Awarded Grants

This project will enable Quechan Indian Tribe to increase their capacity to continue their existing drought mitigation efforts.

This project will create a pilot ʻāina momona plan to cultivate and increase indigenous food access for the Native Hawaiian Community within the North Shore of Oahu. MLEF will also leverages feedback and lessons-learned from the pilot year to inform cultivating 10-acres of native food systems in the next 5-years.

TOPS will promote emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health of our Oyate through the preservation and documentation of the knowledge, harvesting, location and traditional teachings of sacred foods. TOPS will gather, grow, and plant our sacred foods to create healthy lifestyles for generations to come.

Program Opportunity Statement (Recommended 300 words or less) The FOAFS has been understaffed for many years, with all employees wearing multiple hats daily. While Jessica has the skills to create websites other tasks are often more pressing and so updating either the Friends or the school's website gets pushed back over and over. The AFS has not had its website updated in nearly a decade and any information on the former one is now far out of date. The parents and staff deserve an accessible website with staff and parent portals for information and knowledge sharing as well as a thought-out and easy-to-navigate public page for possible funders. The Friends site is updated once a year if possible but we have gone through so many changes recently that some of the information is now incorrect. In 2019, we attempted to rebrand and update the AFS logo in addition to creating a logo for the Friends to create a visual cohesive branding strategy between the programs. However, some parents were against changing the school's logo at that time and so the project stalled with only the Friends getting its own logo that looks nothing like the school's.

This funding will assist in our foundational development. We have created two annual programs that we provided to the Flathead Reservation tribal community. This assistance would provide funding that would attribute to the increasing need to house our current programs.

This project will enable Owens Valley Indian Water Commission to increase their capacity to continue their programs that preserve and restore lands, habitats, and improve water quality, as well as, support the Commission's member Tribes with securing water rights settlements that include land acquisition.

Program Opportunity Statement (Recommended 300 words or less) Model, Create, and Teach About Decolonized Spaces In activist spaces, we often fall into replicating colonial dynamics of exploitation that continue to marginalize the expertise and knowledge of indigenous communities. Often the attempt to undo colonization within colonial frameworks is in itself an act of colonization as it ignores the inherent intent of decolonization and presents as an unwillingness or an inability to change. Thečhíȟila accepts that in LandBack, there are not easy solutions for the end-goal of dismantling colonial power paradigms and building a legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands. We center our needs around building community care and teaching activists how not to fall into patterns of oppression and structural injustices. One example of how Thečhíȟila has done this is helping fundraise a tribal member gathering to decolonize “Independence Day” to disrupt a colonial event that celebrates genocide and instead help pass down sacred cultural traditions and heritage in that community. We would love to be involved with more events like these not only to build more direct relationships with our own communities, but to build a larger team in our collective who can help sustain those communities.

Program Opportunity Statement (Recommended 300 words or less) The current Executive Director is planning to retire in 2024 and a succession plan is needed to help ready the FOAFS for the transition and to distribute some of the responsibilities to current staff. Within the organization there is currently two new staff members and one senior staff member. The project was developed to train current staff in project facilitation to manage future projects with the community. Professional staff development is also included in the project to ensure current staff have the skill set to be organized and effective in a fast-paced work environment. The project will also include a retreat for both FOAFS and AFS staff along the Executive Director to develop a succession plan for both organizations to ensure prosperous future for the next generation of Kanien'keha speakers.

This project creates opportunities for urban Native groups and communities in Portland to take part in growing and preserving first foods and plants. Wisdom of the Elders programs utilize Traditional Ecological Knowledge, donated lands and partnerships to train our interns in environmental and agricultural skills that work toward food sovereignty.

This project is leveraging BFFSG's momentum and success with its community research analysis and pilot projects indicating the desire and need for BFFSG to become its own independent nonprofit. Funds will build capacity by contracting with founding board members to complete mission related development work.