Ways to Support Indigenous Issues and Native-Led Organizations

Last week we celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day. And soon, Native American Heritage Month and Thanksgiving will be upon us. It’s a good time to think about how we show up for Native people. There are many things you can do, from land acknowledgments to avoiding expressions that disparage Native cultures (example: “Indian giver”) to supporting Native artists, creators, and businesses. Check out these additional dos and don’ts. One of the best ways is to learn from, take action with, and donate to Native-led organizations. There are so many organizations and causes to choose from. Here are a few to get you started.

Get inspired!

Before we get started, what term should I use?

There are more than 467.6 million Indigenous people, belonging to 5,000 different groups, in over 90 countries around the world. In the U.S., there are 6.8 million Native people from more than 600 tribal nations. They represent different customs and cultures with unique histories. As a result, there is not a universally preferred term to express one’s identity. In some countries, you may hear the terms “Aboriginal,” “First Nations,” or “First Peoples.” In the U.S., you may hear the terms “Native,” “Native American,” “Indigenous,” or “American Indian,” among others. Many now prefer to use their tribal name. When in doubt, use the term preferred by the person you are speaking with or referring to.

Promote indigenous solutions to injustice

Many traditional and contemporary indigenous practices incorporate holistic approaches that have the opportunity to produce healthier and more sustainable social, political, economic, and environmental outcomes.  Indigenous cultures across the globe have a rich history of responsibly stewarding and equitably sharing resources.  Native peoples’ ways of doing and being are central to creating a more just and equitable world.  Here are some grassroots organizations doing just that: 

Eastern Woodlands Rematriation 

EWR is reclaiming the right to food and relationship to the earth for indigenous peoples.  They initiate and help sustain existing community-led food and medicine projects across tribal communities in the Northeast. They center Indigenous womxn and two-spirits as medicine people, midwives, and food producers to promote food and economic systems that are more resilient and just. Learn more and donate. 

Giniw Collective

Giniw Collective is an Indigenous-women, two-spirit led frontline resistance to protect Mother Earth, defend the sacred, and live in balance.  As water protectors, they are on the frontlines to stop the Enbridge new Line 3 oil pipeline (see the Stop Line 3 movement). Learn more and donate. 

Native Justice Coalition

The Native Justice Coalition is a platform for healing, social, and racial justice by and for Native American people. They are based in the Anishinaabe Nation and work across rural and remote communities in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and beyond. Native Justice Coalition emphasizes working in rural, remote, and reservation communities where few grant or philanthropic dollars are directed. Learn more and donate. 

Pueblo Action Alliance

Pueblo Action Alliance cultivates ancestral wisdom to create communities and economies that meet the needs of the Pueblo people through Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty. They use indigenous solutions as means to dismantle and eradicate white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, and extractive colonialism. Learn more and donate.

Change the narrative

Narratives are cultural ideas and stories that influence how we view and understand the world. Narratives are most often controlled by entities with power such as the government, media, education, and entertainment.  They can rewrite history, spread misinformation, and reinforce toxic stereotypes.  Or, they can be a force for good.  For far too long, the narrative around Native peoples’ history and current reality has been erased or centered in falsehoods and damaging stereotypes.  That’s starting to change, thanks to organizations like these:

IllumiNative

IllumiNative supports and illuminates contemporary Native voices, stories, issues, and ideas in popular culture and influential social institutions – including the entertainment industry, media, K-12 education, philanthropy, and government.  IllumiNative advances an important new narrative about Native peoples rooted in a more powerful, more accurate, and more inspiring narrative about the contemporary Native experience – one of innovation, creativity, resilience, and community.  Learn more and donate. 

Rematriation

Rematriation is a digital storytelling platform engaged in film production, digital content creation, and community engagement. It also publishes Rematriation Magazine, focused on shifting narratives, defying stereotypes, and reflecting the experiences of Haudenosaunee and Indigenous women.  Learn more and donate.

Warrior Women Project

Warrior Women Project is a collaborative of matriarchs, historians, community organizers, and multimedia storytellers working to bring to light the radical impact of Indigenous women through recent history. They believe the stories of matriarchs should be told in their own words—as organizers, thinkers, relatives, community leaders, and changemakers. They combine oral history, contemporary media, and transformative scholarship to bridge the divide between frontline communities, academia, and the mainstream media machine. Learn more and donate.

Defend tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural resource protection

The U.S. has consistently broken treaties with Indigenous nations.  These unfulfilled legal obligations — along with a federal court system that lacks adequate Native representation or experience with Indian law issues, and makes Native rights cases harder to win — threaten all aspects of Native life, from self-governance to land management to voting rights.  These organizations are defending Native rights:

Native American Rights Fund

NARF is the national Native American legal defense fund that works to protect Native American rights, resources, and lifeways through litigation, legal advocacy, and expertise.  Learn more and donate. 

Water Protector Legal Collective

Born out of the No Dakota Access Pipeline (NoDAPL) protest movement, Water Protector Legal Collective serves as the on-the-ground legal team for the Indigenous-led resistance and provides legal aid to water protectors. Learn more and donate.

Support tribal colleges and universities

Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) provide a nurturing environment for Native students to thrive. Genocide, relocation, and forced assimilation of Native people by colonists, settlers, and post-colonial powers sought to destroy Native ways of being.  From 1869 to the 1960s, Native children were often forcibly removed from their homes and sent to government-led boarding schools (aka Indian Residential Schools) where they were forced to assimilate to Euro-American culture. They suffered a system of systematic abuse, malnourishment, and neglect.  And, today communities continue to fight for the return of the remains of Indigenous children who died and were buried on school grounds. 

TCUs provide Native people with the right to shape their own education. Given the history, tribal colleges and universities preserve and restore Native languages, practices, and cultural traditions.  They allow students to reclaim what was taken away through colonization.  TCUs also create opportunities for students who might not otherwise enter or complete college and who may be academically underprepared for college.  Finally, they typically cost less, helping decrease the racial wealth gap by lowering student loan debt for low- and middle-income Native Americans. 

Learn more from, take action with, and donate to:

• A TCU. Today, there are about 40 TCUs across 16 states.  Explore this list of tribal colleges and universities. 

• The American Indian College Fund provides financial support to Native American students and TCUs.  

• Or the Boarding School Descendants Scholarship Fund.

  
  

Having trouble deciding? Donate to a fund.

Funds collect donations from individuals like you and redistribute the money in the form of grants and technical support. These grantmakers often curate groups across geographies and issue areas to achieve specific goals.  Check out the following:

Cultural Survival

Cultural Survival works with Indigenous populations around the world toward a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression, rooted in self-determination and self-governance.  Learn more and donate. 

NDN Collective

NDN Collective builds the collective power of Indigenous Peoples, communities, and Nations to exercise their inherent right to self-determination while fostering a world that is built on a foundation of justice and equity for all people and the planet. Learn more and donate. 

Seventh Generation Fund 

Seventh Generation Fund focuses on cultural revitalization, leadership development, tribal sovereignty, and culturally appropriate economic development. Learn more and donate.

Take action

• Visit the websites of the organizations in this post and learn about their work.

• Commit to taking at least one action based on what you learn. Many have “take action” alerts and volunteer opportunities to get involved in addition to donating.

• Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis.  Everyone has something important to offer. We present a range of actions that empower you to help in ways that are right for you. Whether you have five minutes or five hours, you can make a difference. Learn more in our How To Be An Everyday Activist guide.

• Share this information to help others show up for Native people.

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Originally published October 19, 2021.

Posts identify both fast actions that you can take in under five minutes and more time-intensive actions that deepen your engagement.  Our fast actions tend to be time-bound, as a result, some posts in the archive may contain expired links. Not to fret, we also recommend anytime actions that never go out of date.