Enabling and supporting Native small business operating in tribal communities is the first step towards economic self-sustainability. To achieve this, we must invest in the ecosystem required to support and sustain entrepreneurial activity. For many years we listened to Native entrepreneurs describe the challenges they confront each day. We designed each of our services to address the most prominent gaps and we measure our impact by the successes of the entrepreneurs in our community.

Change Labs is partnered with Causal Design, a third party impact evaluation firm, to provide independent program evaluation and encourage a culture of evidence within our organization. Since 2016, Causal Design has worked with our leadership to develop and improve our ability to link program activities with outputs and outcomes to understand how our work affects our community and supports our overarching goal: to support, enable and empower Native American entrepreneurs and business owners by providing leadership and technical skills training, by exposing them to role models, resources, and like-minded peers. While the Change Labs programs have several activities with differing outputs, they all share the common goal of expanding and diversifying economic growth on the Navajo Nation through entrepreneurship. As such, they all target at least one of the following four outcomes: expanding social capital, human capital, increasing access to physical/financial capital, and social/economic agency.