A Conversation with Michael E. Roberts, President of First Nations Development Institute

Michael E. Roberts, President of First Nations Development Institute, sat down with us to discuss his organization’s work funded through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Catalyzing Community Giving grant opportunity. First Nations Development Institute’s (First Nations) mission is to strengthen American Indian economies to support healthy Native communities. The organization invests in and creates innovative institutions and models that strengthen asset control and support economic development for American Indian people and their communities.

Q:  What are your current efforts to catalyze community giving?

First Nations’ Catalyzing Community Giving project is designed to further democratize philanthropy and direct more philanthropic resources to America’s almost invisible rural and reservation-based Native communities. Called Nurturing Native Givers and Giving, our project It combines technology, training, technical assistance, convenings, and research to raise awareness of the needs in Native communities.

We’ve developed a web-based giving platform called NativeGiving.org. It promotes a group of First Nations’ current and past grantees, allowing the organizations to highlight their work and raise funds. We train organizations on the platform through one-on-one coaching and provide examples and resources for successful fundraising in their own communities. This first set of projects is focused on promoting the health and well-being of our most valuable resource – our youth.

Q:  Do you think projects like yours are part of a larger movement to link community-based giving to critical issues in communities of color?

Absolutely. It was our intention from the outset that our efforts would prompt a larger conversation nationally and regionally; not just about philanthropy, but also about the community and economic impact tribes are making through their philanthropic efforts. By the time this interview is published, First Nations will have released a major new report as a result of the Catalyzing Community Giving grant titled Telling Our Giving Stories: Native Philanthropy and Community Development. The report details the growth of the Native philanthropic sector over the past 40 years, successful tribal grantmaking models, and the highly positive implications for the development and expansion of Native economies and the civil society sector in reservation communities. 

As an educator and advocate for Indian country, First Nations is painfully aware that few people know that there are actually numerous Native-led grantmaking programs in North America. As such, we felt it was important to share the giving stories of these grantmakers and catalyze a national conversation on the very positive contributions they are making inside and outside their communities.

Q:  What would you say is your unique approach to philanthropy?

Our Catalyzing Community Giving project and First Nations’ approach are rooted in our asset-building strategy. Since 1980, First Nations has been working in partnership with Native communities to restore control and culturally-compatible stewardship of those assets – be they natural resources, human capital, physical assets, social capital, political assets, cultural heritage, or natural resources. A positive and collaborative approach, asset-building focuses on cultivating traditional knowledge and practices, and creating new ones to build Native capacities, capabilities and communities.  

We believe that Native nations are uniquely knowledgeable about their own communities. They know the strengths, challenges, and needs of their communities better than outside agencies. That’s why asset-building works - because it strengthens the effectiveness of Native nations to find solutions to their own challenges and allows them to decide how to best leverage their resources on their own terms. Our Catalyzing Community Giving project and our work are rooted in this approach. We were excited about this project because it matched our values and allowed us to be innovative ourselves by creating the first-of-its-kind giving platform to direct more resources to grassroots initiatives. 

Q:  How are you documenting this project?

Reservation communities are by and large isolated from each other so we publish what we’ve learned often and share best practices. This provides a way to share lessons learned, successes, and resources to build capacity and knowledge in Native communities. There are 567 tribes recognized in the U.S. and there’s no way to reach every single one of them.

Our online giving platform, NativeGiving.org, documents many successful projects in Native communities. In fact, NativeGiving.org was featured in Indian Country Today. Our latest report, Telling Our Giving Stories: Native Philanthropy and Community Development, details the growth of the Native philanthropic sector over the past 40 years, successful tribal grantmaking models, and the highly positive implications for the development and expansion of Native economies and the civil society sector in reservation communities. 

Q:  Where can people go to find additional information?

First Nations believes in widely sharing best practices, key findings and successful or promising models with practitioners in Indian Country, government entities (federal, state, local and tribal), mainstream philanthropy, and the public at large.

Our online Knowledge Center is open to the public at www.firstnations.org/knowledge-center. We also send email alerts and news directly to our mailing list. Sign up on our website.

Of course, we encourage people to visit nativegiving.org to learn more about the great work happening in Native communities.

Women Helping Women: How Three Groups Are Enabling and Inspiring Women of Color to Lead Change in Their Communities

A few years ago, the San Francisco-based Latino Community Foundation noticed a significant uptick in the number of Latino women donors asking how to get more involved in its work to help vulnerable Latino families and children. “They wanted to give back in a deeper manner,” says Sara Velten, the foundation’s VP of philanthropy.

In response, the foundation organized its first giving circle, launched in November 2012. In its first two years, that giving circle—made up of an intergenerational group of Latina women from highly diverse backgrounds—distributed $30,000 in small grants to mainly women-led groups doing powerful work in their community. “It’s unbelievable what these organizations have been able to do with [these grants],” says Velten. “And the fact that they’re getting individual support from Latinas—from mothers like them—it’s very special for them.”

The Latino Community Foundation currently has five giving circles, four of them all female. With its Catalyzing Community Giving grant, the organization is working to grow its giving circle program—and to further engage Latina donors. “The format is very appealing to women,” Velten says. “And it’s unbelievable how they now use their voices in ways they wouldn’t even think about a few years ago.”

“We know that women will give if they are also taking action,” says K. Sujata, president and CEO of the Chicago Foundation for Women, an organization with a long history of developing women and girls as leaders and philanthropists. The foundation is now using this principle to guide its Catalyzing Community Giving work to grow—and, importantly, diversify—its donor base. “The focus of our project is to engage more donors and expand the diversity of our donors, at all levels of giving,” she says.  

One cohort of donors the foundation hopes to more fully engage is millennials—specifically, young women of color. The organization already boasts a giving circle made up almost entirely of millennials. But recruiting more young women donors means “finding out what moves them and what activates them,” says Sujata, adding that this cohort is particularly driven by issues related to justice.

Meanwhile, the Women’s Foundation for Greater Memphis is also using its Catalyzing Community Giving grant to recruit new women to philanthropy, albeit in a different way. The organization is helping local women of color-led civic organizations to secure more donors and more resources by enhancing their communications and messaging strategies—particularly those designed to engage donors of color in their work and their programs. 

Helping these organizations develop the messaging that touches the hearts of donors of color—and taps into what executive director Ruby Bright calls their “deep spirit of giving”—is a key part of this effort. The foundation is also teaching these organizations and their leaders about fund development and how to expand their programs to achieve further impact.

Through these efforts, all three foundations are learning more than they ever knew before about how to inspire women of color to engage even more deeply in and through philanthropy. “This project is a learning lab for us,” says Bright.