Last week, the Native CDFI Network released its latest edition of “Native CDFIs: Difference Makers for Indian Country,” an interview with Jeff Tickle, who serves as General Manager of Cook Inlet Lending Center, Inc. (CILC) in Anchorage, Alaska. Formerly known as NaQenq’a, CILC is a federally certified Native CDFI that was created in 2001 as a social enterprise of the Cook Inlet Housing Authority to address the need for affordable home financing and development services in the Cook Inlet Region of Alaska. It has since grown to offer small business loan products to Native entrepreneurs. To read the interview, please click here.

Coming this Thursday: “Difference Makers” sits down with Mary Miner, who serves as Vice President of Community Development for Alaska Growth Capital BIDCO, Inc., in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska Growth Capital (AGC) is a federally certified Native CDFI that was founded in 1997 as Alaska’s first Business and Industrial Development Corporation (BIDCO). It was created to promote economic development and job creation by providing loans, investments, and management assistance to businesses, and is a leading provider of business loans utilizing programs offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

To read the other interviews in NCN’s “Difference Makers” series, please click here.