Vanessa Roanhorse Creates Change Through Character-Based Lending Program and Community-Led Projects
Vanessa Roanhorse is an inclusive problem-solver committed to liberating all peoples and delivering impactful mechanisms for social, environmental and economic change. She launched Roanhorse Consulting, an Indigenous women-led think tank, in 2016 to work with unheralded populations on their self-determination by forging communities of practice, strengthening Indigenous evaluation methods, creating equity through entrepreneurship, and encouraging economic empowerment from within.
Roanhorse Consulting co-designs wealth- and power-building efforts that directly invest in leaders, support meaningful data collection informed by Indigenous research approaches, and help build community-led projects that enforce values that put people at the center. Roanhorse is a 2020 Conscious Company Media World-Changing Women in Sustainable Business awardee and a 2020 Boston Impact Initiative Fund-Building Cohort fellow.
She is a retired member of the ABQ Living Cities leadership table and a Startup Champions Network member. She sits on the boards of Native Community Capital, Zebras Unite and the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers. A citizen of the Navajo Nation, she is one of eight co-founders of Native Women Lead, an organization dedicated to growing Native women into positions of leadership and business.
Here are some highlights from the LIFT Economy interview with Roanhorse:
- How finance, investment strategies, and business practices are being informed through Roanhorse Consulting and its partners.
- Her exciting work with Edgar Villaneuva, author of Decolonizing Wealth. (Listen to our past interviews with Villaneuva here and here.)
- An overview of some of the innovative network of leaders rethinking capital access strategies in North America.
- An exciting character-based lending program co-designed by Roanhorse and her partners that’s supported with other innovative emerging funds through the Boston Impact Initiative Fund-Building Cohort.
- Foreshadowing of the coming Next Economy Online Summit that’s by and for the people.
LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm with a mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.
B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
Building Pathways to Capital Through Indigenous Ways of Knowing was originally published in B The Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
