Organization funds scholarships for Native CPAs

The American Indian Graduate Center, a scholarship provider to Native students in the United States, has created the Investing in Native CPAs Program.

The $2 million scholarship initiative is intended to fund 150 Native scholars pursuing accounting and finance degrees, with the goal of increasing Native Certified Public Accountants within the next 10 years.

“In truth, the number of Native CPAs represented on a national scale is not large enough to be included on most national data sets, much less at the state level,” said Lindsay Mahaney Erazo, marketing and communications specialist for the Albuquerque, New Mexico organization, in an email message.

“According to 2017-2018 data from the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, American Indian and Alaska Native individuals represented only 0.3% of professionals holding both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting — the population most likely to go on to obtain a CPA,” Erazo said. “In 2018, Native individuals represented 0.1% of new bachelor’s and Master of Accounting graduates hired into accounting or finance functions at CPA firms in the United States.”

That’s an issue because, as sovereign nations, Tribes need CPAs and other accounting professionals.

“In the state of Idaho, there are five federally recognized Tribes: Shoshone-Bannock, Shoshone-Paiute, Coeur d’Alene, Kootenai and Nez Perce, who have a collective population of 22,790 (U.S. Census Bureau) as of 2018,” Erazo said. 

Moreover, developing people with skills such as accounting helps improve economic development in Native communities.

“According to the Native American Financial Services Association, Tribally driven economic development appropriately encourages and promotes business activity that benefits Native communities,” Erazo said. “To ensure self-determination in Tribally driven economic development in Idaho and across the United States, a full spectrum of financial and accounting professionals are needed. Our goal is to develop a stream of Native CPAs and finance officers with the skill sets necessary to empower Tribal communities in economic development and promote diversity in the fields of accounting and finance.”

In addition, the program will help to increase diversity in the accounting and finance fields themselves, the American Indian Graduate Center noted.

The organization, which is led by Executive Director Angelique Albert  of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, is developing the scholarship program in response to student requests.

“Our students have expressed a desire for this kind of support from our organization,” Erazo said. “According to American Indian Graduate Center’s Annual Student Survey, 49.04% of respondents indicated they would like an increase in programming for graduate school preparation, including graduate school entrance exam funding and licensure exams, such as the Uniform CPA Examination Fee. According to this same survey, 42.19% indicated they would like increased programming for career planning. This would include transitioning from a graduate of the finance and accounting fields into a Certified Public Accountant.”

The program is being funded by generous $1 million gift from the Johnson Scholarship Foundation and a $1 million match from American Indian Graduate Center.

The program was made possible in part by an $20 million unrestricted donation to the American Indian Graduate Center made in July by philanthropist Mackenzie Scott. As an idea for the scale of the donation, in the entire previous year the organization had raised $14 million.

The American Indian Graduate Center is a national private 501(c)(3) non-profit providing scholarships to American Indian and Alaska Native undergraduate, graduate and professional students throughout the United States. American Indian Graduate Center and American Indian Graduate Center Scholars are the largest scholarship providers to Native students in the United States. They have awarded more than $350 million in scholarships since inception and have supported Native students from more than 500 Tribes in all 50 states with educational funding and academic support services.