Oklahoma Native Assets Coalition’s 

Children’s Savings Account Programming

Authored by Christy Finsel (Osage), ONAC Executive Director

November 2016

The Oklahoma Native Assets Coalition (ONAC) is an American Indian-led nonprofit network of Native people who are dedicated to increasing self-sufficiency and prosperity in their communities.  The coalition has existed since 2001, was classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) in 2014, and is one of only a handful of Native asset building coalitions in operation within the United States.

ONAC administers a Children’s Savings Account (CSA) program that provides a nest egg of savings for Native youth, ages birth to eighteen, and helps them save for asset purchases, such as post-secondary education.  ONAC provides the opening deposit for the youth, plus a piggy bank, certificate, and financial education booklet.  Most of the accounts are held through a 529 College Savings Plan, although some of the tribal partners have chosen to have the youth open their accounts at a financial institution (so the youth have experience with depositing their savings at a local bank branch).

Making the Case for Native CSAs

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). 

According to the American Indian College Fund, “only 13% of American Indian students age 25 or older have a college degree-115% below the national level.” (Student Success Stories, American Indian College Fund, accessed August 14, 2016, at http://www.collegefund.org/success_stories/detail/85). Anecdotally, ONAC has heard from other Native colleagues in Oklahoma that there are scholarship funds available that are not applied for, even though Native youth are eligible applicants.  CSAs can help create a pipeline for Native youth to college by helping the youth to think positively about their future and their college plans. 

Framework for Native Asset Building

In the ONAC CSA financial education booklet, ONAC recognizes that Native people may think about assets broadly (from a community perspective) and not only as money or individual assets.  The coalition also notes that Native communities have been building assets for generations. At the account opening events, the youth are asked to draw assets of value to them, with art supplies provided by ONAC.  From two of the account opening events, with permission from the parents, ONAC has included the artwork of twelve of the youth in a desk calendar to promote the idea of talking about Native assets throughout the year.  ONAC has distributed the calendars to the youth and their families, as well to our partners and other constituents.  In the next year, ONAC hopes to display the artwork, in an art show, to illustrate the various understandings of assets by Oklahoma Native youth.  To support the idea that food security/cultivation is a Native asset, in June 2016, ONAC started distributing organic garden seeds to the Native youth and their families at the account opening events.

Community Partner Engagement

As a Native asset building coalition, ONAC works to increase the capacity of our Native partners to be able to offer sustainable asset building programs.  Thus, as part of ONAC’s CSA program model, ONAC has formed partnerships with fifteen partners (tribal programs and Native nonprofits).  The partners include the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, Osage Financial Resources, Inc., Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation, Cherokee Nation Child Support Program, Mvskoke Loan Fund, Ponca Tribe Head Start, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, Kaw Nation, Ranch Good Days, Inc., Pawnee Tribe Title VI Elderly Meals Program (accounts will be opened by grandparents raising grandchildren), BeLieving In Native Generations, Housing Authority of the Seminole Nation, American Indian Resource Center, Inc., and the Scholarship Foundation Program of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The CSA models are customized by each partner to meet local needs.

Grant Support and Outcomes to Date

Since 2014, with grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and First Nations Development Institute, with support from the Ford Foundation, ONAC has secured funding for 635 Children’s Savings Accounts.  As of November 6, 2016, ONAC has opened and funded 255 accounts, and has funded mini grants for an initial 35 accounts that were opened by the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, as well as funded two mini grants to the Kaw Nation and Ranch Good Days, Inc. for 40 more accounts, for a total of 330 accounts.  Of the data we have to date, 245 accounts were opened through the Oklahoma 529 College Savings Plan (accounts with youth associated with Osage Financial Resources, Inc., Mvskoke Loan Fund, Cherokee Nation Child Support Services, BeLieving In Native Generations and Riverside Indian School, American Indian Resource Center, Inc., the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Ponca Tribe Head Start Program); 10 were opened through MOST-Missouri’s 529 College Savings Plan (for youth associated with the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma); and 35 were opened at financial institutions (one in Anadarko and another in Tahlequah). ONAC will fund the remaining 305 accounts through April 2018.  In November 2016, one more account opening session is planned with the Pawnee Tribe Title VI Elderly Meals Programs (for grandparents raising grandchildren).  The coalition has secured initial endowment funding to open additional accounts in the future. More information will be forthcoming.

ONAC did not collect data on the age or gender of, or whether the youth were living at or below 200% of the federal poverty line for the 35 accounts opened by the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes during their pilot CSA mini grant projects.  Each of those 35 youth was an enrolled tribal member of those two tribes (AI/AN).  ONAC also has not collected age, gender, and family income information, to date, on the 40 youth who are receiving accounts funded by ONAC mini grants to the Kaw Nation and Ranch Good Days, Inc.  The 40 youth receiving those funds are either enrolled tribal members of the Kaw Nation or Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

Since December 2015, ONAC has collected the following data on the 255 accounts we have funded (ONAC directly sent in opening deposit checks for these 255 accounts):

·      100% AI/AN

·      211 youth living at or below 200% of the federal poverty line

·      44 youth living above 200% of the federal poverty line

·      131 youth identified as boys

·      124 youth identified as girls

Ages of 255 Youth Account Owners as of October 2016

Age	Under 1	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Numbers of youth that age	14	13	12	26	22	11	16	11	23

Age	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
Numbers of youth that age	12	16	11	18	16	14	8	6	3	3

Given this data, there is evidence that the families desire these accounts even if the youth is a teenager.  While ONAC promotes the idea of starting earlier in saving for college, parents thought it important to still open accounts for older youth at ONAC account opening events.

Innovation in Addressing Gaps and Championing Community Assets

ONAC has championed culturally-relevant CSA models that build community assets.  Program innovations include:

• Wichita and Affiliated Tribes administered a Wichita SummerSmart Youth Program where, in addition to building tribal pride through teaching Wichita history and culture and promoting good health practices, they offered savings accounts for the interns and youth participants as well as financial education classes. During the program, with the grant funds, they opened 27 Children’s Savings Accounts (including 4 accounts for their youth interns). The children learned about tribal presidents, aboriginal homelands of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, traditional foods such as corn, and their language. They were introduced to a wide variety of physical activities such as dodgeball, kickball, and other sports. They were also provided nutrition classes by their Food Distribution staff. A banker came and discussed with them the importance of saving money, and the children noted the things they would like to save for in the future. Wichita and Affiliated Tribes President, Terri Parton, also held a discussion with the youth to reemphasize the importance of saving for things that they wanted and needed.
  
• The Mvskoke Loan Fund held a CSA opening event that coincided with a Muscogee (Creek) Movie Night at the Dome (where the tribe shows a full length children’s movie).  They opened 116 Children’s Savings Accounts with Muscogee (Creek) parents/guardians through the Oklahoma 529 College Savings Plan.  Building from Indigenous teachings that assets are not only money, the Mvskoke Loan Fund invited a Muscogee (Creek) artist, Daniel Wind III, to display his work.  Muscogee college students volunteered to work with the youth attendees on artwork that the youth created to express their understandings of assets.  The youth drew pictures of their families, homes, flowers and trees, food, and a person graduating and getting a job. 
  
• The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma opened a total of fifty ONAC Children’s Savings Accounts for youth enrolled in a financial education program they provided, as well as for children who attend their Early Childhood Learning Center.   They held a Family and College Savings Plan Night at their Early Childhood Learning Center.   During that event, they scheduled storytelling, a Native arts project, supervised playtime, and dinner.  Chief Glenna Wallace attended the event to support tribal staff and to encourage the parents and youth to deposit more funds in the account over the years.
  

Scalability and Replicability

In Oklahoma, among the CSA partners, there is interest in 450 more accounts than ONAC has the funding to support.  Additionally, there is interest in Native CSAs around the country from other Native communities.  

ONAC is in a position to scale this CSA project nationally.  The ONAC board has approved for ONAC to open CSAs for any Native youth residing in the United States and its territories.   The coalition has designed an online CSA application system to provide the coalition with the mechanism to open accounts with Native families in any state.  Thus far, accounts have been opened in Oklahoma and Missouri, as the Eastern Shawnee Tribe is located near the border of both states.

ONAC believes this CSA program is replicable.  The coalition has shared information about the CSA models nationally via our newsletter and by presenting information about the program at national convenings.  Also, in regard to replicability, ONAC has worked with child support contacts to tease out alternatives to forgiveness of state assigned child support arrears as such forgiveness it is not allowed in Oklahoma due to the wording of the state constitution. This gap in arrears forgiveness and CSA development in Oklahoma, led ONAC, with the Cherokee Nation Office of Child Support Services, to arrive at an alternative option that tribally-administered child support programs may want to offer their clients. To add extra incentive for parents served by the Cherokee Nation Office of Child Support Services to deposit funds into their children’s accounts, they will offer the custodial and noncustodial parents, who have establishment and enforcement cases, an offer for private mediation. If both parties are willing, and the non-custodial parent owes a custodial parent money, in order to work a good obligation, the non-custodial parent may deposit money into the CSA for the benefit of their child. This reduces the non-custodial parent’s debt, and helps the child to have a bigger nest egg of savings. This ONAC CSA model, with an added debt reduction component, may be a replicable model for other tribally administered child support programs.

Thank You

ONAC wishes to thank Kerry Alexander, Director for TIAA of the Oklahoma 529 College Savings Plan, and Tim Allen, Deputy Treasurer for Communications and Program Administration of the Office of Oklahoma State Treasurer Ken Miller, for their assistance.

Contact

For further information about ONAC and the CSA program, contact Christy Finsel, ONAC Executive Director, at cfinsel@oknativeassets.org.  ONAC’s website address is www.oknativeassets.org.