For American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, giving has been at the heart of tribal society and the social compact since time immemorial. In cultural histories of the United States, Indians have been termed "America's first philanthropists," and individual Native Americans have been immortalized as icons of generosity and giving: prime examples include Squanto of the Patuxet tribe in 17 th century Massachusetts teaching the Pilgrims to plant corn, which established a mythohistorical foundation for the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States; the legend of the young Pocahontas of the Powhatans saving John Smith's life at the Jamestown Settlement in 17 th Century Virginia; and the Shoshone Sacagawea guiding the explorers Lewis and Clark to reach the Pacific Ocean on their explorations across the North American plains.
Giving a Central Ethic of Native Culture.
For Native people indigenous to North America, philanthropy means "the honor of giving." It means respecting and honoring both the giver and the recipient as essential and equal in the transaction of gift exchange. Since in life all things are related, the gift promotes balance for both participants in the exchange process and works to create harmony in the world. Giving by individuals to the community contributes to social harmony, reinforcing the interconnectedness of the members of the tribe or community with one another and with the rest of the universe. Giving by one individual to another honors the recipient, and by receiving the gift with grace and gratitude, the recipient in turn honors the giver, since the act of receiving the gift helps restore balance in the life of the giver.
A profound sense of the spiritual foundations of human and social ecology informs Native American attitudes towards giving. While the ceremonies, rituals, and philosophy of giving vary from one tribal culture to another, there is always an understanding of the principle of sharing and a broadly conceived serial reciprocity that is ultimately grounded in gratitude to the Creator for the gift of life. These principles are common to all ancient Native rituals of giving such as the potlatch of tribes indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, the giveaway of the Plains Indians, and the giving celebrations and feasts of the Pueblo tribes in the American Southwest. The gift must continue to be given, and to be passed on. Moving in a circle, the gift is alive, bonding individuals and families with the larger community, and connecting the present with both the past and the future.
Development of the Philanthropic Sector in Indian Country.
After centuries of struggle against white society's attempts to assimilate Indians
into EuroAmerican culture, in the 1960s Native American tribes moved into a period of self-determination and revivified tribal sovereignty. Concomitant with the expansion of the nonprofit sector in the nation at large, the last four decades of the twentieth century saw in Indian Country rapid growth of nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)3 voluntary organizations whose missions addressed issues of interest or concern to American Indians and Alaska Natives .
Among the earliest examples of voluntary nonprofit organizations dedicated to Native American causes is the Indian Rights Fund, founded in Philadelphia in 1882 by a group of white reformers and churchmen who supported civil rights and education for American Indians. At first advocating that complete assimilation into white culture was in the long-range interest of Native Americans and hence the solution to Indian-white relations, the IRA came eventually to support the independence and sovereignty of Indian nations, and sponsored the bill that became the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granting full citizenship to Native Americans. In 1911, the Society of American Indians was founded by a group of educated middle class Indians, including Charles Eastman (Santee Sioux) and Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai), as a pan-Indian organization advocating education and full citizenship rights for Native Americans. The brilliant Sioux activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, known as Zitkala-Sa, or Red Bird, joined the SAI around 1915 to establish the first of a series of community centers on reservations, not unlike the settlement houses arising in the cities to aid the urban poor. These served as a prototype for the urban Indian centers that evolved in later years to benefit Native Americans who migrated to the cities. As a base for her lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., to improve the conditions of American Indians, Bonnin founded in 1926 the National Council of American Indians. In 1946, two primarily white voluntary organizations, the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs (1924, renamed the National Association on Indian Affairs in 1933) and the American Indian Defense Fund (1934) merged to form the Association on American Indian Affairs, an important advocacy organization dedicated to the protection of Indian lands and Indians' constitutional rights.. The formation by Native Americans of voluntary nonprofit organizations dedicated to special Native issues and causes accelerated throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. One of the most important was the National Congress of American Indians, organized in 1944 to fight the federal policies of allotment of lands originating in the Dawes Act (1877) and that of tribal termination. Other examples include the National Indian Education Association (1969); the Native American Rights Fund, established in 1970 with funding from the Ford Foundation to provide legal aid and pursue social justice issues for Native Americans; Americans for Indian Opportunity (1970); the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (1977); the American Indian College Fund, founded in 1980 by the consortium of American Indian tribal colleges and brought to national prominence by the Phelps-Stokes Fund in 1987; Native Americans in Philanthropy (1990); and many with local or regional associations, such as Navajo United Way. One study concluded that at the turn of the century (2000) there were more than 1,500 nonprofit voluntary organizations operating in Indian Country.
New Assets, and New Forms of Philanthropy.
Following a 1987 Supreme Court decision sanctioning the right of tribes to conduct gaming operations on tribal lands and the subsequent passage by the U.S. Congress of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, revenues from tribal enterprises such as gaming casinos fueled a new prosperity for approximately one-quarter of the 550 federally recognized Indian tribes in the U.S. In addition to tribal economic development, a number of the compacts between state and tribal governments mandated that profits from such operations be deployed for the welfare of tribal members and for charitable and philanthropic purposes. As a result, some segments of Native American philanthropy have adopted modern institutional forms such as public charities and endowed foundations, adapting and reshaping them to fit time-honored Native values.
Since Native cultural values tend to emphasize redistribution, rather than accrual, of individual wealth, most modern Native American philanthropic entities have not taken the form of a private foundation, but rather that of a public charity, where the organization both raises public support and often serves as an intermediary in grantmaking. Even where there has been a major gift by an individual, as in the case of the Niheyan Foundation, endowed by the Cree performing artist Buffy Sainte Marie, the public charity form is more compatible to Native values of sharing and community participation. The First Nations Development Institute, for example, founded in 1980 and funded by foundations, corporations, and individuals, makes grants to tribes for economic and community development through its Eagle Staff Fund. Often established to serve a specific tribe, region, or community, some Native American foundations have created formal affiliations with existing community foundations; examples are the Hopi Foundation (with the Arizona Community Foundation) and the Two Feathers Fund (St. Paul Community Foundation). The adaptation of community philanthropy to Native American cultures has resulted in innovative philanthropic strategies and techniques such as modifying the decisional process in grantmaking to involve members of the communities being served. Other Native foundations focus on a specific issue: examples include the Seventh Generation Fund, founded in 1977 to promote "full recovery of Native sovereignty," and the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, established with a $20 million grant by the Northwest Area Foundation in 2001, to work to restore aboriginal land rights. The regional corporations resulting from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971) enabled the establishment of philanthropic organizations such as the CIRI Foundation (Cook Inlet Region Inc., 1982); the Sealaska Heritage Institute (formed "to perpetuate Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian culture," 1982); and the Doyon Foundation (Athabascan, 1989). Additionally, enabled by powers granted by the Indian Tribal Government Tax Status Act of 1983 (Internal Revenue Code section 7871), some tribes have exercised their sovereignty to charter their own foundations; examples are the Cherokee Education Fund, the Hopi Education Endowment Fund, and the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission's Spirit of the Salmon Fund.
Although the organized forms that are the vehicles of modern Native American philanthropy may resemble those of EuroAmerican institutions like public charities, community foundations, donor-advised funds, and nonprofit organizations, their missions and objectives are driven by a profound belief in the interconnectedness and value of all things. There is an ethos of sharing -- sharing the beauty and bounty of the earth, sharing the tribulations and hardships of life, and constantly recreating balance and harmony between the human race, Mother Earth, and the Great Spirit. These ancient tribal values of giving, sharing, equity, circular reciprocity, honoring the other, and sustaining a sense of community are the defining characteristics of modern Native American philanthropy.
Bibliography
Black, Sherry Salway. "The Emerging Sector: Nonprofits in Indian Country." Fredericksburg, VA: First Nations Development Institute, 2000.
Hertzberg, Hazel. The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements. Syracuse, NY. Syracuse University Press, 1971.
Joseph, James. Remaking America: How the Benevolent Traditions of Many Cultures Are Transforming Our National Life . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995.
Thorpe, Dagmar. People of the Seventh Fire: Returning Lifeways of Native America . Ithaca, NY: Akwe:kon Press, 1996.
Wells, Ronald Austin. The Honor of Giving: Philanthropy in Native America. Indianapolis, IN: The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, 1998.
Learning to Give wishes to express appreciation to Dr. Dwight Burlingame, editor/author of Philanthropy in America, a Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia of Philanthropy Information, and the publisher ABC-CLIO for graciously sharing this resource information with Learning to Give. The complete encyclopedia may be purchased through ABC-CLIO.