Member Education Sessions: Matriarchs Reclaiming Philanthropy

Lucille Echohawk is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and resides in Arvada, Colorado.  She has worked in the Indian child welfare, non-profit, and philanthropic fields for more than thirty years.  She was employed for twelve years as a Strategic Advisor with Casey Family Programs, a national private operating foundation.  She served as Executive Director of the Denver Indian Family Resource Center from 2012-2014 and then again in that capacity as a volunteer from 2018-2021 and 2022-24. Though formally retired, she continues to be active in community, state, and national endeavors.   

She holds a BA degree from Brigham Young University and an MEd from Erikson Institute for Early Education, Loyola University - Chicago.  

Lucille served on The Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s Board of Trustees from 1990-96 and has participated as an Honorary Trustee in the years since that service.  In 2021, she served as an honorary co-chair of the Foundation’s annual fundraising luncheon. 

Lucille is co-founder of Native Americans in Philanthropy, the Denver Indian Center, Inc., the Denver Indian Family Resource Center, the Pawnee Evening Star Fund, and now the Native American Housing Circle. She has served as the founding board chair for four of these nonprofit organizations. She has served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in Denver County, specializing in Indian child welfare cases.  She is a graduate of Leadership Denver and later served as President of the Leadership Denver Association.

 She currently serves on the Tribal Law and Policy Institute’s board of directors and as a senior fellow for the Child Welfare League of America.  As a member of the Advisory Council for the Native Voices Rising initiative, she is assisting with its separation from the Common Counsel Foundation.  In June of 2022, Lucille joined the Board of Directors for Rocky Mountain Public Media. For many years she has been a member of the National Support Council for the Native American Rights Fund as well as an at-large member of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs.    

Lucille has received many awards, including two-lifetime achievement awards from the Denver Indian Center and the Escuela Tlatelolco Centro de Estudios.  She has also received Leadership Denver’s Outstanding Alumnus Award.  In October 2024, she received the Julie Penrose Award from the El Pomar Foundation, which included a $10,000 grant for a charity of her choice.  She chose the Denver Indian Family Resource Center.

Barbara Poley (Laguna/Hopi) has seeded the Hopi way of life over decades of community-minded dedication. She instills the ancestral values formed on the mesas through ceremonial cycles, clan relationships, and dry farming into daily contemporary life so that culture remains vibrant and central. Dry farming corn teaches that living in a traditional way may be difficult, “but with patience, care, and tending to the needs of these plants, we receive the abundance of new life with our corn which can be grown over and over for many years to come.” Indeed, the next generation of leaders is rising throughout Hopi, growing and strong with Barbara’s guidance. Barbara’s 18-year-long leadership at the Hopi Foundation brings forward the educational ethics of her ancestor, Chief Loloma. She now seeks to move into the next phase of her eldership and expand the fundamental idea of caring for one another across generations.

Sadie Hill Kelley, Yewelahawi, “she brings the wind” in Oneida, was born and raised on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. She comes from the people of the Oneida, Kiowa, Comanche, Muskogee Creek, Shoshone Paiute, Cherokee, and Absentee Shawnee.

Sadie was taught from a young age to be a strong resilient Indigenous woman, who knows her people, traditions, and community. She upholds those responsibilities every day, takes pride in her multi-tribal identity, and makes sure to lead a good life wherever she goes. Sadie is passionate about creating a sustainable future for the next seven generations, either by implementing more resources to support youth with education and sports or discussing alternatives to blood quantum requirements to ensure the future of her people. Sadie recently graduated from Colorado Mesa University in May of 2024 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a minor in Sport Management. She is proud of completing her undergraduate degree while being a student-athlete on the Women’s golf team, as it took a lot of sacrifices and determination. Additionally, Sadie is proud of being a published author with another upcoming chapter in a forthcoming publication. She wrote a chapter in Comparative Politics: Practical Guide for Globalizing World, edited by H. Oberle (2023). The upcoming chapter will be in the new book, Beyond Blood Quantum: Refusal to Disappear, edited by Norbert Hill, Jr., coming in March 2025. This latest piece, Who’s Your People? Living with a Multi-Tribal Identity is co-written with her mother, Jennifer Hill-Kelley. Aside from her professional and academic life, Sadie enjoys sewing, photography and going to concerts of her favorite music artists.

Shandiin was born and raised on Diné Bikeyah, filtering through many different towns on the Navajo Nation during her childhood. She currently lives on traditional Ohlone and Esselen lands, now recognized as the Monterey Bay in California.

Her community has guided her professional work, where she has focused on supporting Indigenous-led nonprofits in communication and development roles, working with grassroots organizations like Yee Há’olníi Dóo or larger legacy organizations like the Association on American Indian Affairs.

With a deep appreciation for traveling and learning from new perspectives, she is grateful to have spent three years studying in France for her Bachelor of Arts in journalism and global communications. She continues to freelance as a journalist with work published through Navajo Times, Peacock Plume, and Changing Womxn Collective.