{"id":286211,"date":"2026-05-04T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/?p=286211"},"modified":"2026-04-24T12:17:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:17:54","slug":"economic-mobility-on-the-ground-native-entrepreneurship-and-trust-based-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/economic-mobility-on-the-ground-native-entrepreneurship-and-trust-based-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic Mobility on the Ground: Native Entrepreneurship and Trust-Based Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Roddell Denetso\u00a0launched\u00a0<\/span>Black Streak Apparel<\/span><\/a> in 2021 in Shiprock, New Mexico, he was not thinking about Netflix or LeBron James. He was thinking about his community and about building something that could outlast any single moment. Luckily, he was connected to NCRC member organization\u00a0<\/span>Change Labs<\/span><\/a>, a Shiprock-based small business training center.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When the producers of\u00a0<\/span>Rez Ball<\/span><\/i><\/a>, 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\u00a0Denetso\u00a0ending\u00a0up designing uniforms\u00a0and assorted items\u00a0for both teams.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The film brought newfound visibility, but visibility alone does not build a business on the reservation \u2013 not when access to capital, reliable infrastructure and markets beyond the community remain persistent obstacles for Native entrepreneurs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Historically Absent\u00a0Capital<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

For\u00a0Native\u00a0entrepreneurs like Denetso, one of the most persistent challenges is not ambition or talent. It is access\u00a0to capital. Navajo Nation has long faced\u00a0shortages of\u00a0business\u00a0and mortgage lending. Conventional underwriting models were not built with\u00a0reservation\u00a0lands\u00a0in mind, where land ownership structures create barriers that no amount of creditworthiness can overcome. Borrowers get labeled high-risk not because of their business\u00a0model, but because of where they live.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That structural gap is exactly what\u00a0Change Labs,\u00a0a\u00a0<\/span>NCRC Field Empowerment Fund (FEF)<\/span><\/a> 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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since launching\u00a0their\u00a0<\/span>Kinship Lending\u00a0program<\/span><\/a> in 2020, Change Labs has deployed over $441,000 across 76 businesses. With FEF\u2019s 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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building\u00a0on the Reservation<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0identifies\u00a0that\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the system that needs to change.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NCRC’s Field Empowerment Fund exists to support organizations doing exactly this work.\u00a0Organizations like Change Labs\u00a0are not waiting for traditional financial systems to catch\u00a0up but\u00a0are\u00a0building 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\u00a0it\u00a0and found partners willing to invest in the vision.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Doug Mollett is the Economic Mobility Program Manager with NCRC’s Economic Mobility team.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Black Streak Apparel.<\/em><\/p>\n

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When Roddell Denetso\u00a0launched\u00a0Black Streak Apparel in 2021 in Shiprock, New Mexico, he was not thinking about Netflix or LeBron James. He was thinking about his community and about building something that could outlast any single moment. Luckily, he was connected to NCRC member organization\u00a0Change Labs, a Shiprock-based small business training center.\u00a0 When the producers of\u00a0Rez 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Mollett","author_link":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/?s=doug+mollett"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"When Roddell Denetso\u00a0launched\u00a0Black Streak Apparel in 2021 in Shiprock, New Mexico, he was not thinking about Netflix or LeBron James. He was thinking about his community and about building something that could outlast any single moment. Luckily, he was connected to NCRC member organization\u00a0Change Labs, a Shiprock-based small business training center.\u00a0 When the producers of\u00a0Rez…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}