The Need

Indians in North Carolina face significant problems and challenges in Economic Development resulting from a history of past discrimination, lack of business and management training, low access to capital, and to business development networks and services, as well as cultural barriers to entrepreneurship in some communities. These conditions have resulted in significantly lower income levels and higher levels of unemployment among NC Indians compared to other larger racial groups.

Strengths To Build On

Despite these barriers, individual Indians have prospered in business and are ready to help others, and Indians have had a large presence in construction trades, farming and a crafts tradition to build on. Over the past several decades they have created financial institutions like the Lumbee Guaranty Bank and Tribal and Urban Organizations, which have operated income-generating enterprises and administered successfully a host of complex federal and state funded programs. In addition Indian tribes have managed and are managing millions of HUD dollars through Tribal governing structures and the North Carolina Indian Housing at the local level, which are creating great potential for economic development growth opportunities in the housing and community development industry long-term that the Initiative will seek to work in partnership with tribes to multiply the internal community dollar turnover rate to grow local Indian economies and create new business startups, growth, and expansion opportunities for Indian people.

Our Organization

NCIEDI was created as a result of the NC Commission of Indian Affairs' Strategic Planning effort, Consultation 2000. The planning process was supported by a grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. As a result of that process Commission members and tribal leaders agreed that the NC Indian community needed a state-wide non-profit arm to foster economic development and tap into private sector and government resources that were becoming available for that purpose. The general form of NCIEDI was suggested at the first Economic Summit at UNC-Pembroke in October 2001. The Summit was attended by more than sixty Indian and non-Indian business, political, and economic development agency leaders.

NCIEDI was incorporated in 2002 as a 501 C-3 non-profit with the late Mr. Lonnie Revels, Chairman of the Economic Development Committee of the Commission serving as its chair. The Board of Directors includes representatives of each of NC's Indian Tribes and Urban Indian Organizations and an equal number of at-large members including representatives of organizations that can partner with NCIEDI in economic development activities including: BB&T Bank, North Carolina Indian Housing Authority, Lumbee Guarantee Bank, North Carolina Community Development Initiative, NC Institute on Minority Economic Development, NC Rural Center, and Self-Help Credit Union.