MCF Giving Forum, Winter 2006

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Winter Count 2006

Giving Stories
Examples of Native Philanthropy in Minnesota

Supporting Community-Strengthening Efforts:
Tips for Giving in Indian Country

•	Embrace self-determination as the overarching theme of current and future efforts to strengthen Native families and communities.
•	Be flexible and consider inter-disciplinary models of grantmaking, recognizing the diversity of context and needs among Native communities.
•	Work with the relevant institutions, engaging in learning processes that connect the foundation programmatic interest with Native communities.
•	Foster connections within and across sectors, including alliance-building and opportunities between governments and nonprofits, reservation and urban.
•	Strengthen institutions, especially among tribal governments and Native nonprofits, supporting organizational capacity and growth of Native foundations.
•	Institutionalize American Indian grantmaking, making long-term commitments and increasing Native participation on staff and boards within foundations.
•	Develop strategies to support traditional knowledge – Native traditions, languages, spirituality and homelands.

From The Context and Meaning of Family Strengthening in Indian America: A Report to the Annie E. Casey Foundation by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

American Indian Family Empowerment Program
Supports Families
The American Indian Family Empowerment Program (AIFEP) is a grantmaking partnership of the Marbrook Foundation, the Grotto Foundation and the Westcliff Foundation. AIFEP provides small grants to American Indian families and individuals who are pursuing professional, education or personal development goals. AIFEP grants support individuals and families promoting positive changes in their communities. Since it was founded in 1996, the program has given away more than a half million dollars in grants. The program is distinctive in having a relatively simple application process, in focusing on individuals and families to bring about cultural and community revitalization, and in having a board of American Indian leaders to make the grantmaking decisions.

Fund of the Sacred Circle Targets Grassroots Organizing The Fund of the Sacred Circle is a cooperative program of Headwaters Foundation for Justice and the Wisconsin Community Fund, directed by Headwaters. Its grantmaking is aimed at grassroots groups or projects in Minnesota or Wisconsin that are engaged in social-change organizing within the Native American community and have a majority American Indian leadership. Funding decisions for the Fund of the Sacred Circle are made by Native American community activists involved in social justice on a daily basis. Projects funded address the root causes of social, racial, political, environmental and economic injustice in our society, working for systems change and social justice.

Indian Land Tenure Foundation Works
to Leverage Indian Assets
The Indian Land Tenure Foundation, a community-organized and community-directed national nonprofit organization based in the Twin Cities, educates Indian community members, supports activities, and raises and grants funds to carry out goals related to "land within the original boundaries of every reservation and other areas of high significance where tribes retain aboriginal interest." The foundation works strategically to educate Indian landowners about land management, ownership and transference; increase Indian economic assets by gaining control of Indian lands; and create financial models to leverage those assets, use Indian land to help people discover and maintain their culture, and reform legal mechanisms related to strengthening sovereignty of Indian land.

Minnesota Tribal Government Foundation Creates Partnership
The Minnesota Community Foundation, in partnership with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community and Prairie Island Indian Community, together created Minnesota Tribal Government Foundation. The name reflects the three principal donor tribes that are federally recognized tribal governments and their commitment to helping other tribal governments in Minnesota and people living on or near reservations. "This fund is an opportunity for us to further extend our hand to Indian People across Minnesota," said Shakopee Mdewakanton chairman Stanley Crooks. "This fund is in addition to what we already give." In 2004, the three tribes gave $11.5 million to various causes, both Native and non-Native. The new foundation's first award was a $100,000 grant to the Family Advocacy Center of Northern Minnesota in Bemidji.

Two Feathers Fund, Diversity Endowment of The Saint Paul Foundation
The Two Feathers Endowment is a permanent endowment fund that provides a long-term capital base from which charitable grants are made each year to support the Native American community. Two Feathers, one of The Saint Paul Foundation's four Diversity Endowment Funds within Spectrum Trust, provides a culturally sensitive, community-responsive philanthropic vehicle to address the needs within Minnesota Indian communities, supporting artistic, educational, social and cultural development activities. Involving Indian people in all phases of the philanthropic process is fundamental to the success of the Two Feathers Endowment. Since 1996, the Two Feathers Endowment has awarded grants totaling about $790,000 to 265 organizations in the Native American community. GF

More Information from the Winter 2006 Edition of Giving Forum

Winter Count

In the past, every Lakota band had a keeper of the winter count. Once a year, the leaders reviewed the important events of the previous year and together selected the single most significant one, which the keeper added to the long list of annual pictographs, documented on birch bark, buffalo robes or stone, consisting of as many as 200 entries — or 200 years. He could recite the story of each successive winter on this lengthy winter count, thereby passing on history orally. Tribal members can recall the year of their birth by the event associated with their birth year.

Description from Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

Giving Forum Native Philanthropy Issue is sponsored by Native Americans in Philanthropy, a national grantmaker affinity group based in Minneapolis, comprising individuals who seek to enrich the lives of Native peoples by bridging organized philanthropy and indigenous communities and to foster understanding and increase effectiveness.

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