Indigenous Futures Fund
Capital weaving for Indian Country
The Indigenous Futures Fund (IFF) is a capital weaving strategy designed to maximize investments and accelerate capital deployment to Native-owned businesses and Tribal enterprises. By creating more channels for capital to flow, the Indigenous Futures Fund supports the structure, relationships, and conditions that enable the Native funding ecosystem to grow and thrive.
We mobilize private impact investment capital, in order to match and unlock federal funding, so that Native financial intermediaries who know their communities best can direct funding to valued projects. Leaning into our experience setting up community investment funds, Mission Driven Finance can support Tribal SSBCI programs with implementation and streamlining match capital challenges.
Indigenous Futures Fund — Intended Impact
Catalytic structure
Infrastructure investments are desperately needed in Indian Country, but these large, complex projects require a values-aligned partner like Mission Driven Finance to assemble them.
The fund blends three types of capital to create a strong lending platform for emerging needs across Indian Country. This blended balance sheet enables Mission Driven Finance to lead complex transactions—handling underwriting, structuring, syndication, and servicing for deals that individual lenders cannot tackle alone—with flexibility from subordinate capital layers to mitigate perceived risks. Partners value Mission Driven Finance’s ability to unlock previously unreachable opportunities and that we build lasting capacity, not just individual deals.
Through hands-on meetings with Native CDFIs, we walk through deal structures and processes in real-time. This approach builds their expertise and confidence to lead complex transactions independently, creating impact beyond any single loan—and rebuilding the ancient trade routes that sustained commerce for millennia.
What is capital weaving?
Capital weaving brings together different funding sources through loan participations and syndications to create larger opportunities than any single party could do alone. This structure allows risk and benefits to be shared while growing Native CDFIs’ hands-on experience with complex deals.
Featured projects
Regenerative mill in Indian Country
In December 2025, capital weaving unlocked a regenerative mill project in Indian Country — a deal that combined grant capital, commercial debt, and federal guarantees to fund infrastructure that conventional finance couldn't reach alone. The project demonstrates IFF's approach: meeting Indigenous-led ventures where they are, structuring around what the project actually needs, and bringing the right mix of capital types to make it work.
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Construction firm in New Mexico
In December 2025, the Indigenous Futures Fund deployed $225,000 to Avanyu LLC — a construction firm led by CEO Liana Sanchez, an enrolled member of the Pueblo de San Ildefonso, specializing in traditional adobe building. The financing was structured as a 50/50 participation between Advance New Mexico and the Indigenous Futures Fund, supporting Avanyu's expansion of adobe brick production and acquisition of specialized equipment. The investment supports Avanyu's work on the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum expansion in Santa Fe and builds on prior collaborations with Tribal housing authorities and culturally specific construction initiatives..
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Read more about IFF
- Ancient trade routes, modern capital — how capital weaving unlocked a regenerative mill project in Indian Country
- Mission Driven Finance deploys $1.2M to Native and rural-serving New Mexico businesses
- Introducing the Indigenous Futures Fund at the White House (February 2024)