Reclaiming Identity Through Indigenous Entrepreneurship and Decolonial Wealth Building
On January 15, 2025, WEOC members gathered for a learning session with Sage Lacerte, an Indigenous woman, birthing doula, entrepreneur, and impact investor. As the founder of the SAGE Initiative, she is dedicated to building culturally-safe financial spaces for Indigenous women and gender-diverse people, blending technical investment training with decolonial, trauma-informed practices.
Through her work, Sage creates opportunities for healing, connection, and economic empowerment grounded in community, care, and Indigenous knowledge.
Below are highlights from this valuable conversation.
Find out more about Sage Lacerte and the SAGE Initiative.
Highlights
- Entrepreneurship as Healing: For many Indigenous women and gender-diverse people, entrepreneurship is a form of healing, community care, and cultural reclamation, not just profit-making.
- Relational Worldview: Business practices are grounded in relationships with land, family, and tradition, especially through matrilineal lines.
- Colonial Impact: Policies like the Indian Act and the residential school system severed financial knowledge and cultural connection, creating generational money trauma.
- Culturally Safe Finance: Programs like the SAGE Initiative create spaces for Indigenous entrepreneurs to access financial tools in a way that honours their values and lived experience.
- Access Over Growth: Many Indigenous businesses prioritize accessibility, community engagement, and balance over rapid scaling or aggressive growth.
- Reimagined Business Norms: Decolonial practices include flexible business calendars aligned with seasonal cycles, inclusive meeting practices, and intentional relationship-building.
- Redefining Wealth: Wealth can be measured in food security, close relationships, cultural continuity, and emotional safety rather than money alone.
- Supportive Systems Matter: Allies and institutions can support by reducing jargon, offering trauma-informed practices, increasing visibility of funding, and amplifying Indigenous networks.
- Generational Impact: These business models and teachings are passed on to children and communities, helping future generations inherit both knowledge and empowerment.
Key Learnings
There is power in knowing where you come from
There is a unique strength in understanding your roots and letting that awareness guide how you move through the world. For many Indigenous women and gender-diverse entrepreneurs, business is not just about financial gain. It is about healing, community, and remembering.
This work is deeply relational, anchored in land, lineage, culture, and intention. In matrilineal traditions, names and responsibilities are passed down through mothers, grandmothers, and aunties. These connections shape identity and leadership, even when those bonds were historically disrupted by colonial systems.
I always felt really rich and I never understood some of the really racist attitudes towards Indigenous people. ~ Sage Lacerte
Entrepreneurship can be centered in culture
Indigenous women are redefining what it means to build and sustain a business. These businesses are often small, community-based, and values-driven and profit is rarely the primary goal. Instead, they prioritize flexibility, connection to family, and cultural alignment.
The path of entrepreneurship is often deeply personal. It may begin with something as seemingly simple as beading or offering doula support, but it grows into a form of sovereignty. It becomes an expression of identity and care that extends across generations.
Being profitable is close to the bottom of the list. ~ Sage Lacerte
Colonial systems can be uprooted
Many Indigenous entrepreneurs operate in systems that were never meant for them. Policies like the Indian Act actively excluded Indigenous women from wealth-building opportunities. Residential schools attempted to sever cultural knowledge and financial literacy. This has resulted in layers of financial trauma for many people.
Yet, with that history comes clarity. Understanding the source of disconnection allows entrepreneurs to name it, address it, and build something new in its place.
The process of healing from money trauma is central to decolonization. ~ Sage Lacerte
New financial pathways can be built
In recent years, there has been a shift toward creating culturally safe and trauma-informed spaces within entrepreneurship and investing. Programs like the SAGE Initiative are bridging the gap between financial systems and Indigenous values. They offer training, build trust networks, and create pathways for investment that are accessible and culturally relevant.
These efforts acknowledge that access to capital is a major barrier. They also recognize that healing our relationship with money is a core part of decolonization. When Indigenous women learn how to invest, how to raise capital, or how to grow a business aligned with their values, they are reclaiming a space that was historically denied to them.
I walked into a bank and asked if they had any Indigenous-owned investment products, and they laughed. ~ Sage Lacerte
Business norms can be reimagined
Supporting Indigenous entrepreneurs means rethinking how we show up in business spaces. It means creating inclusive practices: sending agendas in advance, avoiding jargon and acronyms, offering flexibility in meetings, and recognizing financial comfort zones.
It also means accepting that traditional business calendars may not apply. Some entrepreneurs choose to follow a harvesting cycle, slowing down in the fall for hunting and berry picking, and ramping up again in spring. These rhythms are grounded in sustainability, both personally and culturally.
Our business slows down in the fall so I can hunt and berry pick. That’s what sustains me. ~ Sage Lacerte
There is value in honouring relational wealth
For many, wealth is not measured in dollars but in nourishment, safety, and community. A full freezer of moose meat. A pantry of berries. Time with nieces and elders. These are the markers of abundance. What the community and the individual values are what these businesses are working to generate, rather than simply monetary profit.
Exercises that help identify what truly makes us feel rich can be deeply grounding. They help entrepreneurs see that their worth is not tied to a bank balance. Instead, it is found in the relationships, values, and practices that sustain them.
If I opened up my freezer, we had a freezer full of moose meat…that made me feel rich. ~ Sage Lacerte
Moving forward with intention
Indigenous entrepreneurship is not just about taking part in an economy. It is about transforming it. It is about making space for relationality, spirit, and story. Whether by integrating traditional knowledge into impact investing, or by simply allowing children into business spaces to witness what is possible, these entrepreneurs are reshaping what leadership looks like.
This is generational work. It is patient work. And it is powerful. Because the next generation is watching, and learning that they, too, are enough.