Amid a cacophony of proposed solutions and doomsday naysayers flailing to address a growing climate crisis, Indigenous voices are being uplifted over the din by a wave of grant funding dedicated to healing both the Earth and the wounds of colonialism.
"We're presenting a new way to do philanthropy — 'indigenizing philanthropy,' so to speak — so that both practices and the amount of resources change," explained Edgar Villanueva, founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project(opens in a new tab), author of the "Money as Medicine(opens in a new tab)" guided journal, and creator of the "7 Steps to Healing(opens in a new tab)" giving framework.
The Decolonizing Wealth Project is a network of community members, donors, and philanthropic recipients who have banded together to create more equitable, unrestricted capital opportunities for communities of color, including Indigenous land keepers, cultural preservationists, and political advocates. Through the project and its associated grant opportunities, Villanueva and the rest of the network are setting out to address the trauma of financial inequality and extractive colonialism — systems that have exacted devastating tolls on Indigenous communities in the United States — as well as challenge the inherent dynamics of control that are attached to material giving. In doing so, the project is designed to foster a sense of sovereignty among organizations and greater trust between giver and recipient, shifting power out of ivory towers and toward those on the ground.
The reality of diverse climate philanthropy
The organization launched its Liberated Capital(opens in a new tab) funding arm in 2019 to disrupt an inequitable giving structure through a reparations- and justice-based model. "One of the driving forces behind it is that Indigenous communities are grossly underfunded and underrepresented in the sector," Villanueva explained.
Although there is a sense of urgency driving donor-based funding to address climate change, "typical philanthropic behavior" preserves an exclusive flow of capital, he said. "The vast majority of resources are going to large, white-led institutions and not Indigenous folks who have been the stewards of land for time immemorial."
Indeed, while $7.5 billion to $12.5 billion in philanthropic giving focused on climate change mitigation in 2021, "funding has disproportionately gone to large, white-funded, and white-led organizations that do not center BIPOC community needs in their climate strategies — and has prioritized 'Big Greens' rather than grassroots organizations that are more closely connected to frontline communities," according to a 2022 climate change mitigation philanthropy report(opens in a new tab) from the ClimateWorks Foundation.
A 2020 report(opens in a new tab) by Building Equity and Alignment for Impact (BEA) and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School identified only one percent of environmental philanthropy being dedicated to environmental justice(opens in a new tab) organizations, noting potential barriers that included a lack of access to funding information, structural and institutional racism, and diverging world views and theories of change between advocates and their funders.
In opposition to this sector-wide imbalance, Liberated Capital pools the resources of more than 600 supportive donors connected in an online community to foster liberation and racial healing through initiatives led by people of color. The organization and its donor community contribute to several grants outside of the mainstream philanthropy pipeline, including direct cash assistance(opens in a new tab) and unrestricted reparations funds that benefit a diverse group of grantees(opens in a new tab).
They've also launched the Indigenous Earth Fund(opens in a new tab), an annual grant opportunity for Indigenous-led organizations targeting climate and conservation issues, acknowledging the pressing need to address this disparity in light of the growing climate crisis and increased environmental activism.
The fund supplies varied amounts of untethered grants, ranging from $50,000 to $75,000 a year, to groups working within these communities, all of which offer their own solutions and Indigenous frameworks for fixing our relationship with the Earth. Solutions range from the conservation of traditional practices(opens in a new tab) and the preservation of native flora and fauna(opens in a new tab), to landback initiatives(opens in a new tab) and alternative energy sources(opens in a new tab).
"Indigenous people globally protect the vast majority of the Earth's biodiversity, are deeply connected to the land and taking care of this planet, and have not been supported in their work," Villanueva noted. "We created this fund to disrupt the flow of capital and say, 'Hey! Right here, in this country, we have amazing climate activists. They're folks who are leading efforts to conserve land, who have been doing this work and are experts in this area, and should be invested in, because they have something to teach everybody about how to take care of this planet.'"
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While the fund has given out a comparably modest $2.1 million to organizations within a multi-billion-dollar sector, the grants are still vital operating support for small, Indigenous-led organizations, and the greater effect is in connecting these community actors to previously inaccessible resources.
"The feedback has been that we are an on-ramp to support and gaining more visibility, one that opens the door for funding," Villanueva said of Liberated Capital's initiatives. "It brings credibility to their work, often for larger foundations to take note. That's because of our broader influence in the sector of philanthropy and the ways that we've been able to successfully advocate for change. When we are able to fund an organization through Liberated Capital, many of those groups are then able to leverage our investments or raise additional dollars."
Rematriating the land
The Indigenous Earth Fund launched in 2021 and announced its first $1 million cohort of 16 grantees in 2022. In 2023, the fund scaled up to award 23 recipients from a funding pool of just over $1.1 million — a hopeful signal to other philanthropic organizations that the group's mission is succeeding.
"We describe our funding as untethered resources. All of the funding that we move is general operating support. We don't require people to provide really rigorous budgets. They submit a very short narrative around what they're doing, who they are, the impact of their work," Villanueva said. "We have an advisory committee comprised of all Indigenous peoples who have expertise around the ecosystem of work happening in America and different issues, who read the proposals and collectively decide how to redistribute the money. All of that is trusting folks who are doing this work."
In addition to an environmental focus, the fund supports organizations that are specifically Indigenous-led and that engage in community power-building, through efforts such as advocacy, public education, or otherwise advancing long-term, systemic change. Decolonizing Wealth Project is an Indigenous-founded organization itself, and the presence of Native voices on the funder's side makes all the difference to applicants, Villanueva said.
"There's very few Indigenous-specific funding initiatives. I think a lot of times, Native communities can have a distrust of big philanthropy," he explained. "For some of our partners, we are the first grant that they've ever received for their work."
One of the recipients in both cohorts is the Sogorea Te' Land Trust(opens in a new tab), an Indigenous women-led land trust formed through the organizing of inter-tribal communities in California's Bay Area. In 1999, Indigenous advocates stepped out in opposition to a construction project that threatened Sogorea Te', a 3,500-year-old Indigenous (Karkin Ohlone) village and burial site (also known as shellmounds) located at Glen Cove in Vallejo, California. Members of this coalition included Corrina Gould and Johnella LaRose, founders of Indian People Organizing for Change and later the Sogorea Te' Land Trust, who organized a mass walk, and occupation of the grounds 12 years later, to protest against the city project, demanding the return of the remains to the community.
The years-long experience introduced Gould and LaRose to the concept of land trusts and cultural easements — or the designated stewardship of land areas — for both federally and non-federally recognized tribes, which Gould told Mashable was a kind of gatekept tool among a "boys' club" of leaders, Indigenous or otherwise.
"It was important that we had this conversation about men running land trusts," Gould said about starting the Sogorea Te' group with LaRose. "What did that mean? How did that equate to what has happened to women through colonization — what continues to happen to women's bodies and what continues to happen to the Earth — in terms of rape and destruction? We talked about where it was our responsibilities as Indigenous women to bring back that balance, to remind our sons and our brothers and our nephews and uncles of their sacred responsibilities that have also been taken away through colonization. How do we as women, who have songs for the waterways and our plants, our medicines, our basket materials, bring that back?"
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The two created the Sogorea Te' Land Trust to protect sacred areas in the region despite not being a federally recognized tribe. Eventually the group took ownership of a quarter acre of land known as Lisjan(opens in a new tab) in East Oakland, building the first sovereign cultural site on that rematriated piece of land in more than 250 years. Since then, the trust has taken on the fight to reclaim other pieces of land in the area, building gardens and other cultural communities and using them to preserve environmental heritage. They are also introducing Indigenous community resources like Himmetka(opens in a new tab), or climate and social emergency centers that provide water, food, and medicine to the urban populace in response to climate change.
"We are born of the land, not apart from it," Gould explained. "It's our responsibility as Indigenous people to take care of the lands that we were born to, so that's what we're doing. We're trying to figure out how we do that in this urban place."
The group also participates in, and advocates for on the state level, the broader principle of Shuumi(opens in a new tab), or land taxes paid by inhabitants to the Indigenous communities that used to live on (and now steward) the land. It's a concept introduced by the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples(opens in a new tab), and favored by many other Indigenous groups nationwide, as a solution to mass underfunding and the slow pace to give land back. "We want to be good hosts, but we need good guests," Gould said. "How can you be good guests?"
In comparison to more technological solutions favored by many environmental philanthropists, the Sogorea Te' Land Trust offers a socio-cultural, systemic solution to the climate crisis. It suggests that our climate problems are linked to the disconnect between humans and land, combined with a general disregard of native environments, and that to fix it, the land should be returned to its mothers.
Combining Earth stewardship, education, and art
Other grantees approach environmental solutions through mass public education and representation, like those offered by the Washington-based organization Children of the Setting Sun Productions(opens in a new tab), a nonprofit conservation group and production company.
The work of Children of the Setting Sun Productions supports the cultural and environmental protection of the Salmon People(opens in a new tab), or Coast Salish Tribes, which have been negatively impacted by extreme salmon loss in the Pacific Northwest(opens in a new tab). In collaboration with local universities, the group has led and published cultural research projects and hosted public ceremonies on college campuses. It's also building a think tank for climate solutions hosted through its burgeoning Setting Sun Institute(opens in a new tab), described on the organization's website:
A think tank rooted in Salish wisdom can yield abundant benefits. It can house expertise on water policy and the energy industry that Native-led movements can use to dismantle harmful development like river-wrecking dams and industrial-scale fossil fuel development. It can provide analysis to address thorny questions about tradeoffs between energy needs, economic development, conservation, and Tribal sovereignty. It can demonstrate the imperatives and benefits of restoring the natural world in a time of climate disruption. And perhaps most importantly, it can provide a space to grow the next generation of visionary Native leaders who can provide meaningful answers to the challenges of injustice and climate disruption.
Most notably, the organization has used multimedia storytelling and art as a form of dynamic preservation, producing documentary videos (and a feature-length film, Salmon People) that combines elder storytelling, environmental research, and the broader Washington community.
"We're in a time where we need to step out of our own comfort zone and our own silos," said Darrell Hillaire, executive director and founder of Children of the Setting Sun Productions. "This form of activism is about telling stories about ourselves, for ourselves. It's a response to the times."
Free Borsey, the organization's project coordinator and production assistant, represents a youth-focused subsect of the Indigenous-led climate movement, one which is encouraging young activists to feel connected to the Earth, disavow materialism, and respect generational wisdom. Children of the Setting Sun Productions published its first repository of Indigenous ancestral knowledge, a book and cultural resource titled Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders,(opens in a new tab) in April.
"One of the more overlooked jobs that Children of the Setting Sun Productions does is bring up the next generation in a hopeful, empowering space, where we are trusted with big tasks and leading projects that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do," Borsey explained. The organization also runs the Young Tribal Leaders Program(opens in a new tab), which teaches young members cultural and professional skills — ranging from podcast production to university fieldwork — benefiting both the climate movement and Indigenous advocacy.
"By uplifting Indigenous cultures and stories," Borsey said, "you can gain more perspective on what it means to be Indigenous and to care for the land, to love the land not just as a commodity, but as something to be inherently loved and cared for."
Shifting traditional power dynamics toward healing
Leaders from both the Sogorea Te' Land Trust and Children of the Setting Sun spoke of a gradual shift they've witnessed in philanthropy, one which suggests large donors might finally be willing to listen to their ideas, and fund their efforts without the need to defend the significance of Indigenous culture and environmental spirituality at every turn. The Decolonizing Wealth Project and its Indigenous Earth Fund serve as a philanthropy-driven megaphone for this cry to reduce barriers to environmental justice and to implement community-driven solutions.
The fund's multi-figure grassroots efforts also bolster federal and state initiatives attempting to put power in communities in order to address every level of the climate crisis.
In 2019, the state of California established an Indigenous-led Truth & Healing Council(opens in a new tab), the first state project of its kind(opens in a new tab) to record the area's Native culture and document historic actions against Indigenous communities, as well as to explore restorative and reparative laws. In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a $100 million funding opportunity(opens in a new tab) for "tribal initiatives that advance shared climate and biodiversity goals including research, development and implementation of traditional knowledge; workforce training, capacity building and technical support; and tribal nature-based climate conservation programs, among others."
Funded by the Liberated Capital donors and Decolonizing Wealth Project, the California Truth & Healing Fund(opens in a new tab) was introduced to "support the engagement of California Native American families, communities, tribes and organizations in the [state's] healing opportunities." Combined with the Indigenous Earth Fund, these projects support more than 30 Indigenous-led organizations and tribes in self-determination efforts.
In January, the Biden administration announced an additional $100 million in federal funding(opens in a new tab) for "projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country." It was the largest ever grant commitment from the Environmental Project Agency (EPA) pegged for environmental justice efforts, following the 2022 introduction of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and President Joe Biden's $60 billion climate commitment through the Inflation Reduction Act.
"President Biden and I have been clear: We must ground our work to address the climate crisis and our greatest environmental challenges in justice and equity. The establishment of a new office dedicated to advancing environmental justice and civil rights at EPA will ensure the lived experiences of underserved communities are central to our decision-making while supporting community-driven solutions,” said Vice President Kamala Harris in the program's announcement.
"While we feel very proud of our $2.1 million, there's so much more investment that is needed," Villanueva said of the Indigenous Earth Fund's work. "From the Bezos Earth Fund(opens in a new tab) to the World Bank(opens in a new tab), we have all kinds of folks moving significant dollars. But any solution that is not centering Indigenous people is questionable.
"I think we have got to listen to folks who have been doing this work, and have deep spiritual cultural connections to the land, to help us get our way out of this crisis."
Despite federal pledges to support communities most affected by the climate crisis, the reverberating effects of centuries of Indigenous exploitation are hard to overcome. "The same government that harmed is now leading your healing," reflected Villanueva, noting that Indigenous voices are still at risk of being left out without an overhaul of how we center and prioritize community knowledge — and the ways we financially support Indigenous problem-solving.
"Through the opportunity to reframe money and giving as medicine, as something sacred, we've been able to tear down those traditional power dynamics of giver and recipient," he explained. "I reframe the question to be, 'How can we all be powerful? How can we all connect as humans and be liberated from that need to dominate and control?'
"We're not begging for money for Indigenous people or Black people, we're actually extending an invitation, a lifeline into your own humanity, to be a part of a collective healing process."
