In 2024, NAFOA will honor a select number of individuals with NAFOA Leadership Awards during NAFOA’s 42ndt Annual Conference at a luncheon reception on Tuesday, April 30th at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Hollywood, FL.

To nominate an individual, program, or deal for any of NAFOA’s Leadership Awards, please fill out the nomination form below and email it to VaRene Martin varene@nafoa.org or Dustin VanWinkle dvanwinkle@nafoa.org

The NAFOA Leadership Award categories include:

Tribal Leader of the Year: To effectively lead a tribal nation, tribal leaders are tasked with the responsibility of making major financial decisions. This award honors a tribal leader who has displayed significant foresight and resolve in the financial advancement of his or her tribal nation.

Executive of the Year: Financially healthy tribal nations have excellent staff at the helm. This award honors an Executive, Finance Director, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, or other senior financial leader of a tribe or tribal subsidiary enterprise, who has demonstrated: cutting-edge thinking in developing the financial plans of the tribe, leadership in effectively sharing suggestions with the tribe, and success in implementing ideas for the overall betterment of the tribe.

Education Program of the Year: This award honors a creative and effective education program that furthers knowledge and understanding of business, economic development, or related fields. The award is open to programs developed by tribes, non-profits, universities, schools, and other institutions. The program should enrich the lives of Native people and empower them to make sound financial decisions.

Deal of the Year: This award recognizes a tribal deal or financial venture completed during 2023. The deal should be original in structure and its terms should be innovative for the tribe. The deal should have a lasting positive effect on the overall economic status of the tribe and its members and be beneficial to Indian Country as a whole.

Nomination Deadline: December 30, 2023
Award Winners Notified: January 20, 2024

Submit Your Nomination

“Any advocacy and help would be greatly appreciated”: Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has approved S.1723, Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. Work is needed to advance bill in House Committee on Natural Resources. @NABSHC @NCAI1944 #NCAI80 pic.twitter.com/K7TInFYgW0

— indianz.com (@indianz) November 17, 2023

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is working with Congress to pass S.1723, a bill to establish a Truth & Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States. The bi-partisan bill would:

• Conduct a full inquiry into the assimilative policies of U.S. Indian boarding schools, including identifying the locations of childrens’ burial sites, documenting ongoing impacts, and locating church and government records.
• Collect testimony from boarding school survivors, Tribes, and subject matter experts.
• Create a findings and recommendations report, identifying legislative and administrative actions to address the impacts of U.S. Indian boarding schools.
• Investigate beyond the limited scope of DOI’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative by looking into state, local, religious, and private institutions that operated Indian boarding schools to carry out the assimilative U.S. policy.

Learn More and Access the Virtual Toolkit

The Office of Indian Tribal Governments (ITG) will be hosting a webinar on December 12th at 12 p.m. ET to discuss clean energy tax credits for Tribal Governments. Tax-exempt and governmental entities can benefit from clean energy tax credits using new options enabled by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA).

The IRA allows Indian tribal governments and Alaskan Native Corporations to benefit from certain clean energy tax credits through elective pay. For tax years beginning after December 31, 2022, an applicable entity that qualifies for a clean energy tax credit can make an elective payment election.

If you’re unable to join the presentation live, it will be recorded and posted on the IRS Video Portal after the event.

Source: Office of Indian Tribal Governments Register for Webinar

By Jarrod Compton and Steve Wyatt, BOK Financial

So far, 2023 has been full of surprises, to say the least. At the start of this year, we couldn’t have predicted that the health of the financial system would be right up there as a topic of conversation with persistent inflation, further interest rate hikes and the potential for a recession. Now, with much of the year behind us, a recession still has not come, but we’re not out of dark yet, as these other financial issues remain.

The health of the banking industry is a topic we get asked about often by tribal members, businesses and municipalities. Essentially, the core of the problem in the financial industry is the speed and magnitude at which the Fed has raised short-term interest rates in response to inflation. Last year, the markets were anticipating two to three rates hikes; instead they got 500 basis points in increases in just 14 months—and some leveraged institutions weren’t prepared for it. In addition, the pandemic and increased adoption of hybrid work has created uncertainty around commercial real estate valuations, putting further pressure on banks. We really want to emphasize that these issues are impacting just a few specific banks and are not reflective of any systemic issue impacting the entire industry.

Continue Reading (pg. 118-119)

The Controller oversees the accounting and financial reporting functions of the organization and should have a strong knowledge of GAAP and financial reporting, as well as current GASB statements. The Controller is responsible for the integrity and completeness of the financial statements, ensuring that the individual financial transactions are timely and accurately entered. The Controller is part of the Financial Services Division of the primary government.

This position serves under the direction of the Executive Financial Director of the Financial Services Division. It requires the ability to interface with various members of the Division, tribal leadership, the accounting team, and all operational divisions of the primary government. Individual must possess the ability to work and maintain highest degree of confidentiality due to the sensitive nature of the work.

Learn More & Apply at nafoa.org/jobs