Four Bands Community Fund - Reports and Media

Conference Focuses on Boosting Business on Reservations
April 14, 2013
The 2013 South Dakota Indian Business Conference shared effective strategies to build private sector businesses on South Dakota's reservations. Four Bands has played a key role in addressing these issues on the Cheyenne River Reservation. Read the full story.

Four Bands Community Fund Encourages Cheyenne River to Rededicate Efforts that Build Financial Capability
April 3, 2013
With April as Financial Literacy Month in full swing, Four Bands Community Fund is hosting a myriad of activities to help build the financial capability of local residents on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Activities include hosting after school meetings for youth, engaging residents through social media platforms, enrolling residents in a matched savings program, and gaining personal commitments from individuals to make positive changes in their financial habits. Read the full story.

Tanya Fiddler Takes a Seat on Treasury's Community Development Advisory Board
December 27, 2012
Following an appointment by President Obama earlier this month, Tanya Fiddler (Cheyenne River Lakota Nation), was officially welcomed onto the U.S. Department of Treasury's Community Development Advisory Board on December 17, 2012. The purpose of the Advisory Board is to advise the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, a program of the U.S. Department of Treasury, on its activities and programs which are designed to increase economic opportunity and promote community development investments for underserved populations and in distressed communities in the United States.
Read the full story.
Listen to the interview on SDPR.

Four Bands to Create or Retain 25 Jobs on the Reservation
July 19, 2012
Through a USDA grant, Four Bands will support small business and job creation, as well as training. Funding will provide business bundles that help entrepreneurs with the core elements of starting a reservation-based business. Four Bands expect to create and sustain 25 new jobs. See and hear the KOTA Radio 1380 interview.

Changing the Face of Poverty
June 26, 2012
June 25 marked the anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn, known by some as Custer's Last Stand and known by the Sioux Indians as Victory Day. History notes the Battle of Little Bighorn as the most famous battle of the Great Sioux War of 1876, and while it was an amazing victory for the Sioux, the bittersweet aftermath that followed led to an aggressive campaign mounted by the U.S. Army to force the remaining free Indians onto reservations. Read more.

Four Bands Noted in the Top 10 Innovative Lenders
June 12, 2012
Along with nine other financial institutions and non-profits throughout the country, Four Bands' financial education and credit building programs were recognized as innovative strategies to help people of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation establish creditworthiness. Read the article.

Indian Financial Action Program Featured at White House
May 18, 2012
A Native American perspective was presented during the White House's first-ever Summit on Financial Capability and Empowerment, held May 10 in Washington, D.C. Tanya Fiddler, executive director of Four Bands Community Fund, was on hand to explain how her program is promoting the financial empowerment of tribal citizens-young and old-in her region. Read the article.

Four Bands Recognized as Solution to Overcoming Barriers to Credit
April 19, 2012
Last March, the Federal Reserve announced a new provision on the CARD Act, which was originally enacted to prevent college students from claiming parents income in order to secure high credit limits. This new provision puts that limitation on all people, creating a barrier for stay-at-home parents to build credit. Read the article.

Native CDFIs in the Spotlight During Financial Literacy Month
April 1, 2012
Four Bands and Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation are featured in as two model CDFIs that offer fair financial products as an alternative to payday lending. These organizations are driven by the belief that citizens should have the information they need to make informed decisions and be given access to affordable credit products that help them achieve financial stability. Read more on alternatives to payday loans.

Four Bands Prepared to Lend $2M to Support Local B2B Development
March 22, 2012
After lending nearly $1 million to fund business-to-consumer development on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota last year, Four Bands Community Fund now plans to lend twice that much to develop business-to-business commerce there over the next couple of years. Read the article in Indian Country Today.

The Private Sector: More Than a Job Creator
March 15, 2012
Jobs, jobs, jobs. They're on everyone's mind these days, and Creator knows our reservations are in dire need of jobs. While America has experienced a lingering unemployment rate around the 9th percentile for the past couple of years, our reservations have been enduring unemployment rates much higher than that - sometimes up to 90 percent - for generations. Read more.

Four Bands Shares On-the-Ground Insight to Indian Business Development
February 27, 2012
Four Bands Executive Director, Tanya Fiddler, and Native American Natural Foods CEO, Karlene Hunter, provide insight to the barriers of developing private sector business on reservations during Dakota Midday on South Dakota Public Radio. Listen to the interview.

Basic Hardware in Isabel, South Dakota, Supports Community Needs; Grand Opening Scheduled for November 4th, 2011
October 18, 2011
The rural town of Isabel, South Dakota, was left without a hardware store after an outside company purchased the building that previously housed the town's local co-op hardware. November 4, 2011, will mark the grand opening of Basic Hardware, the town's new supplier of hardware goods that was made possible by the dedication and commitment of owner and local resident, Tammy Frank, and a business loan from Four Bands. Read the press release.

Tanya Fiddler, Presents a New Native America
June 20, 2011
An in-depth interview with Four Bands Executive Director, Tanya Fiddler, aired on South Dakota Public Broadcasting that presented an alternative picture of Native American communities. Although facing many challenges, Tanya spoke of the great economic momentum many reservation communities in South Dakota are experiencing.
Listen to the interview.

Applying Traditional Values In Today's Economy
April 22, 2011
It is important to arm our people with the knowledge to combat predatory lenders. It is common for predatory lenders, those with outrageous fees and extraordinarily high interest rates, to operate in border towns of reservations where they prey on the desperate monetary needs of low-income people. Read more.

Data or Delusion?
March 14, 2011
Last week I was vigorously working to meet a deadline for a grant application (as many of us living in the nonprofit world spend a lot of our time doing), and I was completely baffled by some of the economic statistics I looked up for my community, the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. The Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation, about the size of Connecticut, is composed of Ziebach and Dewey counties and is located in North Central South Dakota. For this grant application I was required to rely on economic data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to meet the Distressed Community criteria in the application. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ziebach County has a 5.5 percent unemployment rate—only 0.6 percent higher than the state average and well under the national average. Knowing that Ziebach County is the poorest county in America with a 62 percent poverty rate and Dewey County follows closely behind, how could this be? Read more.

Four Bands Selected for Aspen Institute's Scale Academy
The Aspen Institute and the Association for Enterprise Opportunity announced today the five organizations selected to be part of the Scale Academy for Microenterprise Development. The Scale Academy is a program that offers grant funding, peer learning events, and technical assistance to a set of high-performing microenterprise organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to scaling up to serve more clients through working to help low-income entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. Read the press release.

Dupree School is Making Waves

Free Tax Preparation Offered by Four Bands and Tribal Ventures

Local entrepreneurs chosen as 2010 Dakota Rising Fellows

Tanya Fiddler, Executive Director of Four Bands Community Fund, testifies to recommend modernization of the Community Reinvestment Act (full story PDF)

Mark Pinsky, President, Opportunity Finance Network; Four Bands' board members Jill Kessler and Mary Olive Johnson; Four Bands' staff Wynona Traversie and Tanya Fiddler; and Elsie Meeks, President, Oweesta on stage at the 5th Annual Native CDFI Convening hosted by Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) and First Nations Oweesta Corporation (Oweesta).

Four Bands Community Fund board and staff members present Sen. Johnson with a quilt, thanking him for his support of financial literacy education on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Pictured from left: Cora Mae Haskell, Board Member Jill Kessler, Donita Fischer, Tanya Fiddler and Senator Tim Johnson.

Annual Entrepreneurship Fair Features Youth Programming, Business Owners Awarded (full story PDF)

Four Bands Community Fund gives boost to local women entrpreneurs (full story PDF)

Four Bands distributes teacher tool kits to implement financial literacy and entrepreneurship into classrooms (full story PDF)

Four Bands and Tribal Leadership “Making Waves” on Cheyenne River Indian Reservation (full story PDF)

Two Native Community Development Financial Institutions Honored for Achievements in Helping Build Native Economies (full story PDF)

Community support high for financial literacy as Four Bands launches new program (full story PDF)

Four Bands Community fund receives national award for excellence (full story PDF)- Four Bands was honored for outstanding work as a Native community development financial institution at the second annual Native CDFI Award Ceremony in Miami, FL. Tanya Fiddler, executive director of Four Bands, received the Visionary Leader Award for Outstanding Achievement for her work on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

Four Bands Community Fund Wins $100,000 Great Strides Award from Northwest Area Foundation (full story PDF)- The Northwest Area Foundation presented Four Bands Community Fund one of its four $100,000 Great Strides Awards for 2008. The award recognizes the "innovative strides communites have taken to reduce poverty for the long term."
Click here to read about other Great Strides Award winners.

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