FIRST PEOPLES FUND
Knowing. Honoring. Sharing.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
For generations, ceremonies, language, and cultural practices deeply rooted in ancestral knowledge and ways of being were prohibited by law, stripping Native peoples of their rights to carry on the traditions and lifeways of their ancestors. Destructive federal policies, Indian boarding schools, racism and entrenched inequities fractured the connection between many Native people and our cultures. It wasn’t until 1978 when the Indian Religious Freedom Act was enacted that Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians reclaimed the right to practice our cultures and spirituality freely and independently. The myriad challenges that have impacted Native communities for generations and continue today are in many ways a consequence of this fracturing from identity, culture and art. This bond to art and culture is what is most vital to strong, vibrant Indigenous societies. Through art, stories are shared, ancestors are honored, ceremonies are held, and culture is lived. Art exists at the nexus of the material and spiritual worlds, and in the context of modern Native communities, its prevalence makes art a potent economic engine. Without a strong connection to our cultures, histories and Nations, Indigenous peoples, especially youth, are often left feeling disconnected and out of balance and their spiritual health is deeply impacted. Thus, strengthening the connection between Native people and the art and culture of their tribes is vital to the future of healthy Native communities and economies.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Indigenous Arts Ecology Grant Program
Grounded in Indigenous values, FPF provides direct financial support, training, mentoring, and network building for individual artists alongside capacity building grants and customized technical assistance for Native Community Development Financial Institutions (NCDFIs) and other tribally based organizations to provide artists with access to the six resources its 2013 research Building a Creative Economy: Art as an Economic Engine in Native Communities found are critical to their entrepreneurial development — credit/capital, markets, networks, training, space and supplies.
The Indigenous Arts Ecology Grant Program Grant is a grant and capacity building program for community-based organizations, primarily Native community development financial institutions (Native CDFIS), to assist with supporting artists as entrepreneurs and leaders.
Fellowships for Native Artists
Artists in Business Leadership Fellowship provides working capital grants, mentoring, training, networking and access to new markets.
The Cultural Capital Fellowship provides project grants to support the design and implementation of community projects that strengthen and revitalize tradition-based practices.
Native Artists Professional Development Trainings
Native Artists Professional Development trainings (NAPD) are artist-entrepreneurship and arts business development workshops delivered through customized, values-based curriculum in partnership with community-based organizations, often Native CDFIs. These two-day trainings give artists real-world tools and detailed resources to navigate the arts industry and become successful entrepreneurs. The training is intended for emerging and seasoned artists alike. Train-the-trainer Workshops are certified Native Artist Professional Development instructor training workshops for artists and staff of community-based organizations.
Community Spirit Awards
Each year, First Peoples Fund honors and celebrates four to six exceptional Native artists and culture bearers across Indian Country through the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards. These artists are deeply rooted in their communities and embody their People's cultural assets in their creations and their way of life. Artists are nominated by members of their communities.Honorees receive financial awards and community-based honoring ceremonies. Biennially, First Peoples Fund hosts a national Community Spirit Awards performance event, shining a light on these exceptional culture bearers and celebrating the best of Native artistry.
Our Nations' Spaces Grant Program
Grants to arts and cultural organizations to foster support for and advance Native arts.
Rolling Rez Arts Bus
Rolling Rez Arts is a state-of-the-art mobile arts space, business training center, and mobile bank on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In 2016, Rolling Rez Arts began delivering art, business, retail and banking services that were previously inaccessible to many of the artists and culture bearers who live and work on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The arts space on wheels was years in the making, and is the result of a group of people—from First Peoples Fund, Artspace, Lakota Funds, and Lakota Federal Credit Union staff to nonprofit partners to foundations supporters—coming together to infuse new energy into the creative economy.
Dances with Words
Dances with Words™ is a youth development initiative of First Peoples Fund that works with young people, adult mentors, high schools and nonprofit partners on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation empowering participants to become engaged students and community leaders through literary, spoken word and other art forms. First Peoples Fund understands the cultural and historical significance of oral traditions for Native peoples and Dances with Words™ connects young people to these traditions through the study and creation of literature, poetry, spoken word, and music. At the same time, the program uplifts participants’ stories within their own community and beyond.
Intercultural Leadership Institute
The Intercultural Leadership Institute, also known as ILI, is a collaborative effort of First Peoples Fund, Alternate ROOTS, the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture and the PA'I Foundation. These four core partner organizations have a shared commitment to pursue cultural equity and to support artists, culture bearers, and other arts professionals as change-makers in their communities. Year-long fellowships are provided to cohorts or 30 intercultural artists and arts administrators. ILI emphasizes overlapping experiences, shared spaces and mutual accountability – and seeks to challenge dominant social norms while honoring differences of histories, traditions, vocabulary and more. We seek to develop leaders specifically within the arts and culture field to adeptly respond to significant changes that impact society, politics, environment and economy. As a peer cohort, ILI intercultural leaders hone personal and professional skills to affect local, national and global communities – and promote a shift toward greater awareness, resourcing and action in the broader field of arts and culture.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of artists supported through fellowships.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Indigenous Arts Ecology Grant Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Cultural Capital Fellows and Artist in Business Leadership Fellows. One year grant to support sharing and passing on cultural knowledge and supporting artist entrepreneurs in growing arts businesses.
Number of training workshops
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Our Nations' Spaces Grant Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Native Artist Development Training - Two day values-based business training for Native artists.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The Indigenous Arts Ecology, FPF's Theory of Change, is a relationship-based, collective system of local and regional arts ecosystems rooted in ancestral knowledge and inclusive of environment, spirit, people, and lifeways. FPF’s Indigenous Arts Ecology holds that investments in individual Native artists and their families build stronger community-level Indigenous arts ecosystems, and investments in these ecosystems strengthen the larger national-level Indigenous Arts Ecology, which in turn strengthens Native artists, their families and ultimately their communities.
FPF is guided by the conviction that culture bearers and artists are the heart and center in reclaiming and revitalizing art and culture to strengthen Indigenous communities through teaching, healing and creating holistic, shared wealth. Artists and culture bearers are vital in nurturing culturally informed, locally-led community development that enhances tribal economies, guides cultural healing, creates positive narratives and contributes to the rich cultural fabric of a vibrant community.
The change we seek to collectively create is: Culture bearers and artists are self-determined, knowledgeable leaders who share, inspire and motivate through strong cultural identity, networks, business skills, and financial stability. Indigenous communities create sustainable, reciprocal relationships through asset-based approaches that recognize and embrace the full value of art and culture and its roles in community and support the relationships, networks and spaces that lift up stories of success. The vibrant Indigenous Arts Ecology that is created by individuals and communities contributes to a contemporary understanding and authentic narrative of Indigenous people and includes the Indigenous worldviews in community change.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Grounded in Indigenous values, FPF provides direct financial support, training, mentoring, and network building for individual artists alongside capacity building grants and customized technical assistance for Native Community Development Financial Institutions (NCDFIs) and other tribally based organizations to provide artists with access to the six resources its 2013 research Building a Creative Economy: Art as an Economic Engine in Native Communities found are critical to their entrepreneurial development — credit/capital, markets, networks, training, space and supplies.
Our strategy fosters long-term relationships with community-based partners to build supportive ecosystems that provide artists with resources to be successful entrepreneurs/cultural leaders by clustering grants/programming for artists, organizations and youth in targeted communities. This approach unites key stakeholders including Tribes, colleges, Native CDFIs and nonprofits to support artists as drivers of economy and culture bearers responsible for cultural revitalization.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
FPF’s leadership and governance are strong and have demonstrated capacity to sustain financial and programmatic growth and integrity. Lori Pourier, FPF’s president of 22 years, was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Ms. Pourier is a community-based practitioner with 30 years in Native micro-enterprise development, a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow and 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation prize winner for women’s creativity in rural life. Ms. Pourier is a recognized leader in the Native arts, culture and community economic development fields. She serves on the Jerome Foundation board of directors. She contributed an essay to the NEA’s 2016 How To Do Creative Placemaking, and a chapter to the 2019 book edited by Miriam Jorgensen of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, Creating Private Sector Economies in Native America: Sustainable Development Through Entrepreneurship. Her strong fundraising drives FPF’s 20% average annual budget growth rate.
The 12-person, national board of directors is chaired by Sherry Salway Black (Oglala Lakota), formerly Vice President First Nations Development Institute and Director of Policy National Congress of American Indians. Board members include Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne / Mescalero Apache), director of the Indigenous Program at the Sundance Film Institute; Maria DeLeon, director of National Association of Latino Arts and Culture; Carlton Turner, founding director of Mississippi Center Cultural Production; Loris Taylor (Hopi), president of Native Public Media; Bud Lane (Siletz), Vice Chair of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; Kalima Rose, vice president of PolicyLink; Terry Pechota (Sicangu Lakota), principal at Pechota Law; David Cournoyer (Sicangu Lakota), filmmaker; Jody Naranjo Folwell-Turipa (Santa Clara Pueblo/Tewa), artist; Ron Martinez Looking Elk (Isleta/Taos Pueblos), artist; and, Kelley Lindquist, president Artspace.
FPF is recognized as a regional and national leader in the arts, culture, social justice, community development and creative economy fields and advances knowledge about Native arts and culture across these fields through philanthropic partnerships, convenings and communications. FPF has served in leadership roles in cohorts and networks led by the Bush Foundation, Grant Makers in the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, ArtPlace, and ArtChangeUS. FPF regularly holds convenings with philanthropy and policy makers to discuss opportunities and barriers to investment in Indian Country. The Doris Duke Foundation recently engaged FPF to lead a national field scan of Native performing arts for philanthropy and tribal leadership. FPF is active in the broader field of rural, including rural philanthropic advisory groups and Art of the Rural.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Since 1999 First Peoples Fund has directly supported nearly 5,000 Native artists to advance their development as entrepreneurs and cultural leaders. FPF has distributed $4 million in grants and other direct support to more than 410 artists from 35 states and 133 tribal nations. After one year, fellows increase their average annual income by 20%, double the average price of artwork, increase the percentage of their income from art, and expand distribution networks to national markets, exhibits, awards and leadership roles.
In partnership with Native CDFIs, FPF has certified 50-plus Native artists and business coaches who have trained 1,650 emerging artists through FPF’s Native Artists Professional Development workshops, increasing artists’ business skills. Investing $1 mi Through regrants to community-based organizations, we have awarded $1.6 million reaching more than 30 tribal communities.
Through our 10 different programs serving the Indigenous Arts Ecology, FPF has achieved a national footprint:
FPF’s community-based model fosters local leadership among organizations and artists through collaboratively identifying and creating arts-based solutions to problems, partnering to provide professional development training, and providing direct support through fellowships, grants, technical assistance, mentoring, convenings and networking support. This approach meaningfully engages artists, culture bearers, youth, NCDFIs and other partners toward a common goal of establishing Indigenous arts ecosystems and developing community supports that allow artists to succeed as entrepreneurs and cultural leaders.
Through our community-based work, FPF seeks out partnerships with NCDFIs/other nonprofits to create awareness and capacity that support the critical roles artists can play in sustainable, culturally focused community development. We host annual artist and organizational partner convenings that deeply network emerging artist leaders. Our online Resource Library connects organizations and artists with shared arts ecosystem building tools.
FPF has a long history of cultivating leaders regionally and nationally and is currently doing this through two new programs. We are a core partner in the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI), developing and networking artist leaders across multiple cultures. ILI demonstrates FPF’s capacity to take a collective, arts-based approach to problem solving on a national scale. Regionally, FPF’s new arts-based youth development initiative is designed to build the creative, entrepreneurial and leadership capacity of Native youth. The program includes fellowships, regrants, mentorship, and curricula that cultivate skills and values while networking youth within communities and across the region
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
FIRST PEOPLES FUND
Board of directorsas of 10/16/2020
Ms. Sherry Salway Black
Kalima Rose
Policy Link
Maria Lopez De Leon
Latino Arts and Cultures Foundation
David Cournoyer
Plain Depth Consulting
Alfred (Bud) Lane, III
Siletz Tribe of Confederated Indians
Ron Martinez Looking Elk
Artist
Bird Running Water
Sundance Institute
Jody Naranjo Folwell-Turipa
Artist
Kelley Lindquist
Artspace
Loris Taylor
Native Public Media
Carlton Turner
SIPP Culture
Terry Pechota
Pechota Law
Sherry Salway Black
National Congress of American Indians
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
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Equity strategies
Last updated: 10/16/2020GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.