New Mexico Foundation Grantee Workshop

May 25

On May 23rd, Executive Director Sebastian Africano and Indigenous Lands Program Director James Calabaza attended a full day workshop for grantees of the New Mexico Foundation, who awarded us a grant for our work on water resilience for Puebloan communities.

More than a workshop on our specific project, this was a conversation on how to increase equity and inclusion in philanthropy. This Native-run foundation is changing the paradigm by engaging other philanthropists in how to adjust their grant processes to better serve Native communities and organizations. It was an opportunity to both build capacity, and to communicate what’s important for foundations to understand when working with Native communities.

For example, participants commented on how hundreds of years of injustice and structural racism that has affected their communities can’t be undone within a short, restrictive grant cycle. They commented on the lack of transparency in many grant processes, and in parallel, the information requested by some grantors infringing on the privacy and sovereignty of Indigenous nations. Also, there were comments on the overlap of many of the issues in Indian Country - you can’t treat one without addressing several others, which makes success a moving target.

For too long, philanthropy has benefitted the privileged, and Native communities typically receive less than 0.5% of philanthropic dollars disbursed in the U.S. While we have to provide Native organizations the tools and skills to access more of these resources, we also must simultaneously educate grantmakers on how to (and how not to) support Native populations.