Join Potlatch Fund as we celebrate the beautiful vibrancy of our Native communities at Potlatch Fund’s 19th Annual Gala on November 6, 2021. This will be a virtual event. Featured Performers include, Raye Zaragoza, Khu.éex’, and Hailey Tayathy. [Read More]
The Resiliency Fund Reveals Immense and Enduring Need in Native Communities To Our Giving Partners, Early in 2021, we asked for funding and your trust, and you gave us both. The result was the Resiliency Fund, representing a new, more inclusive vision of grantmaking. With the Resiliency Fund, we removed barriers by streamlining our application process and broadening eligibility requirements. We reached deeper than ever into our communities. Starting in June, the applications flooded into our Seattle office from every corner of our four-state service area—and many of them were from first-time applicants. Through their stories, we learned just how big and pervasive the needs remain in Indian Country. Now, we ask for your continued help as the COVID-19 pandemic
To Our Resiliency Fund Grantee Partners–Keep Sending Us Your Dreams. When we opened up the Resiliency Fund on June 21, we asked you to bring us your hopes and plans for the future. We asked you to dream with us. After more than a year of COVID-19 social distancing and lockdowns, we wanted to know about your visions for moving forward and strengthening Indigenous lifeways across generations and communities. We also wanted to learn more about the needs in your communities—because we trust you to know them best. The Resiliency Fund is open to applicants in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Grants are available to Tribal departments and organizations for both programs and general operations; and to individual Native artists,
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 18, 2021 Pandemic reveals immense needs and continued inequities affecting Native American communities: Potlatch Fund commits to raising additional $7 million for its Resiliency Fund SEATTLE, October, 18 2021 – When COVID-19 began circulating throughout the population in March last year, many philanthropic foundations suspended their usual grantmaking programs and streamlined their processes to offer emergency funding. Potlatch Fund, a Seattle-based Native-led foundation serving Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, also suspended its usual grant programs to offer COVID relief funding to grantee partners. Then, as the pandemic continued and the foundation planned for the future, it decided to make some permanent changes in the way it disbursed grant funding. The result of that planning was the
Indigenous Weaver, Ace Baker Sr. Mt. Vernon, WashingtonA Resiliency Fund Grantee Partner It was during a Canoe Journey to Puyallup three years ago that Ace Baker Sr. first thought about making himself a cedar hat. Baker and his family were camped in a spot away from where the main ceremonies were being held, and it was hot and dusty. He saw people walking around with cedar hats on, protecting them from the sun. Fortunately, he and his family were traveling at the time with their friend Aurelia Bailey, the cultural events coordinator for the Swinomish Tribal Community. Baker asked her if she would teach him to make a hat. “That knowledge was passed down to her—that line of knowledge goes
Join Potlatch Fund as we celebrate the beautiful vibrancy of our Native communities at Potlatch Fund’s 19th Annual Gala on November 6, 2021. This will be a virtual event. This year we welcome Keynote Speaker Deborah Parker and the Puyallup Tribe as our host nation. [Read More]
The Young Warrior Society Nespelem, WashingtonA Resiliency Fund Grantee Partner It was going to be a year of program expansion, of dreams coming to fruition, of increasing visibility in the community and beyond. A worldwide pandemic had other plans. Since 2018, Tem Xwu lough First Food and Families—located on the Colville Indian Reservation, in the town of Nespelem, Wash.—has been building connections and conducting education workshops in the community in order to pass critical cultural knowledge and skills to the next generation. One of its programs, the Young Warrior Society, regularly attracted youth from all over North Central Washington to its programs and activities, as well as up to 40 volunteers. At the center of activities for the organization were
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJuly 27, 2021 “If you can dream it, we are seeking to fund it.”Native-led Potlatch Fund seeks grant applicants for Resiliency Fund grant opportunity. SEATTLE, July 27, 2021 – Native-led Potlatch Fund is asking the Native community to “Bring us your dreams.” by applying for this new funding opportunity to address evolving community needs and long-term impacts of COVID-19. The Resiliency Fund is open to applicants serving Native communities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana and is available to Tribal departments and organizations for both programs and general operations, and to individual Native artists, both traditional and contemporary–visual, performing and multi-media. So far, two rounds of grants have been awarded to individual Native artists and organizations serving Native
Potlatch Fund and the Future of Philanthropy Something exciting happened to philanthropy last year because of COVID-19. Across the country, a number of prominent, large foundations began publicly adopting the tenets of trust-based philanthropy and community-based philanthropy, guided by the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. Partly they did this in order to get emergency funding quickly to community organizations “on the ground” that were responding to the many crises brought on or worsened by the pandemic. In trust-based philanthropy, the power dynamics between funders and grantee partners shift and have the potential to transform relationships. The result is a process that’s more personal and less transactional, more trusting and less suspicious, and more about sharing power than maintaining the
Potlatch Fund Resiliency Fund BRING US YOUR DREAMS Applications open June 21st, 2021. Dream with us. It’s a new day. Time to breathe deeper and to stand strong in our resilience. Time to gather and ignite new dreams. Time to light up our visions across our cultures. Time to lift up our hopes across our communities. Potlatch Fund invites you to help lead us forward. For our communities. For our cultures. For our relations. It’s time. Do you have a dream, a great idea, for serving your Indigenous community? We want to know. Is there a project or community program we can help fund? Are you a Native artist with passion, voice, vision? Are you called to be a
