The United States is home to 574 Native American tribes, each recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) as culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse from every other. Often known by the acronym AIAN, which stands for American Indian-Alaska Native, these tribes are distributed across the entirety of the country, though many are located in Alaska and California. On the whole they make up 1.3% of U.S. residents, or about 3.2 million people, but receive far less than proportional funding from large foundations—about 0.5%, according to various sources.
Though charitable funding isn't proportional to the level of need, there are many foundations that give to AIAN causes. A previous GrantStation look at this giving sector highlighted donors such as the First Nations Development Institute, which focuses on issues such as food sovereignty, and the Endangered Language Fund, whose mission includes language and cultural preservation. Scores of other groups small and large also give to the AIAN community, for issues ranging from schooling to habitat protection.
What Are Some Organizations Specializing in AIAN Aid?
There are hundreds of donors wholly or partially supporting Native American communities, and their areas of focus run the gamut.
Arts and Culture
- The First Peoples Fund supports Native American artists, culture, and ancestral practices.
- The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation supports artists, with the goal of strengthening Native communities and promoting positive social change.
- The American Philosophical Society's Phillips Fund for Native American Research focuses on ethnohistory, linguistics, and the history of studies of Native Americans.
Advocacy and Sovereignty
- Native Voices Rising works in the areas of advocacy and civic engagement.
- Running Strong for American Indian Youth focuses on leadership cultivation.
- Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples is dedicated to self-determination and sovereignty.
Community Development
- The Office of Indian Economic Development offers access to capital via grants and loans and provides technical assistance.
- The Administration for Native Americans provides financial assistance and capacity building grants.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development offers housing grants through its Indian Community Development Block Grant Program, Indian Housing Block Grant Program, and Indian Housing Block Grant-Competitive Grant Program.
- The U.S. Small Business Administration has offered grants through a pilot program, the Native American Trade Expansion Program.
In addition, there are numerous funding opportunities in areas such as education, health, and the environment offered by entities as diverse as the American Indian College Fund, the National Park Service, the American Indian Cancer Foundation, and megadonor MacKenzie Scott.
Broad Needs Within the AIAN Community
These and numerous other funders are making a full spectrum impact, one that's very much needed. According to 2022 data from the U.S. Office of Minority Health, about 20% of non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native families were experiencing poverty, compared to 5.9% of non-Hispanic white families. These numbers can vary. The Northwestern Institute for Policy Research says one of every three Native Americans are living in poverty. The U.S. Census Bureau has still another set of numbers, available in the graph below. Of the 100 poorest counties in the United States, four of the top five and ten of the top 20 are on reservations.
While the median income of the AIAN population is similar to that of African Americans and Latinos, Native American poverty can run extremely deep. Today, only about half of Native American homes are connected to a public sewer system, 16% have no indoor plumbing, and 14% are without electricity. In 2022 alone, child poverty more than doubled, after having fallen between 2019 and 2021, largely thanks to COVID-related relief measures.
Can AIAN Poverty Be Solved?
Poverty persists for multi-layered reasons that legislation can't easily mitigate, among them racism, decimation, isolation, deliberate policy, and economic trends. It wasn't until the 1976 Supreme Court decision Bryan v. Itasca County, which held that states did not have the authority to levy taxes within reservations nor to regulate Native American activities on their reservations, that AIAN communities that had controlled few levers of self-determination began to launch gaming activities in order to generate tribal revenue.
But since then, poverty has remained entrenched. Research conducted several years ago by Northwestern University sociologist Beth Redbird indicated that jobs in the Native American gaming sector fail to significantly move the needle on poverty due to the fact that casinos create an average of only fifteen jobs each, and those jobs tend to be low paying.
Deeper research suggests that a major driver of poverty is the sheer paucity of jobs. While Native American families have increased educational attainment since 1980, with more attending high school and college than before, employment rates have declined and per capita wages have decreased. Employment is simply in short supply. Economically thriving areas where jobs exist tend to be far from reservations, but in addition, nationwide wage stagnation means that securing steady work is no longer a guarantee—for any American—of rising out of poverty.
Developing Energy Resources on AIAN Lands
There are underexploited economic possibilities; however, they raise concerns in other areas. Generally, Native American reservations were relegated to land that was considered at the time to be useless because it lacked natural resources and fertile soil. Some of this land is now known to hold oil reserves. About 3% of U.S. oil now comes from Native lands, and up to 35% of total U.S. fossil fuel reserves may be beneath these lands, but profiting from it drives carbon emissions, which presents a complicated choice for people who have historically been stewards of North America's natural heritage.
Native American lands also happen to be good places for solar and wind energy generation, which is the focus of the Tribal Solar Accelerator Fund, a group seeking to catalyze the growth of solar energy and create job opportunities within the solar sector on Native territory. They aren't alone. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $25 million in funding opportunities for clean energy development in tribal areas. The role of these lands in a potential green energy transition could lead to increased economic opportunities, and notably, in the category of alternative energy, there are significant uranium deposits as well.
However, the research by Beth Redbird noted above suggests that the AIAN energy sector creates fewer jobs than one might expect. Thus, while energy production could generate enormous sums of money, a game-changing impact on poverty isn't assured. Even if it were, 86% of Native American lands with energy reserves remain untapped, and in our anthropogenic age of global heating, keeping reserves in the ground may be a benefit for all humanity.
Funding Helps but More Places at the Table Are Needed
For those researching Native American funding opportunities, there are many good resources available. In addition to GrantStation's own database, where hundreds of donors are listed that give money to causes important to AIAN communities, there are grant listings at the Department of Indian Affairs, firstnations.org, and other sites online. The hope is not only that the amount of available money increases for the AIAN community, but that these first occupants of the American continent receive more places at the table in the policy debates that determine their future.