EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. – Four Bands Community Fund has won a $100,000 grant from the Northwest Area Foundation of St. Paul, Minn.

The ”Great Strides” award is given for long-term efforts to reduce poverty.

The Fort Peck Community College on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana has also received ”Great Strides” $25,000 in an earlier round, ”to help them increase community participation in their existing poverty reduction initiatives.”

Four Bands was recognized for helping 70 businesses start or expand on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota since startup in 2000.

According to the foundation, ”The impressive list of businesses include a youth-owned sporting goods store, a plumbing and heating service, a tourism collaborative and a flower and gift shop.”

In addition, ”Four Bands offers Individual Development Accounts that can be tapped for home ownership, higher education and asset development. An emphasis is placed on training the next generation of entrepreneurs through financial literacy training for youth,” according to a release.

The micro-enterprise lender’s mission is ”to empower our people to become self-sustaining and self-sufficient,” Tanya Fiddler, Four Bands’ executive director, said in a release.

Factors contributing to receiving the award included inclusiveness, regional impact, asset-based recognition of the community’s strengths, driving economic engines and leadership.

Four Bands, a Native CDFI (community development financial institution) got its earliest start in 2000 when the tribe’s Industrial Business Development Committee made a priority out of developing a revolving loan fund. (A revolving fund is one which uses repayments to make new loans to other people.)

Although it took a couple of years to get organized and funded, Four Bands made its first loan, of $1,000, to Hunter Bear Products in Eagle Butte – a home-based specialty gift marketer. The group planned to use the money to repair a van and purchase additional inventory. It was able to fund that loan through a grant it got from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another early source of funding was the U.S. Treasury’s CDFI Fund.

A second loan followed in just a couple of weeks – $1,000 to help start a convenience store in the Swiftbird Community.

As of the end of 2006, the fund had $812,393 in assets, including $261,154 in loans receivable.

Northwest Area Foundation has had a history of helping Native people in its six-state area, which corresponds to the territory once served by the Great Northern Railway, which played a part in eroding indigenous cultures.

It combined with the nonprofit CFED a couple of year ago to release a report showing that ”despite considerable economic and social obstacles, entrepreneurial business activity on and around Indian reservations is gaining momentum.”