About Indian Land Capital Company


Meeting the financial needs of Native nations

About ILCC

The Indian Land Capital Company is a Native-owned, Certified Native Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) providing alternative loan options to Native Nations for tribal land acquisition and economic development projects. ILCC is owned by the nonprofit the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. As a Native-owned and operated business, ILCC understands the unique needs of Native Nations and creates customized, flexible loan packages that suit the specific needs of the tribe and the unique circumstances of the purchase. Working with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, ILCC also provides technical assistance to tribes as they develop and execute land acquisition strategies.

Mission

  • To help Native nations recover, manage and gain jurisdiction over 90 million acres of alienated tribal land.
  • To assist Native nations in consolidating undivided interests in land with fractionated ownership.
  • To eliminate “checkerboarding” (mixed patterns of land ownership and jurisdictions) on Indian reservations
  • To strengthen tribal communities and sovereignty

Leadership

The Indian Land Capital Company staff and board of directors bring years of combined experience working in financing in Indian Country to the operation and management of ILCC. The leadership has experience in banking and finance, business and housing development, as well as working with Indian lands. Our collective understanding of tribes, community development finance, and tribal land issues helps ILCC design financing that can meet the specific needs of Indian nations.

Board of Directors

Photo courtesy of Indian Country Today

Remembering Elouise Cobell (1946 – 2011)

Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) was vice president of the ILCC board of directors from its inception in 2005 until her passing in October 2011. Cobell was executive director of the Native American Community Development Corporation, chairperson of the Native American Bank, NA, and board member of the Board of Investments of the State of Montana. Cobell, who was a highly respected and active leader in Indian Country, served on many other boards and in leadership positions throughout her lifetime. She became a nationally recognized figure when she sued the U.S. Department of the Interior for the mismanagement of trust funds on behalf of approximately 500,000 Individual Indian Money (IIM) account holders.

Throughout her career in banking and finance, and later, as lead plaintiff in the Cobell v. Salazar class action lawsuit, Cobell remained committed to helping Indian people understand and manage their own assets and finances so that they could improve their own economic conditions. On Nov. 16, 2016, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Ms. Cobell with the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Cris Stainbrook, Board Chair – President, Indian Land Tenure Foundation

Cris Stainbrook (Oglala Lakota) has been the chair of ILCC’s board of directors since its inception in 2005. Stainbrook has worked in philanthropy for more than 25 years and has been president of Indian Land Tenure Foundation, a national organization that assists Indian nations and people with land acquisition and management, since 2002. Prior to his career in philanthropy, which included serving as Senior Program Officer at Northwest Area Foundation for 13 years, Stainbrook worked with a number of Pacific Northwest tribes and Alaska Native villages to develop businesses and manage their natural resources. He also directly participated in the creation and development of several tribal businesses, including a multi-million dollar retail gas and oil company.

David Tovey, Secretary/Treasurer – Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

David Tovey (Umatilla) is the Executive Director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s Nixyáawii Community Financial Services, a developing Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), and former executive director for the Tribes. He has also served in top executive roles with the Siletz Tribal Business Corporation, Cayuse Technologies, the Coquille Indian Tribe, and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Economic Development Corporation (ATNI-EDC). Tovey sits on the board of the Native CDFI Network and the Oregon Historic Trails Fund Advisory Committee. He spent the majority of his early career with the Umatilla Tribes as economic development director and executive director during their period of dramatic growth throughout the 1990’s, and was named Oregon’s Economic Development Leader of the Year by former Governor John Kitzhaber.

Hester Dillon, Board Member – Attorney and Consultant

Hester Dillon (Cherokee) is a former Program Officer for the Indigenous Communities Initiative at the NoVo Foundation in New York where she managed grants that supported Indigenous-led grantee and re-granting organizations. Dillon previously served as the Director of Grants and Compliance at Rural Dynamics, Inc., in Great Falls, Montana, and Director of Development at the Indian Law Resource Center in Helena. She was a regional supervising attorney for the Keepseagle v. Vilsack Settlement, managing claims on 15 Indian reservations in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. She began her professional career as a grant writer for the Karuk Tribe in California. Originally from Oklahoma, Dillon earned her Bachelor of Arts degrees in Native American Studies and English at the University of Montana, and is a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law. She lives in Southwest Montana.

Sayer Jones, Board Member – Business Consultant and Certified Public Accountant

Sayer Jones is an independent business consultant in Portland, Oregon supporting mission-aligned foundations and families as they look to repatriate assets from the global financial system and put them back to work in their areas of focus. He is a financial generalist with vast experience in innovative impact investing and aligning capital with purpose. His passions include affordable housing, regional investing and rural communities. Jones previously served for 12 years with the Meyer Memorial Trust, an equity-based trust, where he was the Director of Mission-related Investing. Prior to that he was a senior accountant at Moss Adams LLP. Jones earned his Bachelor of Science degree in economics from Southern Oregon University and completed the Executive Education program at the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School of Business. Jones has extensive volunteer and philanthropic experience in the Portland community primarily in the areas of socially responsible investing and affordable housing.

Jay Marcus, Board Member – Director of New York City Programs, NCB Capital Impact

Jay Marcus works with nonprofit and government agencies to increase the production of affordable and mixed income cooperative and condominium housing and to preserve expiring tax credit projects. Previously, he served as deputy executive director of San Jose Redevelopment Agency, the largest redevelopment agency in California, where he oversaw the Strong Neighborhoods Initiatives and Neighborhood Business District programs as well as the redevelopment of a prime-shopping district and the addition of several residential neighborhoods into the redevelopment area. Marcus also served as the director of Housing Initiatives for the Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit financial and technical assistance intermediary, where he initiated and supervised Enterprise efforts in Los Angeles, Charleston S.C., and on tribal lands. Marcus is also a member of the NACDC board of directors.

Padraic I. McCoy, Board Member – Indian Law Attorney

Padraic I. McCoy (Quechan/Cherokee) is an attorney representing Indian tribes and Indian country developers and investors with an emphasis on finance, transactional and regulatory matters, Indian gaming, and Indian lands. His practice also involves land-into-trust, Indian land determinations, leases, management and development agreements, gaming compacts, energy transactions, environmental law/NEPA, Oklahoma Indian issues and more. McCoy began his legal career in Washington, D.C. and has experience with the Department of the Interior and the National Indian Gaming Commission and has been with large law firms in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Denver. He is on the law faculty at the University of Denver and is a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Colorado School of Law. Padraic earned a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine and completed his Juris Doctor and Master’s Degree in American Indian Studies at UCLA. He is the current president of the Colorado Indian Bar Association.

 

NOTICE: Indian Land Capital Company ensures compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; 49 CFR, part 21; related statutes and regulations to the end that no person shall be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance on the grounds of race, color, sex, or national origin. ILCC is also in compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (codified at 29 U.S.C. § 794), and all related requirements so that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall, solely by reason of their disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity for which the organizations receives Federal financial assistance.