First Nations and NUIFC Receive $50,000 Comcast Foundation Grant Supplementing Joint National Urban Indian Capacity Building Project

LONGMONT, Colo. and SEATTLE, Feb. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) and the National Urban Indian Family Coalition (NUIFC) today announced they have received a $50,000 grant from the Comcast Foundation. The Comcast Foundation grant supplements a 2013 grant of $1.1 million from The Kresge Foundation. Together, they are being used to enhance the capacity and effectiveness of American Indian nonprofit organizations located in urban settings, as well as providing training and technical assistance services.

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First Nations and NUIFC are partners in the project. First Nations is a national nonprofit organization that provides project funding and assistance geared toward revitalizing the economies of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities across the U.S.  NUIFC is a nonprofit network of urban American Indian and Alaska Native organizations that work to strengthen urban Native families.

Under the project, First Nations and NUIFC will work directly with up to nine urban Native American nonprofits to help them improve their management and leadership skills and boost their organizational effectiveness, provide customized assistance and training, host annual capacity building conferences for participants, and document the project's best practices and potential for replication in other Native American urban communities. The project aims to help organizations that work with some of the estimated 78 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives who live off reservations or away from tribal villages, and who reflect some of the most disproportionately low social and economic standards in the urban areas in which they reside. Urban Indian organizations, some of which were launched in the 1940s and '50s, are an important support and resource to Native families and individuals, providing cultural linkages as well as being a hub for accessing essential services.

Work is already underway with the first-year grantees, who are the Denver Indian Center/Denver Indian Family Resource Center in Colorado; the Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland, Oregon; and the Little Earth of United Tribes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"The Comcast Foundation's grant is a great additional increase to this key project that was made possible by The Kresge Foundation," noted both First Nations President Michael Roberts and NUIFC Executive Director Janeen Comenote. "Further, it magnifies and solidifies the Comcast Foundation's other year-round support of both of our organizations. It is sincerely appreciated."

Bill Black, Vice President of the Comcast Foundation, said, "Comcast is proud to support the efforts of First Nations and NUIFC to further enhance efforts to improve the lives of, and empower, Native American urban communities."

The grant from the Comcast Foundation is in recognition of Comcast's commitment to the communities where its customers and employees live and work.  Since its founding in 1999, the Comcast Foundation has distributed more than $140 million in cash support of programs implemented locally in Comcast communities.

PROGRAM CONTACTS:
Montoya Whiteman, First Nations Senior Program Officer, (303) 774-7836 or [email protected]; Janeen Comenote, NUIFC Executive Director, (206) 551-9933 or [email protected]

MEDIA CONTACT:
Randy Blauvelt, First Nations Senior Communications Officer
(303) 774-7836 or [email protected]

SOURCE First Nations Development Institute