New Initiative to Fund Indigenous Girls and Their Families with Abundance and Intention

NEW YORK, July 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC) and Seventh Generation Fund For Indigenous Peoples announced a new initiative that will begin mobilizing resources and expanding work that centers and supports Indigenous girls in their families and communities.

Developed and operated in partnership by G4GC and Seventh Generation Fund For Indigenous Peoples, the New Songs Rising Initiative will invest in organizations and Tribal entities serving Indigenous women and girls. In addition to moving financial resources, the partnership will foster peer mentorship, skill building and networking building for Indigenous girls and support participatory research to fill data gaps about how best to support the sovereignty and organizing power of Indigenous girls and their communities. The New Songs Rising Initiative will also facilitate political education and exchange between Indigenous and other women and girls of color about how to act in solidarity with one another toward collective liberation.

"Initiatives like this must be the new normal," said Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples Board Member Deborah Sanchez. "Investing in our girls and their Indigenous identity brings us back in line with our health, our wellbeing, and the 'original instructions' we received from our ancestors."

Women and girls of color are historically underfunded, receiving less than one percent of the total $66.9 billion given by foundations, as reported by the Ms. Foundation. Of the $356 million in foundation dollars made available for women and girls of color, only 2.6% specifically benefit  Indigenous women and girls. The New Songs Rising Initiative will help address this gap by providing funders and philanthropic institutions with decolonizing practices that mitigate and repair harm done to Native and Indigenous communities throughout the sector, while also bringing visibility to the leadership of Indigenous girls.

"I want to live in a world where Indigenous girls know their history, know themselves, and know their power, and where they are free to reclaim what is rightfully theirs," said Dr. Monique W. Morris, President and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color. "Funders seeking to make a change will nourish exceptional returns by restoring health, security and abundance to organizations led by and serving Native and Indigenous girls."

The New Songs Rising Initiative also announced its first round of grants to organizations led by Native and Indigenous women and girls. These grants will support cultural learning and healing, address the intersections of gender, climate, economic, and education justice and support multigenerational organizing. The initiative will also build the capacity of these organizations to resist many forms of state and gender-based violence, as well as support Indigenous girls' creation of art, spoken-word, theater and poetry.

Grantees from Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples' Thriving Women Grants for Girls' Vitality include: Dances with Words, a youth development initiative of First Peoples Fund; Pueblo Action Alliance; Ho'opae Pono Peace Project; and Iakionhnhehkwen (We Sustain Life). Grantees from Grantmakers for Girls of Color include Protect the Sacred (a project of HARNESS), Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples, Hmong American Women's Association, Xinachtli Comadres National Colectiva (XCNC).

New Songs Rising Initiative will be operated by a Fund Manager employed by Grantmakers for Girls of Color. Another round of grants will be distributed in 2021.

About Grantmakers for Girls of Color:
Fiscally-sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC) works to mobilize resources and amplify transformative organizing work to dismantle systems of oppression led by girls and gender-expansive youth of color. Grantmakers for Girls of Color openly invites partners and stakeholders to co-create an inclusive space in support of girls, young women, and gender-expansive youth of color across programmatic issues and geographic areas. Learn more by visiting GrantmakersforGirlsofColor.org.

About Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples
The Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples' Purpose and Collective Responsibility is Indigenous Peoples' self-determination and the sovereignty of Native nations. Core to this is Re-Indigenization, which is the active and dynamic process of recovering traditional relationships to land, community, culture, and spirit for self-determination, collective liberation, and to restore balance. As the grandmother of Native foundations, Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples provides direct support to community generated strategies for the empowerment and vitality of Indigenous Peoples and future generations by mobilizing resources into positive actions throughout the Indigenous World. Seventh Generation Fund For Indigenous Peoples actualizes our work through grantmaking, capacity building, movement building, and leadership - to help resource and support grassroots first responders - who are working to heal, revitalize, and restore thriving, to their Peoples, cultures, homelands and waters.

SOURCE Grantmakers for Girls of Color