In 2001, a meeting organized by the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis and First Nations Development Institute was held to determine interest in the development of an intertribal consortium or coalition of tribes having initiated (or about to initiate) asset-building programs. From 2001 until 2006, Karen Edwards (Choctaw), a Project Director at the CSD, continued working with several Native asset-building practitioners in Oklahoma to build the base for the coalition. They conducted outreach and meetings. In 2007, a group of tribal representatives met, at the Cherokee Casino and Resort in Tulsa, and agreed to become an organized Native-focused asset-building group, along the lines of those developed in some other states. ONAC was in a fiscal sponsor relationship with First Nations Development Institute. In 2014, the coalition was approved as a tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. While keeping its name, in 2018, the ONAC Board of Directors decided that ONAC would serve at a national level.