April 26, 2021
via Email

Dear Tribal Leader:

As the Point of Contact for Tribal Consultation for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, I invite you to attend a Tribal consultation on the State Small Business Credit Initiative Program (SSBCI) for Tribes.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provides $500,000,000 to be allocated among federally recognized Tribal governments in the proportion the Secretary determines appropriate, including consideration of available employment and economic data for each Tribal government.  These funds will be used be Tribes to support financing for small businesses.

The deadline for submitting a Notice of Intent to apply is June 11, 2021. The Notice of Intent (NOI) to apply and instructions for submitting the NOI will be sent to Tribal contacts in the near future.

Applications for the SSBCI Program are due to Treasury by December 11, 2021.  (Application forms forthcoming.)

To help facilitate a better understanding of the SSBCI Program for Tribes, Treasury will host an information session on Thursday, May 13, 2021 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.  ET.  Tribal leaders and stakeholders can register here: https://ustreasury.zoomgov.com/meeting/register/vJItce-gqTwuHKd8QMG6GxdDYY00uZhubtY

Please note that the Information Session will complement but not replace Tribal Consultation. Tribal Consultation on the SSBCI Program will be held Thursday, May 27, 2021 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET. Tribal leaders or their designees may register here: https://ustreasury.zoomgov.com/meeting/register/vJItcO-spzorHIqFIclbJyU_oZvGbGjSx6A

The Department of the Treasury is seeking your input on Tribal participation in the program. Specifically, our questions are:

1. What types of businesses does your Tribe anticipate assisting with these funds?
2. Would your SSBCI Program target businesses that are located on Tribal lands, Native-owned businesses that are off Tribal land but wholly owned by Native Americans, or both?
3. Would you be assisting Tribally owned businesses? How might their ownership or organizational structure hinder participation in an SSBCI program?
4. What kinds of technical assistance are you anticipating that the businesses you serve will need to be successful? Note that the technical assistance should be supporting the capital program; thus, how do you see the combination of capital and technical assistance working together to support Tribal needs and SSBCI programming? Are there certain types of technical assistance that are particularly needed by businesses in your community?
5. To what extent do Tribes have the capacity to deliver technical assistance to very small and larger businesses? If the capacity does not exist or are limited, what types of partners do you think would be effective in providing these supports?
6. Do you see a role for other organizations such as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Minority Business Development Agencies (MBDA), Chambers of Commerce and others to assist in outreach, providing technical assistance, access to capital or other support to ensure sustainability in your SSBCI programs?
7. The SSBCI Program, aside from the Capital Access Program which is a set insurance-like program, requires a 10:1 crowding in of capital over the life of the program. Instruments to accomplish this are leverage, revolving loan funds multiple times, series round in equity investment, crowding in of fixed asset investments, etc.  What barriers to raising capital do you anticipate?  What recommendations do you have for Treasury to help Tribes be successful in raising capital?
8. To maximize participation by eligible tribal governments, eligible entities may wish to apply jointly or partner with third parties. What challenges and opportunities do you anticipate that are related to partnering with other organizations to successfully execute an SSBCI Program?

For the consultation, we respectfully request that each Tribe register one Primary leader or Designee to provide comments. All others are welcome to register as listen-only participants. Please note that this consultation can host 1000 participants. Comments related to the initial SSBCI consultation should be submitted to tribal.consult@treasury.gov. The deadline for comments to be submitted is Friday, June 4, 2021 11:59 p.m. ET.

Please note that consultations are off the record and not for press purposes.

We will send out an Agenda and a list of registered speakers before or on Wednesday, May 26, 2021.

We hope that you will be able to join us for this important discussion and value your participation.

Sincerely,

Nancy Montoya
Treasury Tribal Affairs Program Coordinator and Point of Contact for Tribal Consultation
U.S. Department of the Treasury