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Valerie Red-Horse Mohl
Known
Native American stories are everywhere this year, as if Americans adrift in a post-pandemic world are re-discovering and examining anew this part of the national narrative. There’s the film Killers of the Flower Moon, which tells the stories of the murders of Osage Tribe members by white con artists who sought the oil discovered on the Osage’s Oklahoma reservation. A book by Yale historian Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, won the National Book Award for nonfiction. And there have been myriad other recent media about the experiences and impact of Native people, from inside and outside the communities, like the National Art Gallery exhibit, Land Carries Our Ancestors, the TV series Reservation Dogs, and a portrait series I noticed from Northwest Montana, the Powwow Project.
The cultural trends are reflecting an underlying economic and geopolitical realities. Green energy, climate change and microchip manufacturing — all of which require minerals, land and water — are putting more economic potential into the hands of Native Americans. Many of the tribes are sovereign nations that own a significant share of valuable land and resources across the country.
“Over the years, I have seen interest in Native Americans ebb and flow. Sometimes media events drive interest,” said Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, president of Known, a two-year-old financial services company that aims to put more wealth into the hands of communities of color. “Overall, however, I think our nation is now realizing the importance of connection with our indigenous cultures—to better understand our ancestral knowledge of centuries-old wisdom as well as the caretaking of our lands and the strong sense of community among our people.”
“The urgency to heal the planet and all people has never been greater in my lifetime.”
Capitalizing On The Moment
Known is a fast-growing (by acquisition) firm that offers asset management, investment services and business services, helping to match foundations and corporations with money to invest to opportunities in communities of color, including Native American communities. Through its business services, Known also helps develop founders’ business ideas, and new models for venture funding. In recent years, experts working on the question of how to close racial wealth gaps have been trying to leverage change from inside the financial system, by funneling money into the hands of venture firms founded and run by people of color, who in turn make investments in small businesses owned by people of color.
These efforts aren’t necessarily new, and in Known’s case, aren’t focused alone on Native Americans. But the tribal nations are getting a lot of attention in part because of new government policies. New federal policies are steering money toward green energy and microchip fabrication, both of which require minerals, water and land. Red-Horse Mohl said Known’s early clients, including corporations seeking deals on or near reservations, are typically driven by the desire to be part of solutions for climate change and green energy.
Critical Minerals
American Indian lands are estimated to include nearly 30% of the nation’s coal reserves west of the Mississippi, as much as 50% of potential uranium reserves, and up to 20% of known natural gas and oil reserves, according to the Natural Resource Governance Institute. The actual land base owned by the tribes is 2.3%.
The Indian Energy Minerals Forum reported that 97% of nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium and 89% of cobalt are potentially on or within 35 miles of Indian reservations.
The geopolitical dynamics at play now offer the potential for the tribes to capitalize on their ownership of these resources. The dynamics also poses the risk of exploitation and environmental damage. One of the reasons so many companies are seeking to build and mine on the American continent is that so much of the supply chain for technology, including minerals, is controlled by China. Yet, the reason the United States outsourced so much mining and refining in the first place is that the processes to extract the resources are environmentally damaging.
Known’s Role: Finding A Balance
Red-Horse Mohl is one of four executives (all people of color) who founded California-based Known. The other three executives are CEO Jim Casselberry, Nathalie Molina Niño, chief strategy officer, and Ushir Shah, CTO and CFO. Mohl is president.
The company’s registered investment advisor had $30.8M in assets under management, most of them from corporations, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It has about 25 employees and contractors. Since its founding two years ago, it acquired a nonprofit, Blck Grvty, that will act as an innovation lab for funding models for fund managers of color. It also acquired a fund of funds operated by nonprofit Living Cities. The fundraising goal for the fund of funds, anchored by the Kauffman Foundation, is $100M.
Its strategy in its asset management business is to find the best fund managers, who, because they are people of color, have potentially better insights into untapped markets, said Red-Horse Mohl. Known doesn’t market itself as a concessionary impact investor. “The impact of the strategy does not decrease financial return—actually, the opposite is true, as in most cases these are higher performing than their average asset class as a whole,” she said by email.
Red-Horse Mohl, a long-time executive working in impact finance and a lecturer in social entrepreneurship at Stanford University, has a track record of working with Tribal governments to manage their sovereign wealth. She founded Red-Horse Securities, which according to Known was the first Native American owned investment bank. She is also an inaugural member of the US Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity.
What Do Deals Look Like?
Mohl said she’s currently working on a project for a large corporation looking to develop a green energy project in a way that would use federal funds and benefit indigenous people. Deals such as this take expertise and time, Mohl said.
They may involve government funding – either from recent federal legislation or from Native-focused government programs. (Government funding and programs can make it easier for investment firms that include social good in their strategies to produce higher returns or de-risk investments.)
The Tribe in question may want to acquire adjacent land, situate a development in a specific location, and make sure a tribally owned contractor is used, with jobs going first to members. “There are a certain things about how we build,” Red-Horse Mohl said. “It can get complicated, but it’s really rewarding.”
“We can see how it can really expand the opportunities,” she said. “Tribes have been so far behind.”
‘To Own And To Be Known’
There are 574 ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse federally recognized Indian Tribes in the United States. Though some are sovereign nations, they don’t have the ability to levy taxes. Some Tribes have developed other sources of revenue, such as gaming. As in the case of the Osage Tribe, some have been able to leverage resources on their land.
But Native American Tribes have been at a huge disadvantage when it comes to developing infrastructure, which in turn has made them reliant on U.S. federal government programs, which are often poorly and sometimes criminally run. Statistically, Native Americans families are far behind other Americans in terms of wealth, with only 8 cents for every dollar owned by a typical white household, based on the scant research.
That’s why Known exists:
“When we first started coming together as partners, we realized ownership is key. You can be fired even if you’re in the C suite,” said Red-Horse Mohl. “The key is really home ownership or business ownership.”
The name for Known came from that concept of ownership, and the partners’ desire to scale, and to be known. “To own, and to be known,” she said. “That’s it.”
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