It was a classic story of an entrepreneur meeting a market need. Liz Gamboa was chatting with a friend who owned three Pomeranians and frequented dog shows. The friend mentioned that breeders and groomers at these shows often struggled to market their services because they didn’t have their own signage. Liz and her friends jumped into action, partnering with a friend who worked at Fastsigns to start a niche signage business. They drove from dog show to dog show in a van, selling vinyl signs with a lifetime guarantee.
The business didn’t work out. But the experience cemented Liz’s perception that entrepreneurship was something she wanted to do.
Liz is of Mexican/Apache descent. She grew up in Los Angeles, where her family struggled financially compared to her classmates. She attended four different high schools and went down a few paths before enlisting in the Air Force.
When people talk about startups, they’re probably not imagining a vinyl sign business. But what was core to the business was the heart, the hustle; it’s these kinds of businesses that are vital to the economic success and empowerment of Native communities in the United States.
When Liz recently became the Executive Director of New Mexico Community Capital, a support center for Native-owned small businesses in New Mexico, she was committed to helping non-traditional, Native founders like herself manage the basics of business, from “dream” stage to scale.
From Finance to Community Capital
After the signage business closed, she continued working in a dental practice. A few years after her signage business closed, Liz went back to school for corporate finance. She joined Morgan Stanley’s wealth management analyst pilot program, hoping to focus on sustainable systems and renewables. At Morgan Stanley, she learned a lot about finance, and more about herself. In short, she realized the finance life wasn’t for her.
Liz spent the next few years getting her MBA at Presidio Graduate School. In 2018, through friends - and prayer and intention - she connected with Peter Holter, the then managing director of an Albuquerque nonprofit called New Mexico Community Capital. Her experience with entrepreneurship, finance, and sustainability made her “just right” for the job, and she was offered the role of director.
New Mexico Community Capital’s mission is to raise a more equitable future by providing culturally appropriate tools for success to emerging Native founders, Native families, and tribal enterprises. It offers classes and programs that are taught using supportive mentorship, peer learning, and culturally relevant curriculum. It also supports tribal agencies and organizations with specialized technical assistance and business services.
NMCC’s core competency is mentorship and technical assistance taught in a culturally respectful way. It offers business basics programs, teaching everything from debt management to digital literacy (many of the entrepreneurs they work with do not have a website). “These programs are intended for business owners, but also for families and community leaders,” Liz says.
Their flagship program is the Native Entrepreneur in Residence program, an accelerator for Native founders. Launched in 2014, the program is an intensive six-month one-to-one training that pairs a Native founder with an experienced mentor - often another entrepreneur - to lay the foundation for successful business growth. Each participant also receives a monthly stipend, and access to dedicated offices, shared meeting space and basic IT instruction.
“Every entrepreneur is different and comes with their own strengths and weaknesses, challenges and opportunities,” Liz says. “Because of this, each founder goes through a program that is custom-tailored to their specific needs.” That can range from financial literacy to business skills to access to a vibrant network.
To date, the program has graduated 46 participants from over 28 tribes and pueblos. Those businesses have generated $13.7 million in gross revenue, and as Liz likes to point out, 70 percent of those hired are Native hires. It’s been so successful that NMCC launched a spin-off: the Native Farmer in Residence program, a peer-to-peer based Native farmer training and support program that connects Native American farmers to consumers and larger non-Native markets. Their goal: to increase food sovereignty for Native individuals and tribes.
Equality Can’t Wait
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major challenge for Native communities, particularly the artisans and small business owners that NMCC works with. “At the beginning of the pandemic, a survey found that Native business owners predicted their business would experience a decline of 80% of their typical income or more,” Liz says. “That sadly turned out to be true.”
In response, NMCC started an online marketplace for Native entrepreneurs connected to their programs called IndigiExchange. In true NMCC fashion, the marketplace has an educational component. “IndigiExchange is not just another platform for listing authentic Native-made goods,” Liz says. “It’s also an online classroom. We support artisans by providing guidance on invoicing, pricing their products, negotiating rates and engaging in social media.”
Liz’s long-term vision for NMCC is a whole-system model that takes a “meet you where you’re at” perspective. Moving forward, she is focused on making NMCC sustainable, and working with people on regenerative investing, from saving throughout one’s life to being aware of the importance of having a budget.
The year has already shown growth. In 2021, NMCC opened up a new office in downtown Albuquerque, allowing for a central, physical presence that grants them the opportunity to offer more tangible services. They started a pop-up boutique by the front desk selling products from IndigiExchange. They also were part of a consortium that received funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation recently to form a backbone organization among four Indigenous-led orgs in the southwest.
But definitely the most pivotal moment has come recently from being one of the winners of the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, receiving $10 million to help expand women’s power and influence in the United States. Their partner on the application was Native Women Lead, an organization co-founded by eight business professionals, six of which graduated from the Native Entrepreneur in Residence program. The proposal: The Future is Indigenous Women. Indeed it is.
Liz has never forgotten what it feels like to be overlooked and how many more options she would have had if she had rightly perceived her cultural roots to be an advantage. She has a deep empathy for people, and it’s with this empathy that NMCC approaches organizations, so that they never feel they have to betray their essence to be a business. “Education is power,” she says. “If we can offer that in a way that is understood, in a culturally relevant way, we can empower people to make their own decisions.”