Turtle Island Community Capital and the Black Renaissance Fund earn national recognition for reshaping how capital reaches communities that have long been overlooked.
When the Transformative 25 (T25) list announced its newest class of organizations reshaping the economy for social, environmental, and economic justice, our member Turtle Island Community Capital (TICC) and The Alliance’s Black Renaissance Fund made the list. Both were recognized for the same underlying work: building the capital systems that our communities have been shut out of for generations.
Turtle Island Community Capital: Native-Led Finance at Regional Scale
TICC is the only Native-led community development financial institution (CDFI) operating at a regional scale across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Since founding the organization in 2024, Co-Founder and CEO Alexander Sterling has built its policies, lending products, investor materials, compliance systems, and reporting processes from the ground up, all while meeting rising demand for financing from Indigenous entrepreneurs and communities.
One of the businesses TICC supports is Relative Arts, an Indigenous-led creative enterprise that produced the first-ever Indigenous New York Fashion Week in 2025, creating opportunities for more than 70 Indigenous artists and cultural workers. Despite that success, barriers within traditional financing had forced the organization onto a high-interest line of credit that left it financially strained. TICC stepped in to refinance that debt with more patient, flexible capital.
“I talk often about reshaping how capital flows, but in practice that can look like these business owners no longer being trapped by predatory terms,” said Sterling. “That is what TICC is building toward: capital that strengthens long-term viability, preserves community assets, and treats enterprise and collective futuring as infrastructure.”
To date, TICC has deployed nearly $130,000 through multiple forms of capital, and it is now working to launch a $10 million Watershed Capital Bioregional Fund to grow its lending portfolio and continue building financial infrastructure for Indigenous communities.
The Black Renaissance Fund: Closing the Capital Gap for Black-Led CDFIs
The Black Renaissance Fund is the only fund focused specifically on closing the capital capacity gap for Black-led CDFIs. It is raising capital to provide members of the African American Alliance of CDFI CEOs with capacity building grants and below-market, patient debt giving Black-led CDFIs the tools to strengthen their balance sheets, build loan capacity, and grow revenue through interest income.
That gap is well documented. According to the Hope Policy Institute, Black-led CDFIs carry smaller and slower-growing balance sheets than their white-led counterparts, even though our network of 75+ certified CDFIs is led by CEOs with an average of 20-plus years of community development experience and a proven record of building wealth in Black communities through culturally aligned, proximate service.
The Fund is now building toward its goal of raising our goal of $125MM for capital deployment and operations. Members interested in learning more about investing in or accessing the Fund can reach out to Erica King, SVP of Lending and Operations at [email protected].
One Movement, Two Milestones
TICC and the Black Renaissance Fund are proof of what the Alliance was built to do: turn individual momentum into collective opportunity. Whether it is a Native-led CDFI refinancing predatory debt for an Indigenous fashion enterprise, or a Fund built to close the balance sheet gap for Black-led CDFIs, the throughline is the same. Capital should recognize the value, governance, and future of the communities it is meant to serve.
Learn more about TICC at turtleislandcommunitycapital.org. Learn more about the Black Renaissance Fund at aaacdfi.org/black-renaissance-fund.
