate the plans before they come to us.” The bank also reaches out to the tribal youth by operating a mini‑bank at the middle school. Students there run the branch themselves and learn how to set banking policies.

“Our goal is to really educate our community about commercial banking so more opportunities are available for everyone,” Cobell says. “We like to think of our middle school students as entrepreneurs in training.” Blackfeet National Bank is 94 percent owned by the Blackfeet tribe and has operated for 10 years.

While some reservations are near population centers or tourist attractions, many others are isolated. Nevertheless, Davis sees an untapped local market even on the isolated Blackfeet Reservation. A 1993 study by the Council of Energy Resource Tribes showed that 87 percent of the reservation disposable personal income was spent outside the reservation. “There is a lot we can do to create businesses that allow our people to spend their money here on the reservation,” she says. “We won’t reach saturation of new businesses until that number changes significantly.”

Northwest Indian College instructor Crow and several other instructors emphasize helping isolated businesses reach a larger market at low cost, such as using the Internet. “We want the students to be able to work here and stay in the community,” Crow says. “We want to build the local community.”

Carolyn Casey is a writer and teacher in Bellingham, Wash., and a frequent contributor to Tribal College Journal.