Change-Makers Connect in Crownpoint

October 24 2016

Natasha Hale by Natasha K. Hale, Native America Manager

“I quit my comfortable job to start my own little thing, and it was the scariest thing I'd ever done,” Catapult Design CEO Heather Fleming admitted to the crowd of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and artists assembled in the bleachers in the student union of Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, New Mexico, on the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation.

“It was scary until I met a network of peers and mentors,” Fleming told the group, over 100 participants who traveled from across the reservation and across the country for the third annual Change Labs. “Mentors are very important people when starting a new venture, especially a risky venture,” Fleming told the crowd. “Catapult never would have made it if not for the support of others. So, here at Change Labs, we are paying it forward.”

Building the economy we want

With limited infrastructure and little access to capital, the Navajo Nation isn’t the easiest place to start a business. But, as Jaclyn M. Roessel, the blogger behind Grownup Navajo offered in the event’s opening address: “Be grateful you are the kind of flower which blooms in the hardest places.”

If we want businesses that align with our values here in Indian Country, then it’s important to connect Native entrepreneurs with the mentors and resources they need to be successful, to inspire each other, and to be the economic change we want to see in our communities. That’s where Change Labs comes in. The one-day conference explores new ways entrepreneurs are tackling challenges in rural communities around the globe that we also experience here on Navajo with creative business solutions—from micro-grid solar power to drone delivery of goods in rural areas. And, most importantly, it connects promising entrepreneurs with the mentors and resources they need to succeed on the Navajo Nation and across Indian Country, with fast-paced, hands-on workshops.

Starting a business is a hustle, and if we can get all these movers and shakers into the same space, there’s a lot of creative energy and natural synergy that happens. People share what worked and what didn’t work for them, and they encourage others to think big.

Making change, thinking big

While workshop leaders stood up to pitch their sessions in 60 seconds, outside, Native artists Joe Stacey and Duane Koyawena were setting up shop to begin painting custom signs for small business owners, from Steam Lab tutoring to social impact consulting firm Roanhorse Consulting. In the lobby, sign-up sheets waited for one-on-one mentorship coaching sessions on everything from how to pitch ideas to investors to navigating the process of registering a business on the Navajo Nation, a task so complex that illustrating it required a giant posterboard diagram.

Another line from Roessel’s poem, “The work you are giving will be felt by more than you,” rang particularly true with many Change Labs participants.

The change-makers assembled in the gym included returning mentor Duran Washburn, a Navajo graphic designer, whose company, Dibé Nitsaa Creative, specializes in branding and logo design. Washburn sat down with attendees one-on-one to sketch out logos and help entrepreneurs think through the smartest ways to brand their businesses.

"They're small businesses, like I am, and it's important to me to support my community," Washburn said, as the slots for his branding advice quickly filled up.

“We want to give college graduates across the nation the opportunities to connect with people on the Navajo Nation, so that they can come back and make change in our communities,” said Kristine Laughter of the Navajo Tech Innovation Center.

The team—the Grand Canyon Trust, the Native American Business Incubator Network, Catapult Design, and Navajo Technical University—pulled together another successful Change Labs, we and are already looking forward to planning Change Labs 2017.