Program Development

Development Approach

One Fire offers a collaborative, creative approach to transformation. At the core of our practice is the ability to listen and respond appropriately. We draw on the strengths and values of Native people and communities to implement necessary change and achieve results. Our professional and cultural approach is reflected in our success stories.

One Fire offers a wealth of diverse experience including education, management, architectural planning, development, organizational structure change, various national board memberships and tribal leadership. Our innovative and proven process makes us highly responsive to our client needs.

One Fire’s core approach for development focuses on four interrelated areas:

• Capturing Hearts and Minds (Community Development): Community and economic development works best when the desired economy is crafted with significant input from the people who live and work in local communities. The Vision, Values, and Life ways of a community influence the choices about economic activities that best fit. Without community buy-in, development becomes difficult to achieve and nearly impossible to sustain.
• Capturing Economic Opportunities (Strategy Development): For tribal communities, securing the future has never been easy. In order to achieve significant change, a tribal community should have a good understanding of where it is- and where it has been- in relation to current conditions and capabilities. An honest look at a tribe’s past and current situation yields realistic expectations of a tribe’s potential for economic growth. These realistic expectations set tribes up to reach practical goals upon which tribes can build.
• Building Organizational Capability (Organization Development): We believe that all organizations are perfectly designed to get the results that they get. To understand the economic performance, it is important to look at the design and efficacy of the organizational units in place. These elements are the key components of the internal environment of a tribe. Each element reflects a long history of choices that have been instituted over the years. Developing a thriving and sustainable economy often means identifying the elements that have become problematic and redesigning the economy for greatest effectiveness in the future.
• Sustaining Action (Project Management): Several studies have shown that 70% of new strategic efforts never achieve the results expected. Excellent plans go awry because of failure to implement. Implementing a successful project is difficult, but very important. Maintaining that project’s success is even more important. The project may provide much-needed jobs and revenue to tribal members and the tribe. But even more importantly, a successful project can give community members a concrete example that they can point to, as they undertake additional projects. A successful project, whether it be a new tribal-owned enterprise or an entrepreneurial business, dares community members to dream about the possibilities that lie before them.

Statement of Need

The philosophy of self-determination as a path to self-sufficiency is the basis for the development of our approach. It was developed over a two-year period with the guidance of tribal leaders, lawyers well-versed in Indian law, native corporate CEO’s, economists with long-term ties to Indian Country, academics, native entrepreneurs, and leaders of Native not-for-profits. The resulting Tribal Self Assessment Tool (TSAT) and methodology was demonstrated for over 40 Native Nations in eight regional sessions. The findings from these sessions form the basis for our approach.

By polling participating tribes (40 tribes and 100 participants in our working sessions) about the most pressing economic issues they face, we determined that the top ten economic issues for Native Nations today are, in order:

1. Well-paying, quality jobs for tribal members
2. Diversifying the business portfolio of the tribe (often to lessen over-reliance on gaming)
3. Strategic economic planning
4. Establishing economic stability and tribal self-sufficiency
5. Developing a skilled workforce through education and training
6. Putting land into trust
7. Maintaining community infrastructure
8. Developing native-owned businesses
9. Housing
10. Developing economic development expertise and staff