Awarded Grants

Activities proposed for 2015 include incorporating a youth garden club, sustainability teaching through a native plant demo rain garden, and initiating gardening and agricultural conversations through events and listening sessions. The new space will be home to a native herbal medicine plot, rain garden, three sisters' plot, fruit trees and berries section, micro-farm (for Food & Ag leaders), community member plots and a learning center/community event space. Through these activities we hope to create a space for community gatherings and ceremonies which serves as a learning environment for traditional foods, herbs and medicines and urban agriculture.

Create Native assets by supporting scholarship opportunities for Native American students in Colorado

Empowering Tribal Warriors will provide a Tigua mentorship and life-skills program so that young tribal men can make educated and strategic decisions about their future as community leaders through higher education and career building, while preserving Tigua cultural values. The young men will utilize their experience and guidance of mentors and staff to map out future career goals that will be kept in a portfolio by the Empowerment Department and will serve as a tool to continue their education and career-building endeavors after the grant ends. Positive outcomes may include graduation, GED, post-secondary enrollment, entry into workforce, military enlistment.

The ultimate purpose is to prevent and reduce homelessness of urban Natives in Seattle/King County by increasing assets; expanding, improving and integrating human services; retaining and creating new housing opportunities; and leveraging resources. In order to implement and expand programs, the Club needs to strengthen and improve our organizational capacity by ensuring a smooth leadership transition for our new Executive Director, undertake several organizational infrastructure projects such as board/staff retreats and an Organizational Assessment, create a new Case Manager position, and leverage our existing talent by giving them appropriate resources.

The ultimate purpose of this project is to increase the number of Oglala Lakota artists who create and maintain an art business that provides a living for their family, stimulates economic activity on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and preserves their art as a cultural resource for the Native community. This will be accomplished by increasing capital available to eligible artists as well as enhancing marketing opportunities for Native artists. The secondary purpose is to create and sustain an Artist Division to increase long-term capacity of The Lakota Fund to assist Native artists.

The ultimate purpose of the CRACE project is to 1) Increase the financial solvency of the program to provide increased opportunities for youth life skills development and personal empowerment, 2) Increase adult male role model volunteer base by providing material and financial support for a program that had increased youth participation by 300% over the summer.

The ultimate purpose of this project is to create a sustainable Woodland Indian Arts organization by building the managerial capacity of the Board. In order to do this we will utilize Board Training, create a strategic plan, create a sustainable business/marketing plan, create a fundraising plan and budget, increase volunteers, utilize the federal 501c3 process to establish WIA as a non-profit. By strengthening the managerial capacity of the Board, participation by artists, art collectors, museums, other public institutions and the general public will increase for all events of WIA.

Sitting Bull College presently provides opportunities for artists to show what they do, market their products and services, and learns topics relevant to their success. However, these efforts have not been coordinated around a mission statement or a series of objectives. The purpose of this project is to create a community infrastructure that will more effectively market and coordinate the artist relevant programs and services to community artists and to increase the quality of the programs and services offered to community artists.

The purpose of the Gizhiigin Art Place Project is to assist, promote and foster the growth and development of local artists and entrepreneurs with a unique focus on community involvement while increasing the visibility of the local artists and entrepreneurs The Project will succeed in its purpose by giving the clients and all those involved a viable skill set and valuable business knowledge that will allow them to use their creative abilities to make a viable living.

The ultimate purpose is to create a permanent full-time, volunteer coordinator. This position will provide stability and systematization of the volunteer program which increases and strengthen our relationships with volunteers through a uniform, thriving and sustainable volunteer program. Further, the permanency of a volunteer coordinator will mitigate the loss of institutional knowledge. It will provide our agency with the integral capacity it needs to operate programs with an increased return on investment. Currently, our volunteer program is coordinated by a federally funded VISTA volunteer position.