First Nations works to build healthy economies in Indian Country based on strategies that emphasize Native communities’ control of their assets, including cultural assets, institutional assets, natural resource assets, and political assets.
As a cultural asset for Native communities, art has been an integral part of sustaining Native nations, culture, language and traditional beliefs, shaping community and family ties and cultural pride. Yet, the process of colonization has stripped many Native communities of artistic forms and individuals with the capacity to carry on traditional art forms that are integral to their cultures. Factors such as western and religious education systems as well as urbanization and incorporation into the modern economy, among others, have all directly impacted Native American artists and the field of Native American arts, placing continued pathways of cultural traditions in jeopardy.
To this end, First Nations established the Native Arts Capacity Building Initiative (NACBI) in 2014 – changing its name to the Native Arts Initiative (NAI) in 2016 – with the goal of stimulating long-term perpetuation, proliferation and revitalization of traditional artistic and cultural assets in Native communities. The NAI is working to achieve this by creating and strengthening the enabling environments in which Native-led nonprofit organizations and tribal programs are operating to support emerging and established Native artists and sustain traditional Native arts. Under the NAI, these entities receive organizational and programmatic resources, including direct grants and technical assistance and training, to support their efforts to increase control of assets across five asset groups – institutional assets, arts and cultural assets, human capital, social assets and economic assets – ultimately facilitating the steady intergenerational transference of traditional artistic knowledge in their communities.
From 2014 through early 2018, First Nations awarded 51 Supporting Native Arts grants totaling more than $1.4 million and ranging from $15,000 to $32,000 each to Native-led nonprofit organizations and tribal government programs serving Native American artists in three regions – the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota), the Southwest (New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California), and the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington). Currently, the geographic restrictions on NAI funding opportunities stem from our donors’ allowable service areas.
NAI Supporting Native Arts grantees utilize their grant funds to strengthen both organizational and programmatic capacity including, for example, supporting Master-Apprentice Artist instruction, development of Native artists’ business skills, providing arts workshops and classes led by master artists, and convening local artists to inform policy work and arts curriculum creation, among others.
First Nations has also awarded more than 40 professional development mini-grants and travel stipends totaling more than $140,000 to Native-led nonprofit organizations and tribal programs in the NAI service area from 2014 through mid-2018. Grant recipients have utilized the mini-grants to attend conferences and trainings focused on a wide variety of professional development topics including strategic planning, fundraising, museum best practices, curating and archiving, digital marketing, financial management, board governance and financial oversight among others.
Besides direct project funding, First Nations provides NAI grantees with one-on-one technical assistance based on their needs identified in First Nations’ Capacity Survey Tool. Typically this technical assistance is delivered via in-person trainings conducted by First Nations and its partners.
Woodland Indian Art, Inc. is a nonprofit organization in Oneida, Wisconsin, that seeks to expand the awareness and appreciation of Woodland Indian arts and culture through education, events, and markets. The organization creates economic growth opportunity for artists through networking and sales of their art to buyers and collectors of Native American art.
Watch To Learn MoreTananáwit: A Community of Warm Springs Artists is a nonprofit, community-based arts organization that supports Native artists from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs through educational and economic development opportunities. Artists are given a workspace, tools, supplies, and transportation to create their art and sell it locally.
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Yá’át’ééh. Jennifer Himmelreich yinishyé. In January 2026, I joined First Nations Development Institute as a senior program officer with the Native Arts, Language, and Knowledge program. ...
Generations ago, art was everywhere in the Tulalip culture, represented in its tools, clothing, food and ceremony. After years of outside stressors chipping away at the tribes’ artistic soul, the Hibu...
These grant funds will be used to support IPCC’s mission and efforts to preserve and promote traditional Native arts and cultural assets, knowledge systems, and lifeways in your community for the benefit of future generations as well as increase organizational sustainability.
These grant funds will be used to support ZYEP’s mission and efforts to preserve and promote traditional Native arts and cultural assets, knowledge systems, and lifeways in your community for the benefit of future generations as well as increase organizational sustainability.
These grant funds will be used to support LEAF’s mission and efforts to preserve and promote traditional Native arts and cultural assets, knowledge systems, and lifeways in your community for the benefit of future generations as well as increase organizational sustainability.
These grant funds will be used to support the Makah Cultural and Research Center’s mission and efforts to preserve and promote traditional Native arts and cultural assets, knowledge systems, and lifeways in your community for the benefit of future generations as well as increase organizational sustainability.