Native American Capital Launches ‘Tribal Opportunity Zones Venture Group’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATIVE AMERICAN CAPITAL LAUNCHES
‘TRIBAL OPPORTUNITY ZONES VENTURE GROUP’
Denver, CO. October 23, 2018. Native American Capital (NAC) today announced, at the 75th Anniversary of the National Congress of American Indians in Denver, the launch of the Tribal Opportunity Zones Venture Group (TOZ-VG), a national initiative to direct Opportunity Zone capital to Indian Country. The “Opportunity Zones Equity Investment Program,” (“OZ”) created by the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, provides significant tax incentives to investors who reinvest capital gains into designated low-income communities, of which a substantial percentage are located on Indian Reservations.
The IRS just released the proposed guidelines for the OZ program on Friday October 19, and they can be found at: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/reg-115420-18.pdf
Tribal Opportunity Zones Venture Group is the brainchild of Heather Dawn Thompson, a nationally recognized Native American lawyer, leader, and Indian Country economic development expert, who is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation. “Following passage of the new Opportunity Zones Program,” observed Thompson, “we immediately received investor inquiries for good projects in Indian Country. But there is a chasm between some investors and their access to and experience in Indian Country. In my discussions with NAC, I was pleased to find a shared philosophy of economic empowerment for tribal communities. We have assembled a powerhouse team with the unique skill set and commitment to ensure that Native American tribes and communities are full participants in this historic infusion of equity capital.” Thompson will discuss her plans for TOZ-VG at the SOCAP18 impact investing conference on October 25th, in San Francisco.
TOZ-VG has compiled a list of investor-ready tribal projects and is actively soliciting additional projects to present to its interested investors. TOZ-VG is considering (1) projects owned by, or JVs with, tribes or Native Americans (on or off reservation) and (2) projects having a substantial positive impact on Native American communities. Small business, early-stage, grass-roots projects will be considered (they may be particularly good matches for individual investors and family offices), as well as more mature, larger business ventures for our larger fund partners.
If you would like to see if your tribal nation has a designated OZ, or if there is a qualified tribal OZ in your area of interested investment, the NAFOA has compiled a preliminary list of Tribal Opportunity Zones by state and census tract:
https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/861c2c48-14cb-4839-9e2c-f64c7b71e3fd
Native American Capital is a majority Native American-owned strategy, economic development, and project financing firm, located in the Washington, DC region, exclusively serving Indian Country.
To learn more about the Tribal Opportunity Zones Venture Group initiative:
