Blog

Renewing Commitment to Native Communities 

Headwaters Foundation for Justice is excited to announce that the Fund of the Sacred Circle (FSC) and FSC Native Community Grantmaking Circle have awarded an additional 2 years of grant funding to the FSC’s 2024 grantees. These Native-led organizations across the state continue to serve their communities in these uncertain times with courage, resilience, and self-determination.  

FSC grants provide $25,000 annually for two years for a total of $50,000. Extending support for another 2-year grant cycle honors the depth of their impact and acknowledges the uncertain conditions that Native people and organizations face throughout Minnesota. 

Confronting Harm and Rising Uncertainty 

Since the last FSC award cycle in 2024, grantees have navigated a series of unprecedented challenges. Federal funding cuts to Native-led organizations have inflamed systemic uncertainty about the future. Operation Metro Surge flooded Minnesota and the Twin Cities with masked, armed federal immigration agents that threatened workers, families, and organizations throughout the state.  

During this time, videos and images surfaced of federal immigration agents stopping and detaining Twin Cities Native American community members and, in some cases, subjecting them to brutalization or excessive force. 

Both Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison described Operation Metro Surge as a “federal invasion.” This description, alongside the surveillance and violence endured by Native community members, echoes the long-standing history of colonialism and its lingering impacts that Native Nations have experienced for hundreds of years.  

Today, FSC grantees continue to work alongside Native communities to strengthen sovereignty, self-determination, and show us the way forward amidst these rising challenges.  

A Legacy of Solidarity and Self-Determination 

In 1999, Native elders, activists, leaders, and allies founded Fund of the Sacred Circle united by common goals: “to counter the systemic and historical disinvestment of Native communities, center Native values in FSC grantmaking, and pave the way for Native self-determination” (FSC Founder, 1999). Today, the Fund of the Sacred Circle awards these grants in the same spirit of assurance, solidarity, and shared commitment to Native communities. 

Through this support, we seek to provide grantees with greater stability, flexibility, and sustainability over the next two years. We do so in hopes that this will lighten the burden of current challenges on FSC grantee organizations and support them in tending to the critical needs of Native communities they serve and work alongside. We have seen the power of FSC grantees, and how they continue to show us the way forward. The Fund of the Sacred Circle works to follow their example. 

Grantees Leading the Way Forward 

Join us in congratulating our 2026 Fund of the Sacred Circle Grantees:  

• American Indian Cancer Foundation 
• American Indian Family Center 
• Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye 
• Dakota Wicohan 
• Dream of Wild Health 
• Endazhi-Nitaawiging Charter School 
• Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia 
• Indigenous Peoples Task Force 
• Little Earth Residents Association 
• Manidoo Ogitigaan 
• Mewinzha Ondaadiziike Wiigaming 
• MIGIZI 
• Minnesota Indigenous Business Alliance 
• Native American Community Development Institute 
• Native Governance Center 
• Native Sun Community Power Development 
• Nawayee Center School 
• Northwest Indian Community Development Center 
• Tiwahe Foundation 
• Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi 

At Headwaters, we trust and invest in Native communities because they know both the challenges and the solutions. We have seen how FSC grantees hold and uplift their communities – sustaining culture, supporting families, and building pathways forward, even when broader systems fall short.  

By providing these grants, Headwaters and the Fund of the Sacred Circle seek to confront a history of philanthropic inequity for Native Nations and end the historical disinvestment that has impacted Native communities for well over a century. Across the United States, Native organizations receive only a fraction of 1 percent of philanthropic funding. As broad funding cuts and organizational survival have become a reality for many Native-led groups, mainstream philanthropy’s inaction forces Native organizations to compete to fight for their futures. 

In a time when philanthropy is being called to evolve, FSC grantees remind us what it looks like to lead with wisdom, self-determination, and hope. Our role is to follow their lead and ensure they have the resources to continue showing the way forward. We hope you’ll join the circle of community that is building, against daunting odds, a future we know is needed for future generations.