ONAC Administers A Variety of Programs: While keeping its name, ONAC serves as a national Native-led nonprofit. ONAC was formed in 2001 and is celebrating its 24th year as a Native asset building coalition. ONAC wears a variety of hats. Our coalition operates as an intermediary funder; a direct service provider (administering Children's Savings Account, emergency savings account, emergency cash assistance, financial coaching, down payment assistance, Banked On incentive programs, and Native Child Tax Credit outreach); a national coordinator of two Native asset building networks - the Native EITC/VITA Network and Native Bank On ONAC; a provider of training and TA to help tribes and other Native-led nonprofits administer their own asset building programs; and ONAC conducts national Native financial capability and asset building research. Intermediary Funder: ONAC is an intermediary funder and awards mini-grants for Native asset builders to fund various asset building programs (ONAC has grant administration systems in place, provides technical assistance to grantees, and has funded 113 grants, $948,900 total, since 2014, to tribes and Native nonprofits in Idaho, Oklahoma, Oregon, Maine, North Carolina, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Connecticut, North Dakota, New Mexico, and Alaska). In 2024, alone, ONAC's subgrant VITA funding provided VITA support for 12,235 tribal citizens across the country. Here is the 2024 announcement about grant awards. Direct Service Provider: Children’s Savings Accounts, CSAs (opening and funding CSAs for Native youth to help them build a nest egg of savings). For this program, ONAC works with twenty-four tribal and Native nonprofit partners to host account opening events. To date, ONAC has funded 1,259 accounts. These accounts help address the racial wealth gap and low college graduation rates in Indian Country (only 14% of American Indian students age 25 or older have a college degree-less than half the national average, according to the American Indian College Fund). Instilling young people with the habit of saving is proven to have long-term benefits. In The College Savings Initiative, a joint project between the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis and the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, researchers found that “in multivariate analysis, youth who expect to graduate from a four-year college and have an account are about seven times more likely to attend college than youth who expect to graduate from a four-year college but do not have an account.” (Elliott, W. and Beverly, S. (2010). The Role of Savings and Wealth in Reducing “Wilt” between Expectations and College Attendance. Journal of Children & Poverty, 17(2), 165-185. Also available at https://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/WP10-01.pdf.) The Children’s Savings Accounts are primarily opened through 529 Savings Plans and are culturally-relevant. We provide Native-specific financial education, a Native arts project as part of the account opening events, and a food sovereignty component by providing organic gardening seeds to the youth who are opening CSAs. We have the capacity to open CSAs for Native youth regardless where they live in the United States. ONAC believes there is benefit to offering the financial education to the youth and parents along with the hands-on opportunity of opening and managing a mainstream college savings account. (ONAC provides the initial seed deposit of $100 per account). With help opening the accounts and the seed deposit, the families have a mechanism for college savings and are motivated to save for their child’s post-secondary education costs. Through this process, the families grow their financial capability, the parents may increase their expectations that their child will go to college, and the youth may think it is more of an option for them to go to college (aspirational change). These account help create a pipeline to college. As part of the program, the youth receive a culturally-relevant financial education booklet. In the booklet, the youth guide a coin through a maze to a piggy bank; enjoy a word find as they search for words describing tribal assets (culture, language, land, regalia, community, family, homes, land); complete sentences about tribes and their CSA; count coins and match the totals to amounts listed; note their future savings goals; think about a history of saving in their families and tribes and describe how they want to share with others now and in the future; list the tribes in Oklahoma and mark where their tribal seat of government is located (focusing on tribal sovereignty as a Native asset); and draw assets of value to them. With parental permission, ONAC has included artwork in an ONAC desk calendar to promote talking about assets throughout the year. In the future, we would like to have an art exhibit to showcase the artwork from Native youth in the program. As of January 2019, ONAC also funded Native child savings initiatives in North Carolina, South Dakota, Missouri, Hawaii, Arizona, Texas, Alaska, and California, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Montana. Here is a 2024 infographic about the CSA program. Click here to access an interim ONAC CSA report. In January 2020, ONAC published a report on Native Children's Savings Initiatives in the United States. ONAC is accepting CSA applications from parents/guardians for their children ages birth to 22. To participate, there is a two-step process. Both steps must be completed: 1. Parents/guardians should first open a 529 College Savings Account. You can open it in the state you reside. If you prefer, you can open it in Oklahoma, regardless if you reside in the state or not. Here is the link for the Oklahoma 529 website: https://www.oklahoma529.com. Parents are issued a 529 account number once they open an account for their child. 2. Parents/guardians can then include that new 529 account number in the ONAC CSA application found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ONAC24. ONAC will then write a check payable to the 529 College Savings Plan to provide a $100 account deposit for each account. ONAC will directly mail the check to the 529 College Savings Plan. It can take a few weeks for the funds to show as deposited in the account. The plan will inform you once the deposit has been made into your child's account. Please note that there is a tax penalty if the funds are withdrawn for non-education purposes. Once the account is opened by you and funded by ONAC, you can add additional funds to the account over the years. Again, if you do not reside in Oklahoma, you may still open a 529 account for your children through the Oklahoma 529 Plan. Your child can use these funds for approved post-secondary education purchases at schools throughout the United States. Emergency Savings Accounts, ESAs, (In total, from May 2015 to December 2024, ONAC has secured funding for 1,458 ESAs and funded 1,427 ESAs, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Administration for Native Americans, Verizon, and the Wells Fargo Foundation). These accounts provide a nest egg of savings for Native families and are a step along the road to financial security. Click here to access an interim ONAC ESA data report. Cash assistance, (as of October 2024, ONAC has directly funded 1,266 cash assistance grants for Native families either experiencing financial distress, repairing their credit, or preparing to purchase a home, $500 per family. Earlier during the pandemic, ONAC worked with 24 tribal and Native-led nonprofit partners for referrals for emergency cash assistance. Here is a copy of the paper we published about this emergency cash distribution process and the lessons learned: https://bit.ly/ONACecash. Financial coaching including one-on-one credit counseling, homebuyer education, and basic budgeting, (ONAC is providing these free one-on-one services, by appointment, via phone and teleconference to Native families). Since June 2020, ONAC has been offering three types of free financial coaching to tribal citizens across the United States: 1) credit counseling, 2) homebuyer education, and 3) financial management (i.e. budgeting). Confidential sessions are offered one-on-one, by teleconference (Zoom) or phone call, with a Native certified credit counselor, homebuyer education provider, and financial educator. Typically, these sessions will last for an hour and are scheduled at a mutually agreeable time. If you are working with tribal citizens that would like to receive these free ONAC financial coaching services from a Native certified financial coach, you are welcome to pass along this registration link to those tribal citizens you serve: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ONACcounselingregistration. Tribal citizens who are interested in such services may then complete the registration form. From there, our financial coach will work with them to schedule a remote session by phone or teleconference. This financial coaching is available to any American Indian or Alaska Native in the United States, regardless of where they reside. Here is a link to a flyer containing this same information. As of December 2024, ONAC has received registrations for coaching from 1,228 registrants. The registrants are citizens of 169 Native Nations and reside in 41 states. Down payment assistance: As of December 2024, ONAC has provided down payment assistance to 106 families. As part of the program, ONAC also provides homebuyer education and Native-specific general financial education. ONAC is a member of the Underserved Mortgage Markets Coalition. Also, as of May 2024, Dr. Finsel, ONAC's Executive Director, has served as the co-chair of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Project REACh 2.0 Native American Subcommittee. Incentivizing Bank On accounts for tribal citizens interested in opening safe and affordable accounts. Revolving Loan Fund: ONAC will soon provide a revolving loan fund. Coordinator of Two National Native Asset Building Networks: 1). ONAC administers the Native EITC/VITA Network which is comprised of Native VITA site coordinators and advocates. The purpose of the network is to share resources and opportunities, to provide a platform for interaction among Native site coordinators, and to bring concerns from Native VITA sites to appropriate parties. To complete the ONAC Native EITC/VITA survey and/or to join the related directory, go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ONACVITA. Those interested in joining the network may contact Patsy Schramm, ONAC Native EITC/VITA Coordinator, at edgpj@aol.com. Recently, ONAC signed a national partnership agreement with the IRS as part of its efforts to support Native VITA programs. 2). ONAC administers the national Native Bank On ONAC initiative to connect tribal citizens to Bank On certified accounts and has launched the related Get Banked Indian Country campaign to promote access to safe and affordable accounts for tribal citizens. To learn more about the Get Banked Indian Country initiative and the related Native Bank On ONAC initiative, contact Christy Finsel at cfinsel@oknativeassets.org. For FDIC information about the connections between Bank On and VITA, go to https://www.fdic.gov/banker-resource-center/opportunity-provide-free-tax-assistance-consumers-0#vita-related-activities-and-favorable-consideration-under-cra-regulations. Related to the coordination of both of these national Native initiatives, ONAC is also providing advanced Child Tax Credit outreach to connect Native families to the IRS non-filer portal and www.GetCTC.org/ONAC. ONAC is providing national Native CTC outreach and linking such efforts to the Get Banked Indian Country initiative. Training and Technical Assistance and Financial Capability and Asset Building Webinar Series: ONAC provides professional development for Native asset builders by offering training and technical assistance to assist asset building practitioners as they offer Native-specific financial education and financial coaching and design and administer matched savings, CSAs, ESAs, emergency cash assistance, and other asset building programs. ONAC provides webinars about Native banking access; frauds and scams in Indian Country; distributing emergency cash assistance and reparation payments to tribal communities; Native asset building programs and how they promote racial equity; culturally relevant financial coaching in Native communities; etc. National Native Asset Building Research: ONAC has published Native asset building research on: efforts of Native women entrepreneurs to close the women's wealth gap; documentation of all Native child savings initiatives in the U.S. (IDAs, CSAs, and minor trust funds); and implications of various CSA program design models on financial aid and asset limits for those receiving public aid and seed-funded CSAs. ONAC also published a recent resource guide on funding, peer networking, and training opportunities available for Native entrepreneurs. As part of the CSA program, ONAC generated a guide for parents managing 529 college savings accounts. During 2020, ONAC provided video and online resource guides for how to take VITA and financial education and financial coaching provision remote during a pandemic. In September 2021, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the Aspen Institute published an essay authored by ONAC in The Future of Building Wealth: Brief Essays on the Best Ideas to Build Wealth - for Everyone (available for download at FutureofWealth.org.) In December 2021, ONAC published a paper on lessons learned from emergency cash assistance distribution, see https: //bit.ly/ONACecash. Recently, ONAC completed research projects on the role of fintech in Native asset building service delivery and Native asset building work as part of racial equity agendas. Please see our Publications page. Soon, ONAC will publish a paper on down payment assistance. |
