What started several decades ago as a small group of Indigenous leaders in philanthropy determined to turn the tide on severe underinvestment by the philanthropic sector in Native communities has now become a durable and growing movement with bigger aspirations than ever. Several of those early leaders were the founders of Native Americans in Philanthropy over thirty-five years ago. They were also some of the first Native people working in their foundations, and the founders of some of the first Indigenous-led funds and tribal foundations. As two people who have worked in and around this sector for many years, we have seen the impact our people have made—and it continues to inspire the work we do.
When we’re working so hard each day to advocate for every dollar investment in our communities, it can be difficult to see the forest through the trees. What does the progress we’ve made really look like at a systems level? It means moving resources, shifting power, and entrusting Indigenous leadership and decision-making. We still have much work to do, but it’s important to take a step back and reflect on some of the important progress we’ve made Indigenizing philanthropy.
Leading our own funding vehicles is critical. Over the years, the field of Indigenous-led funds has grown significantly. Funds like First Nations Development Institute and the 7th Generation Fund were some of our earliest partners in the field building new funding mechanisms for philanthropic investors to pool their investments with Indigenous-led organizations. Creating these mechanisms was a vital step in ensuring that Indigenous people could make the decisions about how funds were distributed within their communities. These kinds of organizations have also been critical in providing culturally grounded technical assistance and support that our nonprofit sector needed.
Others like the Hopi Foundation were founded by a group of tribal citizens to build a funding vehicle to support their specific tribe and community—rooted in their values and worldview as a people. The Colorado Plateau Foundation was founded to move more funding regionally to tribes and Native communities and is led by individuals who are deeply informed about the specific cultures and concerns that are unique to the communities living in that region. Both groups demonstrate the value of partnering with Indigenous-led organizations that have deep place-based knowledge that can exponentially increase the success of funds invested into the people and places represented.
More recent funds like the Decolonizing Wealth Project and NDN Collective are working at a national and international level to move resources to the priorities Native people care about. In partnership with the Newman’s Own Foundation, NAP recently launched the Indigenous Tomorrows Fund. Led by Native youth, this new participatory fund makes investments in Native youth organizations across the country.
More funding is also moving to Indigenous communities today because non-Native funders have changed their own practices and philosophy and met the call-to-action many of us have been making for years—to step out of the way.
Tamalpais Trust transitioned its entire fund to become an Indigenous-led fund. The foundation’s funding and decision-making was turned over to an Indigenous Council to navigate the shift. It is now led by two Indigenous women with regional Indigenous advisors.
Recently, the NoVo Foundation announced the creation of a new Indigenous-led and serving fund, called Ishkode Fund. Peter Buffett explained that it is time to deepen NoVo's commitment to Indigenous communities by creating this fund and transitioning the grantmaking decisions over Indigenous-led work into Indigenous hands. The fund will initially focus on providing continued stable funding for the majority of the Indigenous partners getting grants through NoVo and hopes to eventually make new grants and continue NoVo’s history of growing philanthropic giving in Indigenous spaces.
Earlier this summer, the MacArthur Foundation announced a new major Native Self-Determination program that will make significant investments in our communities, guided by a Native advisory board and the first appointment of an Indigenous leader to their Board of Directors. As a central part of this work, they will also use their platform to help organize other philanthropic funders to invest more in Native communities
Thanks to the hard work of the leaders and organizations we’ve reflected on and many others, we’ve gained a lot of momentum in our shared mission to expand the resources invested in our communities—and to make sure those investments are in line with our values and worldview as Indigenous people. We are here to help more funders step up to support Indigenous communities. Recently, Native Americans in Philanthropy partnered with the Bridgespan Group to publish The Impact and Opportunity of Investing in Native Communities, which shares more of these stories from the field about how funders are engaging with our communities, changing their practices, and moving resources to tribes and Indigenous-led organizations.
These changes are exciting and hopeful, but Indigenous communities are still deeply underfunded and with the changing federal funding landscape, there is no better time than now for philanthropy to take notice of the forward-thinking efforts of a few and lean into them as examples of best practices. What can philanthropy as a field do to build upon these examples? While there are many opportunities to support, we want to highlight two steps that have been raised by leaders in the field for years and deserve to be further underlined.
First, more wealth-holders need to start providing meaningful levels of funding to Indigenous-led groups. Indigenous communities know how to do a lot with a little, but when significant funding is moved into those communities the results have an exponential impact. Second, continue to remove non-Indigenous control over the decision-making. Many Indigenous-led organizations have demonstrated that we understand the “why” and “how” of grantmaking within Indigenous communities much more deeply than people from outside of our cultures and communities. By stepping out of the way and trusting, philanthropists will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are funding the projects that don’t just look good from an outside perspective but are led by those who truly understand the priorities and needs as seen by those who are living with them daily.
Funding Indigenous groups will not just strengthen Indigenous communities. The wisdom and knowledge contained in our communities hold answers to many of the challenges facing the world right now. By building deeper trust and supporting Indigenous leadership and decision-making, not only will we see Indigenous communities thrive—but we believe in an even bigger outcome—that we may see all communities beginning to thrive together.
About The Authors: Erik Stegman serves as Chief Executive Officer of Native Americans in Philanthropy. Previously, he served as the Executive Director for the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute. He has held positions at the Center for American Progress on their Poverty to Prosperity team, as Majority Staff Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and in the Obama administration as a Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Education.You can read more about him here.
Victoria Sweet is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the newly launched Ishkode Fund. The granddaughter of a Native boarding school survivor, and someone who has witnessed the impact of violence on friends and relatives in Native communities, she has spent over 20 years advocating for and supporting Tribes and Indigenous peoples both in the United States and internationally. Victoria attended PLSI and went on to earn her law degree from Michigan State University, with a certificate in Indigenous law and policy. She previously served as Director of Indigenous Communities Grantmaking at the NoVo Foundation. In addition to publishing academic articles, she is a frequent speaker on issues impacting Indigenous communities and the future of Tribal sovereignty.