This give guide has been curated in honor of Native American Heritage Month and includes Native-led and Indigenous-serving organizations making significant advancements to ensure that Indigenous peoples in the Bay Area powerfully thrive.
The region known as the Bay Area is occupied and unceded Ohlone Land. The First Nations people of the land are Chochenyo, Lisjan, Karkin, Yelamu Ramaytush, Yokuts, and Muwekma. Other Indigenous groups in the region include the Graton Rancheria community (Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo), Kashaya, Patwin, Mishewal Wappo, Bay Miwok, and Tamien. European, Spanish, and American colonization, genocidal practices, and current-day systemic oppression have created and continue to create challenges to Indigenous sovereignty. Land acknowledgments are a small part of the liberation work necessary to unlearn colonizer thinking and behaviors. We believe that moving beyond acknowledgment and following the lead of Indigenous leaders with reparative actions and generous resource mobilization are necessary to stand in solidarity with Indigenous communities.
We invite you to join us and donors in the SFF community in recommending a grant by December 11, 2023, to celebrate Native American Heritage Month and ensure that 2024 is a more prosperous and powerful year for Indigenous communities in our region. For additional or customized recommendations, please contact your personal Philanthropic Advisor or email donorservices [at] sff.org.
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in native Ohlone lands here in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. The name of the land trust is inspired by a sacred place for and a sacred struggle for Ohlone peoples to protect the sacred site from desecration. Since its founding, this group has continued advancing racial equity and economic inclusion through community organizing, policy advocacy, land stewardship, and rematriation work with local and state governments, tribal councils, foundations, non-profit organizations, donors, and corporate partnerships. Sogorea Te’ is a transformative leader and change maker galvanizing communities toward healing, cultural revitalization, and rematriation of indigenous lands.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Sogorea Te Land Trust
Short purpose: For general operating support.
Friendship House Association of American Indians (Friendship House SF)
The Friendship House Association of American Indians, founded in 1953, is one of the oldest, longstanding Indigenous-led organizations in the nation. San Francisco is on the land of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, who called this place home since time began, but who, like most Indigenous peoples in our country, have been largely displaced by hundreds of years of U.S. policy of removal, assimilation, and extermination. Friendship House continues leading work to reclaim and rebuild community for San Francisco’s Indigenous peoples that is rooted in Indigenous practices and ancestral ways to advance community power, advocacy, healing, and cultural revitalization with the belief that culture is medicine.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Friendship House Association of American Indians, Inc
Short purpose: For general operating support.
Indigenous Healing Center (IHC)
The Indigenous Healing Center is an intergenerational, intertribal, Indigenous-led and operated organization in Northern California serving historically marginalized communities. Utilizing Indigenous approaches, IHC leads with the purpose of addressing underlying inequities through a resurgence and reclamation of Indigenous cultures and lifeways as the source of healing, community power, and wellness.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Indigenous Healing Center
Fiscal Sponsor: Possibility Labs
Short purpose: For general operating support.
Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS)
Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) exists to restore and recover the role of Two-Spirit people within the American Indian/First Nations community by creating a forum for the spiritual, cultural, and artistic expression of Two-Spirit people. They are committed to holding space for our Indigenous Queer/Two-Spirit community in many forms, such as drag transformation workshops, film screenings, and sacred ceremonies.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits
Fiscal Sponsor: The Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples
Purpose: For general operating support.
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ)
CURYJ (pronounced ‘courage’) is a Native-led organization building community and mobilizing young leaders in the movement to end youth criminalization and mass incarceration. CURYJ unlocks the power and leadership of young people to dream beyond bars, creates alternatives to incarceration, and leads violence prevention, restorative justice, and culturally rooted healing programming. CURYJ provides life coaching, professional development, political education, and hands-on experience working on policy and grassroots campaigns so that young people can lead the way in transforming our communities by investing in their healing, aspirations, and activism.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ)
Short purpose: For general operating support.
Intertribal Friendship House (IFH)
Intertribal Friendship House (IFH), located in Oakland, CA, was established in 1955 as one of the first urban American Indian community centers in the nation. It was founded by the American Friends Service Committee to serve the needs of American Indian people relocated from reservations to the San Francisco Bay Area. The mission of IFH is to promote the ability of Native people to thrive in an urban environment through ceremony, traditions, cultural connection, and to provide a safe environment to strengthen cultural identity and promote healthy inter-generational healing for Native families.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Intertribal Friendship House
Short purpose: For general operating support.
Native American Health Center (NAHC)
The Native American Health Center (NAHC) in Oakland, California, is a community-based healthcare organization that provides comprehensive medical, dental, behavioral health, and wellness services to Native Americans and Alaska Natives living in the Oakland area and the broader San Francisco Bay Area. NAHC is committed to improving the health and well-being of Native American communities by offering culturally competent and holistic healthcare, community outreach, education, and policy advocacy efforts to improve the health and social well-being of Native American communities.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Native American Health Center
Short purpose: For general operating support.
Native Voices Rising (NVR)
Native Voices Rising is a research, donor education, re-granting, and capacity-building collaborative created and led by Common Counsel Foundation and Native Americans in Philanthropy. Native Voices Rising is designed to support organizing, advocacy, and civic engagement in American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. Native Voices Rising serves as a mechanism to build broad-based philanthropic support for grassroots groups led by and for Native communities and to amplify Native voices elevating indigenous solutions to historic harms and society’s most pressing issues.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: Common Counsel Foundation
Short purpose: To support Native Voices Rising.
American Indian Child Resource Center (AICRC)
The American Indian Child Resource Center (AICRC) is an American Indian-led organization dedicated to supporting First Nations American Indian and Alaska Native children and their families in healing from histories of forced removal, historical oppression from the impacts of forced boarding schools, and the criminalization of Indigenous cultures and practices. AICRC focuses on youth development through foster care and mental health support, education, and cultural protective factors, as well as advocacy systems change work to address the unique needs and challenges of American Indian children and communities. The mission of AICRC is to empower multi-tribal American Indian communities to preserve and promote the cultural integrity of American Indian youth and their families.
Donor Center Specifics:
Organization Name: American Indian Child Resource Center
Short Purpose: For general operating support.
