Native-led Great Plains Housing Initiative Announces New Investments Aimed at Expanding Housing Capital for Native Communities
October 27, 2025Rural Community Assistance Corporation, Northwest Area Foundation, and Mountain Plains CDC invest in GPHI’s Native Impact Fund to help address the housing crisis in Indian Country
South Dakota — 10/22/2025 — The Great Plains Housing Initiative (GPHI), a Native-led social enterprise and subsidiary of the South Dakota Native Homeownership Coalition, today announced several new partner investments that will strengthen GPHI’s Native Impact Fund (NIF), helping to expand access to capital for Tribal communities nationwide.
GPHI created NIF to address a persistent challenge in Indian Country: a lack of liquidity that prevents Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) from making new home loans once their capital is tied up in existing mortgages. NIF is a secondary market that provides these community-based, local lenders with flexible, culturally-aligned financing specifically designed to meet their needs.
Marking a key partnership milestone, GPHI has closed a $2 million investment and $200,000 operating grant with Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC), a nonprofit that partners with rural and Indigenous communities to achieve their vision and well-being through technical assistance, training, financial resources, and advocacy. This investment is being made through RCAC’s Rooted Equity Fund, LLC, which was established to creatively address access to capital in Indigenous and underserved rural communities.
“NIF is a practical — and visionary — solution that meets community lenders where they are, supporting Indigenous families’ access to safe, affordable homes within RCAC’s thirteen-state footprint,” said RCAC’s Chief Executive Officer, Suzanne Devenport. “We’re honored to partner with a Native-led team that is aligning capital with community priorities, assisting Native CDFIs with liquidity, and helping ensure that Indigenous families have equitable access to homeownership.”
Recently, the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF), which supports community-led organizations that change systems so that all people can thrive on their own terms, provided NIF with a $1 million capital grant for loan purchases and a $200,000 grant for operations.
“For far too long, capital available to Native lenders has been restrictive. NIF is changing that. The model represents the type of systems-level innovation we invest in: It’s Native-led, preserves community control, and addresses structural barriers limiting capital flow,” said Nikki Foster, Program Officer, Northwest Area Foundation. “This is exactly how we can help communities build wealth and stability in ways that honor their priorities.”
Mountain Plains CDC also recently closed an investment in the fund.
The blended structure — programmatic, debt, and unrestricted capital — of these investments will support NIF mortgage loan purchases and bolster the operational capacity GPHI needs to move funds efficiently and grow.
“Our partnerships with RCAC, Northwest Area Foundation, and Mountain Plains CDC underscore the urgency of the housing crisis in Native communities and the power of and faith in Native-led solutions to address it,” said Desmond W. Bruguier, Executive Director of GPHI. “Across Tribal land, families and lenders need capital that moves quickly and respectfully. NIF was built for this purpose — to expand homeownership, keep decision-making local, and ensure that capital truly serves Native people.”
Through NIF, Native CDFIs choose which loans to sell, individually or in small pools, and retain servicing to preserve trust with borrowers. Investors receive fully amortized payments backed by disciplined underwriting and multiple credit protections.
GPHI reports an active loan-purchase pipeline with Native CDFIs of approximately $9 million. Many participating lenders identify around $1 million in loans they are ready to sell, reflecting the unmet demand for a reliable, mission-aligned secondary market.
About Great Plains Housing Initiative
Great Plains Housing Initiative, Inc. (GPHI) is a Native-led social enterprise that aims to increase housing opportunities for Native people across the Great Plains through innovative and financially sustainable strategies. South Dakota Native Homeownership Coalition founded GPHI in 2024 as its wholly-owned subsidiary with seed funding from Wells Fargo’s Invest Native initiative. GPHI works to address housing demand, increase homeownership opportunities, and build the capacity of its clients. As a social enterprise, GPHI will support the Coalition’s long-term sustainability. greatplainshousing.org/
Media & Partnership Inquiries:
Desmond W. Bruguier
Executive Director, [email protected]
(516) 605-7136