Samantha Lee Pree-Stinson leads the Association for Black Economic Power, and their Village Financial Cooperative program, in Minneapolis, the first credit union focused on black economic liberation in the United States. The “financial” part of their title is key, but it’s the “cooperative” part that most attracts her.
“My career history has had nothing to do with money but it does have to do with helping people,” she said. “That’s been a passion as early as I could remember.”
Pree-Stinson served in Afghanistan as a combat medic. After that she pursued different careers in the healthcare industry before arriving at an inflection point.
“I started to realize how this job was participating in the disenfranchisement of the culture that I love,” said Pree-Stinson, regarding the United States’ infamously expensive health care system. “I didn’t feel like I was making any real contribution to the community I lived in.”
From there, Pree-Stinson got involved in politics, launching her own city council campaign and later working as an advisor to another city council member. She got wind of Village Financial Cooperative when they came to her council member’s office to ask for $500,000 in funding, which caught her attention (and her respect) for its boldness.
The city said yes, and since then Village Financial has attracted nearly $1 million in funding from philanthropic and government sources. After that intro Pree-Stinson started helping Village Financial build out their organizational structure. Staff shake ups happened along the way, and she was selected by the organization’s board to lead the cooperative.
Village Financial hasn’t officially opened yet for deposits or transactions, but they plan on targeting their financial products at black entrepreneurs and makers of all sizes in the Minneapolis area. They joined UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital cohort to learn from national peers about how to best do that.
Their work is rooted in Ujamaa, the Kwanzaa concept of cooperative economic growth that prioritizes the community over individualism. That mindset has helped their office become a beacon for the community. Pree-Stinson often gets calls and drop-in visits from neighbors interested in volunteering or just sharing words of support.
She drops what she’s doing and listens to them every time. “The impact that we’re making is not going to be just the programming or access to loans—it’s the culture we’re creating and ingraining within the community,” said Pree-Stinson.
This case study was co-authored by Mark Foggin and Johnny Magdaleno and originally published in 2020 as part of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance’s “Forging Fairness: How community-based lenders are centering both inclusion and manufacturing to promote equity [link to report].” This report highlights the work of practitioners in UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital cohort, and approaches these leaders are taking to help entrepreneurs of color–including makers and manufacturers–get access to the capital and know-how they need to realize their business ideas and plans at scale.