When the producers of Rez Ball, a film about basketball on the Navajo Nation produced by LeBron James and released on Netflix, came looking for someone to design the uniforms, they found Denetso. What began as a commission for one team’s uniforms expanded quickly, with Denetso ending up designing uniforms and assorted items for both teams.  

The production company gave Denetso full creative freedom to design as he saw fit, which made the work meaningful on his own terms. The shop’s name carries deep personal significance as it honors his grandmother, with the premiere being shadowed by the memory of his mother who had passed away the year before. 

The film brought newfound visibility, but visibility alone does not build a business on the reservation – not when access to capital, reliable infrastructure and markets beyond the community remain persistent obstacles for Native entrepreneurs. 

Historically Absent Capital 

For Native entrepreneurs like Denetso, one of the most persistent challenges is not ambition or talent. It is access to capital. Navajo Nation has long faced shortages of business and mortgage lending. Conventional underwriting models were not built with reservation lands in mind, where land ownership structures create barriers that no amount of creditworthiness can overcome. Borrowers get labeled high-risk not because of their business model, but because of where they live. 

That structural gap is exactly what Change Labs, a NCRC Field Empowerment Fund (FEF) grantee, works to address. Headquartered in Tuba City, AZ and Shiprock, NM, Change Labs is a Native-led community development organization whose lending programs provide relationship-based capital, financial education and business coaching to Native entrepreneurs. High credit scores and ample collateral are not required. Trust is at the core of their underwriting model. 

Since launching their Kinship Lending program in 2020, Change Labs has deployed over $441,000 across 76 businesses. With FEF’s support, the organization has scaled from roughly 20 loans per year to 20 loans per month. This transformation in both their volume and systems capacity that has positioned Change Labs to steward millions in public capital through New Mexico’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) allocation. 

The impact is visible in the lives of the community members they serve. Cheryln Yazzie, a farmer and Kinship Lending borrower, used her loan to construct caterpillar tunnels that extended her growing season and stabilized her community supported agriculture (CSA) operation. She repaid the loan within a year and she now serves on the Navajo Nation Council. Capital deployed with cultural competence and trust does not just grow businesses, but it supports entire communities. 

Building on the Reservation 

Back in Shiprock, Roddell Denetso keeps building. Things have been bumpy, as he put it. Limited capital, inconsistent revenue, a home-based operation with limited room to scale and the geographic isolation of a rural community are not small obstacles. That is the honest reality of entrepreneurship in a community that has not always had the infrastructure, capital or institutional support that businesses in other markets take for granted. But, he is making it happen and thinking bigger when it comes to expanding his business operations and job opportunities to make a larger community impact. 

His message to young people on the reservation is simple: Do not let bureaucratic red tape and negative stereotypes stop you from pursuing what you want to build. 

That message reflects something Change Labs has built its entire model around: the idea that Native entrepreneurs are not high-risk. They are under-resourced. The difference matters. High-risk suggests the problem is with the person. Under-resourced identifies that it’s the system that needs to change. 

NCRC’s Field Empowerment Fund exists to support organizations doing exactly this work. Organizations like Change Labs are not waiting for traditional financial systems to catch up but are building the infrastructure that communities on the Navajo Nation have always deserved. Roddell Denetso’s story is one thread in that larger fabric. Black Streak Apparel did not end up on a Netflix screen by accident. It got there because someone believed the work was worth doing, kept doing it and found partners willing to invest in the vision. 

Doug Mollett is the Economic Mobility Program Manager with NCRC’s Economic Mobility team. 

Photo courtesy of Black Streak Apparel.

When Sena began providing medically tailored meals for patients in Hartford, CT during the COVID-19 pandemic, she didn’t expect that in less than three years she would have transformed from a food provider to a full-fledged, multi-state, food-as-healthcare clinic. Today, Cena Health partners with hospitals to provide food as a clinical intervention for patients managing chronic conditions. 

Experiences like Sena’s illustrate how important the right environment and resources can be for growing organizations and entrepreneurs. This same principle sits at the heart of NCRC’s Fellowship for Equitable Development (FED), which places dedicated fellows within community organizations to provide hands-on support, fresh perspectives and additional capacity. The program’s core mission is to ensure these organizations are equipped to move the needle toward a just economy. 

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (CFGNH), a FED host organization, leveraged the additional fellows to develop and launch a digital portal for its entrepreneur network that provides resources and connections to local small business owners like Sena. A founding participant in the New Haven Equitable Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Network (NHE3), Sena received guidance from her fellow entrepreneurs and was introduced to key investors and venture networks.  

“There’s a huge gap between the small business mindset and the scalable start up mindset,” said Sena. “When I began getting into the startup ecosystem [through the NHE3 network] and connecting with other founders … who have seen it all before and know that the skies the limit, [it] totally changed my perspective.”  

She now has the right organizational strategy and partnership opportunities to secure the needed funding to expand nationwide. The story of Cena Health and CFGNH reflects a broader truth about community development: when organizations are given the right mix of resources, relationships and strategic support, they can move from promising ideas to systems-level change. 

This same principle is at the core of the FED program model. 

“The fellowship added meaningful, flexible capacity during a period of growth and allowed us to advance multiple initiatives aligned with our mission,” said CFGNH’s Project Director Andrew Forbes.  

Forbes’s reflection underscores how fellows do more than support operations. They sustain momentum and expand what is possible. 

In the past two years, NCRC’s FED fellows have supported CFGNH in moving their E3Connector initiative from the development phase into full implementation. In 2024, FED Fellow Joseph Enyonu helped coordinate E3Connector’s stakeholder engagement campaign by building out strategy sessions with community members.  

Following the program’s official launch, 2025 Fellow Jaspreet Kondola supported this work by helping entrepreneurs understand how to use the E3Connector portal so they could find and apply for resources more easily. She also reviewed over 90 small business grant applications, supporting the evaluation and selection of businesses for funding. 

Since 2021, the NCRC Fellowship for Equitable Development has expanded the capacity of 41 nonprofits nationwide, equipping them with essential staff support. Hosting a fellow is not simply filling a staffing gap. It is investing in the future of the community development field by building up the next generation of emerging leaders who will build wealth in our nation’s communities. 

NCRC is excited to announce the host organizations selected for this year’s NCRC Fellowship. These organizations are driving real change in their communities, from advancing community health and wellness to expanding economic opportunities. Graduate students eager to make an impact, gain hands-on experience, professional mentorship and the opportunity to contribute to strengthening communities can apply until May 8, 2026. 

Dia Henderson is a Program Manager with NCRC’s Community Impact team.

Photo courtesy of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.

Skills-based training programs are often found for high-demand industries, such as healthcare, construction, IT, advanced manufacturing and other trades and are critical to filling labor supply gaps in regional economies. However, self-employment and entrepreneurship training are often overlooked in workforce development systems despite their crucial role in driving economic mobility and financial security in the modern economy. 

Small businesses are the cornerstone of America. Mom and pop stores across the country are not only beloved by their communities, but are also key contributors to economic growth and innovation by providing vital goods and services and creating quality jobs. However, the barriers to entry for first-time entrepreneurs prevents many from starting a business. This is especially true for women, immigrants, people of color and people with disabilities. 

Self-employment and entrepreneurship training programs help to dismantle the barriers to starting businesses by equipping people with the knowledge and abilities required to explore various entrepreneurial opportunities, create sustainable value propositions and deal with the risks of running a business. They also provide valuable guidance on how to conduct market analysis, manage finances, design marketing plans and how to comply with legal requirements, which are some of the key factors for becoming a successful entrepreneur. 

Self-employment and entrepreneurship training help drive small business creation and ownership at a time when local economic self-reliance is more important than ever. In the current economic climate, corporate profits, price discrimination and the rise in the economic might of large corporations are further compounding the growing affordability crisis sweeping across America. After an initial recovery period following the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy has become increasingly divided so much that most workers struggle to make ends meet while the wealthy have never done better. This “K-shaped recovery” has sunken most of the country into a financially uncertain future. 

In the past year alone, sweeping tariffs, changes to Medicaid and SNAP and unprecedented revocations of federal grants to community organizations have all made essential goods and services less affordable at the same time that job growth and wage increases have slowed. As the cost of living continues to increase for working families, paychecks have failed to keep up, making it more difficult for many Americans to get by.

At this moment, the need for small and local businesses is critical, not just for entrepreneurs but also for their communities. Thriving small businesses promote resilience in local economies and can help to reduce inequality in the areas they serve. Self-employment and entrepreneurship training programs can be pathways to small businesses and microenterprise ownership. 

Furthermore, they also increase the diversity of the local workforce by offering pathways to careers for people who may otherwise be overlooked by traditional career pathways, such as returning citizens, non-primary English speakers, single parents, disabled people, rural residents and tribal community members. 

NCRC is helping to support the expansion of workforce training services under the SNAP Employment and Training (SNAP E&T) program, which will include self-employment and entrepreneurship training offerings. This will allow organizations that offer self-employment training services to low-income populations to receive federal reimbursement dollars, helping to increase provider capacity and maintain sustainable funding. 

NCRC is designing a pilot program with Arizona’s Department of Economic Security to align the state’s SNAP E&T framework for defining self-employment training with the programs several organizations already offer. Based on the results of the pilot, NCRC hopes to expand the model into other states to increase the number of states who are supporting self-employment and entrepreneurship training programs. 

Expanding self-employment and entrepreneurship training within workforce systems is not just a programmatic adjustment; it is a strategic investment in shared prosperity. When public systems recognize business ownership as a legitimate pathway to economic mobility, they unlock opportunity for individuals who have long been excluded from traditional labor markets. 

By aligning federal resources, state agencies and community-based providers around this vision, we can strengthen local economies, promote wealth-building in underserved communities and ensure that economic mobility is not limited to those who fit a narrow definition of employability. Supporting entrepreneurship through SNAP E&T and similar frameworks is a practical, scalable step toward building a more inclusive economy.

Doug Mollett is the Economic Mobility Manager with NCRC’s Economic Mobility team.

Simon Wang is the Economic Mobility Specialist with NCRC’s Economic Mobility team.

Photo courtesy of NCRC member Groundswell Capital.

Housing counselors provide no to low-cost financial home-buying and foreclosure prevention education services to anyone who needs support. Yet, amid a deepening housing crisis, they remain a scarce resource. There are roughly 4,000 housing counselors across the country, or one housing counselor for every 22,000 potential homebuyers looking for assistance. Because these services are federally funded and offered at no cost to consumers, housing counselors are widely regarded as an unbiased and trusted resource. They can guide families through the home-buying process without the pressure to sell predatory loan products with interest rates outside of families’ means. 

Housing counseling guidance has never been more essential. Home prices continue to outpace wages in many states, while mortgage rates remain well above pre-pandemic levels and proposed policy changes—such as the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—could further destabilize the housing market. Home foreclosures are also continuing to rise, increasing to 19% since October 2024. These compounding obstacles are inhibiting more low- and moderate-income (LMI) families from otherwise securing and maintaining stable housing.  

NCRC is proud to support housing counselors nationwide as a HUD intermediary via our Housing Counseling Network (HCN) through our direct grant administration services. NCRC fosters deep relationships with our 24 network agencies by delivering targeted technical assistance to boost their capacity for impact within their communities. HCN housing counselors provide critical guidance and educational training to over 14,000 households each year. Through our National Training Academy, NCRC provides a breadth of technical assistance courses to housing counseling agencies across the country, training nearly 40% of all counselors nationwide annually on emerging best practices to better serve families in need. 

The benefits of working with a housing counselor are clear. In 2024 alone, housing counselors supported 35,000 families in purchasing homes, ensured over 12,700 families avoided eviction and helped over 19,500 avoid defaulting on their mortgages. Research also demonstrates that households that receive pre-home purchase counseling have a 20% lower chance of experiencing foreclosure. These outcomes are possible because HUD-certified housing counselors offer deep expertise in affordability assessments, budgeting and credit-building strategies that promote long-term financial stability. 

While many provisions in the Road to Housing Act are helpful and potentially transformative for LMI communities, the included proposal to penalize housing counseling agencies based on homebuyer outcomes warrants scrutiny. Such policies discourage agencies from providing counseling to families who are most vulnerable, such as those in climate-risk areas, seniors or families facing sudden medical crisis.  

We must increase investment in housing counseling programs, not decrease it. This is a pivotal moment. Private and public funders need to continue providing housing counseling agencies with the resources they need to continue the work of economically building up the communities that they serve.  

More than 4,000 housing counselors across all 50 states stand ready to support Americans in navigating a challenging housing market. If we are serious about protecting the American dream of homeownership, we must invest in the counselors who help make it possible. 

Laura Bentley is the Director of Grant Administration for NCRC’s Community Impact team.

Photo credit: Tierra Mallorca via Upsplash.

SNAP E&T is a complicated program, often requiring close coordination across the federal government, state agencies, intermediary organizations, and community-based organizations. Thus, implementing SNAP E&T comes with a real risk of people falling through the cracks, making collaboration, communication and community-driven problem-solving critical to success. 

On Monday, September 8, 2025, the Economic Mobility team at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) convened current third-party providers (TPP), intermediary organizations and state agency representatives for a day of collaboration and peer-to-peer learning about the SNAP E&T program in Tennessee.

The convening fits into an expanding body of work in NCRC’s economic mobility portfolio focused on providing learning opportunities about SNAP E&T to community-based organizations. This article will offer some initial insights for other national organizations considering state-based approaches as well as general takeaways about SNAP E&T for nonprofits, small businesses, community colleges and other community-based organizations in the workforce development ecosystem. 

Why A State-Based Approach?

NCRC’s decision to focus exclusively on Tennessee-based stakeholders was a conscious choice. Although SNAP E&T is a federal program with some uniform baseline requirements, every state interprets the regulations and guidance provided differently. This means that TPPs from different states may experience similar challenges but require distinct solutions.

By limiting participation to Tennessee’s SNAP E&T network, the convening enabled:

• Discussions centered on challenges and solutions applicable to everyone
• Immediate collaboration on shared initiatives
• Conversations addressing Tennessee’s specific regulatory environment and procedures

NCRC’s main objective was fostering stronger relationships among providers as well as between the TPPs, the state intermediary (United Way of Greater Nashville) and the state agency (the Tennessee Department of Labor). The desired impact was clearer communication channels between them resulting in stronger career outcomes for SNAP E&T program participants.

Creating a Productive Environment

Even when they have positive working relationships with one another, there are inherent tensions and power imbalances between TPPs, state agencies and intermediaries. Bringing parties into the same room is an opportunity to clear the air, but conversations can quickly derail unless they are designed with these dynamics in mind. 

NCRC’s approach involved several key design elements in aiming to do just that: 

Addressing Power Dynamics 

Effective convenings require acknowledgment of inherent power dynamics between different stakeholders. State agencies hold significant authority over reimbursement decisions and program compliance, while TPPs depend on these agencies for funding and operational guidance.

To address this, NCRC dedicated time for TPPs and United Way to discuss their experiences working with the state without them in the room. This allowed everyone to more candidly share their challenges and identify opportunities to work together on addressing them. Furthermore, scheduling this activity at the start of the day encouraged TPPs to release their frustrations before the state staff participating in subsequent conversations arrived in the room, opening the door for more productive dialogue throughout the rest of the day. 

Leveraging Intermediaries as Bridges

In states like Tennessee where an intermediary organization manages third-party partnerships, intermediaries are natural bridges between state agencies and TPPs because they have close relationships with TPPs but also maintain a deep understanding of state requirements. This dynamic led United Way of Greater Nashville to play a crucial role in setting the tone for the conversation by emphasizing the importance of honest feedback and speaking hard truths. While this kind of norm-setting can be done by the convener, we found United Way’s voice carried far greater weight with TPPs. 

Prioritizing Relationship Building

Lastly, rather than filling every minute with formal presentations, the agenda intentionally included breaks and unstructured networking time. While conveners often feel pressure to maximize content delivery, relationships—the convening’s primary objective—develop through informal interactions as much as through structured sessions. This is especially true when kickstarting a new peer-learning community. 

Looking Forward

NCRC’s SNAP E&T convening in Tennessee demonstrates that thoughtfully designed, state-specific gatherings can strengthen workforce development networks and improve service delivery for SNAP recipients. Acknowledging power dynamics, prioritizing fellowship and leveraging United Way’s role as an intermediary created the conditions for productive dialogue and strong relationships. As a result, the Tennessee-based stakeholders set the stage for more effective problem-solving in the future.

For community-based organizations, the event highlighted both the opportunities and complexities of SNAP E&T participation. Success requires not only programmatic expertise but also skill in navigating multi-layered relationships with intermediaries, state agencies and peer providers. The challenges do not end with understanding how to get involved with SNAP E&T, applying for third-party partnership or even onboarding as a provider. Participating in SNAP E&T requires commitment to ongoing advocacy and collaboration with peers to improve the workforce development system. 

As NCRC continues expanding its SNAP E&T learning opportunities, the Tennessee model provides a framework for supporting state-level workforce development networks to advance economic mobility for SNAP recipients nationwide, even at a time of significant change for food assistance programs. 

Simon Wang is the Economic Mobility Project Specialist with NCRC’s National Training Academy team.

Photo description: Training participants mid-session during NCRC’s Nashville Summit SNAP E&T convening.

Last November, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) awarded $2.4 million in grants to 17 member organizations through the Field Empowerment Fund (FEF) towards scaling community-based programs that build wealth via affordable housing, small business and workforce development. 

These grants remain flexible and responsive to community needs to ensure community organizations’ continued impact despite challenging conditions. Each applicant was evaluated based on an 18-month plan that detailed the impact of their existing programming and a road map for implementing an FEF-supported project between November 2024 and May 2026. In August—the halfway point of the grant cycle period—grantees shared their progress on the transformational improvements to their programming they’ve been able to realize despite federal rollbacks and economic shifts. 

In the past year, Black Women Build-Baltimore (BWBB) has put the funds towards providing much-needed homebuyer education programs for first-time homebuyers in low- to moderate-income communities, in addition to providing guidance on properly restoring historic row houses in the city. Thanks to these funds, BWBB has also been able to provide 198 individuals with financial education resources.

“Our NCRC FEF grant is helping us address myriad challenges and provide critical support during a time when many of the first-time homebuyer incentives have dried up,” said BWBB Founder and Executive Director Shelley Halstead. 

Thus far, BWBB has sold seven of their reconstructed homes in West Baltimore, supporting new pathways to homeownership and community stability. The organization is also working with the City of Baltimore towards finalizing a permit for their Community Resource Center, which will serve not only as a space for connection, but also a stronger hub for education on home repairs and a tool lending library. 

For the Texas Association of Community Development Corporations (TACDC), the FEF grant funds have been instrumental in expanding its Community Loan Center of America (CLC) program. CLC operates a unique lending model that partners local lenders with employers across the country to provide their employees from low- to moderate-income households with a sustainable consumer loan to cover unexpected expenses. Most recently, TACDC collaborated with the Urban Institute on a report about the Community Loan Center that was released in September.

“TACDC is optimistic about the future of the CLC program, our growth during challenging times, and revising some of our policies [so we can] ensure CLC borrowers have access to responsible credit,” said TACDC Executive Director Matt Hull.

In recent months, TACDC has leveraged grant funding to add two new lenders, hosted a national retreat and upgraded its loan software. These efforts have helped increase lending activity, with more than 22,000 loans projected for 2025 and over 150,000 loans issued since the program began. TACDC is also exploring ways to expand lending into underserved markets across the Southeast supported by new CDFI rules that enable broader nationwide reach.

In New York, Grow Brooklyn used its FEF funding to advance its workforce readiness program by adding a certified tax preparer training program for individuals in their late teens and early twenties. By the end of January, 12 graduates of the program were working in permanent positions, significantly expanding Grow Brooklyn’s capacity to offer tax services to the community. While seasonal, these jobs provide higher salaries and more permanent career pathways for young adults compared to other forms of employment, such as retail.

“The FEF grant has allowed us to create and launch a structured workforce development pipeline,” said Grow Brooklyn’s Executive Director Makeela Brathwaite. “This initiative would not have been possible without this catalytic support that has been instrumental in helping us build a flexible, responsive workforce model and maximize participant engagement.”

With seven months remaining in the program year, grantees are well on their way to expanding their core programs and directly responding to the communities they serve. These early success stories illustrate the powerful ways in which NCRC and its members are able to level up programs that drive resiliency, equity and opportunity.

For more information about the Field Empowerment Fund, visit NCRC.org/fef.

Dia Henderson is the Community Impact Program Manager with NCRC’s Programs and Strategic Development team.

Photo courtesy of Black Women Build-Baltimore.