Mni Sota Fund

In 2024, the Mni Sota Fund received $1.5 million from Mackenzie Scott’s Yield Giving. Mni Sota Fund has also received multiple “racial equity grants” from the Target Foundation. ^{6 7}

History and Activities

The Mni Sota Fund is a nonprofit that offers financial training and funding for Native Americans in Minnesota to promote homeownership and entrepreneurship. The Mni Sota Fund is a community development financial institution , a certification offered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury given to organizations that offer low-income areas financial services. ^{8 1 2}

The Mni Sota Fund was founded in the early 2010s as the Bii Gii Wiin Community Development Loan Fund with a focus on promoting homeownership. “Bii Gii Wiin” means “coming home” in the Ojibwe language. The Bii Gii Wiin Community Development Loan Fund was created by the American Indian Community Development Corporation. In May 2020, the organization rebranded as the Mni Sota Fund due to its expanded focus on business development and financial wellness as well as homeownership. ^{9 10}

The Mni Sota Fund offers various types of loans, including consumer loans through its loan fund, home loans through its Mni Sota Mortgage Co., and business loans. ^{3 1 4 5}

Beyond its loan services, the Mni Sota Fund also offers business strategy consulting, assistance to improve business websites and bookkeeping, business coaching, a financial wellness class with an “indigenous-led team,” and a first-time homebuyers’ workshop conducted by realtors, lenders, inspectors, and insurance representatives. In 2025, the Mni Sota Fund announced plans to launch the Waókiya Tax Clinic to provide low- and moderate-income Native Americans in Minnesota with free tax preparation services. ^{11 12 13 14}

Additionally, the Mni Sota Fund runs the Ozhigin Fellowship focused on developing Native American small business entrepreneurs with training in law, grant writing, bookkeeping, and tax preparation. ¹⁵

The Mni Sota Fund also offers ad hoc workshops on financial freedom. ¹⁶

Leadership

The executive director of the Mni Sota Fund is Kit Fordham. Fordham became the executive director in 2019. Before that, he was the interim executive director and director of business and finance of the Mni Sota Fund. Previously, Fordham was part of the faculty of the Presidio Graduate School in Seattle, Washington. ^{17 18}

The president of the board of the Mni Sota Fund is John Wiliams. Williams is the development director of the Native American Community Development Institute. ^{19 20}

Financials

According to tax filings, in 2022, the Mni Sota Fund reported $362,785 in revenue, $816,836 in expenses, and $1,499,828 in assets. The Mni Sota Fund reported spending $125,528 on financial education for American Indians, $125,528 on a first-time homebuyer course and one-on-one homebuyer counseling for American Indians, and $277,327 to help launch and operate businesses. Of the organization’s $362,785 in reported revenue, $337,981 came from gifts, grants, and contributions. ⁸

In 2023, the Mni Sota Fund received $50,000 in grants from the Minneapolis Foundation in support of “racial and economic justice.” The Minneapolis Foundation is a left-of-center grantmaking organization focused on the critical race theory-influenced concept of equity. ²¹ The Mni Sota Fund was one of 81 recipients that received a total of $3,414,234 in grants from the Minneapolis Foundation for racial and economic justice. ²¹

In 2024, Yield Giving, the philanthropic network established by Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of  Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos with an estimated net worth of $31.9 billion as of January 2025, gave $1.5 million to the Mni Sota Fund for the purpose of closing the wealth gap between Native Americans and others “in Mni Sota Makoce / the State of Minnesota.” “Mni Sota Makoce” is the Dakota Indian name for Minnesota. Yield Giving described the grant as for the purpose of agricultural and economic development, “financial inclusion,” and access to housing. ^{22 23 6}

The Mni Sota Fund has also received “racial equity grants” multiple years in a row from the Target Foundation for the purposes of “addressing the systemic and structural barriers facing underserved communities” in Minneapolis and St. Paul. ⁷