MINNEAPOLIS, MN—Native Americans in Philanthropy and Common Counsel Foundation announce the launch of Native Voices Rising (NVR), a research and regranting project designed to support organizing and advocacy in American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities.

Native Voices Rising establishes a mechanism for donors to invest in organizations led by Native people through a funding vehicle whose decision makers are members of Native communities. NVR funding is informed by its newly released report “A Case For Funding Native Led Change,” which identified 146 non-profit social change organizations led by Native Americans to benefit Native communities and conducted in-depth interviews with 49 of them.

“This innovative project is the first of its kind in the United States. NVR’s research fills knowledge gaps within the philanthropic sector regarding the needs of Native communities and the strategies these communities employ to create change,” noted Native Americans in Philanthropy’s Executive Director, Carly Hare.

“The range of strategies employed by the organizations surveyed varies between groups and across movements. Nonetheless, researchers identified informing and advocating for public policies

through organized community action as a common practice among the majority of survey respondents,” noted Louis Delgado, lead researcher, for the Native Voices Rising report.

The report provides a set of case studies highlighting the diversity of strategies and issues that Native groups are utilizing to have positive impact in their communities—these include promoting laws to provide greater environmental protections; gaining management control over food resources; ensuring racial equity in government programs; extending broadband into rural communities; and guaranteeing full access to the vote.

Five issue areas in which Native communities are active were examined by the researchers: environmental justice; subsistence in Alaska; Native engagement in the urban context; media, and voter engagement.

“While the findings derive directly from the 49 organizations, nearly all of the recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of grant-making strategies in Native America are relevant to any funder interested in supporting Native communities and organizations,” says Hare.

“It is worth underscoring that in Native communities direct services were considered by many groups to be essential to their community organizing and advocacy work, “ she added.

“Only .03 percent of charitable funding goes to Native causes, as reported by the Foundation Center,” remarked Laura Livoti, CEO of Common Counsel Foundation, “We are interested in seeing this increase in the next decade.”

Native Voices Rising is a funding vehicle that will utilize Native-led grantmaking committees, composed of Native leaders and supported with staff expertise provided by Native Americans in Philanthropy and Common Counsel Foundation. The first NVR grants will be disbursed in December 2013 with support from Open Society Foundations. Interested donors are encouraged to contact Common Counsel to learn more about participating with the re-granting pool.