Minnesota Indigenous Business Alliance

Education and Outreach - Trade and exchange has not fully returned to normal in 2022. MNIBA continues to assist businesses transition to a virtual platform. MNIBA continued its role as a reviewer and commentor on the Building Tribal Economies Toolkit - National Congress of American Indians. MNIBA engaged with partner organizations to look at what is needed to create equitable parity inaccessing resources, tools, technical assistance, and equitable access to affordable financial resources. MNIBA worked with a National team, funders and foundation to develop the Native Community Cooperative Developers Certification program. Phase I was launched and the cohorts in attendance reflect 15 Native Nations in the country. Phase II continues for 2023 with goals of Phase III, IV, and V being launched in 2024-2025. MNIBA has become a national leader in the area of Indigenous/Native cooperative development and is called upon frequently to present and speak with communities. Over 100 native entrepreneurs and artists received direct business supports including review of market, financial and business plans, network connections and introductions, and referrals to financial resources. Worked with partners to bring in entrepreneurial training at Bois Forte and Tribal Enterprise Development at Fond du Lac. MNIBA updated its branding and website to have continuity in messaging in all communication platforms. RESULTS Over 20,000 people were touched through email and phone communications, virtual presentations, newsletter, statewide work groups, website, and social media platforms. Over 2000 hours of time-based giving throughout all MNIBA's programs on behalf of the board of directors, ED, statewide working groups, organizational partners, and volunteers.

NATIVE ARTS - hosted four Native arts events, Art Attack (2000 visitors), Art A Whirl (10,000 visitors, Art Appropriation Panel Discussion, Native Winter Art Gift Boxes (250 visitors) co-hosted with Springboard for the Arts two virtual Indian Arts and Crafts Act trainings - one for attorneys with CLEs and one for artists (75 attorneys from NE, MN, WI, SD, ND received CLEs) Hosted seven Art Talks and Tea (over 32,000 people watched the livestream event, and continue to watched the videos on YouTube and FaceBook) Hosted two photo shoots and (assisted 20 artists) in getting professional headshots and product shots. Hosted a virtual training on how to develop your artists statement and bio. These events resulted in an in-kind of over $24,000 for the costs of space, promotional advertisement, videography/editing, volunteers and partner organization dedicated staff at events. MNIBA participated in the national event of Artist Sunday and Small Business Saturday events to draw attention to and promote Native business and artists in Mni Sota. MNIBA is being called upon as a trusted resource to recruit artists for gallery events, boothing, art demonstrations, art education and have referred of 200 Native artists throughout the state in response to these inquiries. the Native arts are led by Native artists and redesigned in a way that decentralizes institutional modes of power and systemic racism. RESULTS Over 1,000 Native artists, Native-led organizations serving artists, and creatives have been touched through surveys, attending virtual presentations, giftboxes, referrals, email and telephone communiques, interviews, photoshoots, newsletter, website, and social media platforms. Over 1500 hours of time-based giving on behalf of MNIBA's board of directors, staff, volunteers, organizational partners and their staff.

Buy Native Statewide Campaign - MNIBA had hoped to bring small business together in learning and networking environments, Lunch and Learn events, Business Pop-Ups, and the annual Trading at the River and Buy Native Conference, we have pushed these events forward into 2024 planning. MNIBA launched several Buy Native Campaign messages to keep our native business and artists in the public eye and continued testing different models to get them introduced to new customers/clients and created tools that entrepreneurs are using beyond Covid-19 to diversify their marketing strategies. MNIBA continued to build out its Buy Native online interactive business directory and did a soft launch at the end of 2022. This directory will be national in scope and is one of a kind. MNIBA will be deploying a marketing strategy locally, regionally, and nationally.

Good Relatives Collaborative - MNIBA became a partner and assisted in writing the grant and developing the materials for the program and included developing budgets, partnership agreement, website and grant portal launch, development of an oral application process and grant review tools for oral applicants. This included promotion through social media and meeting people in their communities to promote the work. As part of the three-state collaborative, we were awarded a 6-year contract with Bush Foundation to award $1.2 million annually ($400K in each state) and award the Bush Prize of up to $500K. There are three granting partners, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, with the fourth partner as receiver & distributor of the funds, handling the award distribution, grant agreement and reporting. Through this collaborative MNIBA awarded $400,000 in general operating support to sixteen Native-led grassroots and nonprofit organizations in Minnesota.