First Nations Development Institute • 18th May 2026

An Ojibwe Language Legacy Lives on Through Luce Fellow Chato Gonzalez

Chato Gonzalez, a 2025 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow, first became interested in learning to speak his Native Ojibwe language while he was in prison in his early 20s. It was there that he met Lee “Obizaan” Staples, an Ojibwe first-language speaker and Ojibwe spiritual leader in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Obizaan was conducting sweat lodge ceremonies for inmates, and when Gonzalez heard the elder speaking Ojibwe and singing ceremonial songs, he was immediately drawn in.

First Nations Development Institute • 18th May 2026

Harnessing the Healing Power of Horses

Within the Blackfeet culture, horses are valued as medicine. “They have that special healing power, just by being themselves,” says Lynn Mad Plume (Blackfeet Nation). To share this special healing power with others, she and her family founded Two Powers Land Collective in 2022, a nonprofit organization that “offers equine-assisted psychotherapy and equine-assisted learning grounded in Indigenous traditions … to nurture the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of both people and horses.”

First Nations Development Institute • 18th May 2026

A Dedicated Steward to Hawaii’s Ancient Fishponds

Hawaii has a long, storied history with fishponds, once an important food source fed by the ocean, with more than 500 ponds built on the islands over 800 years. Sadly, less than 10% remains now. Enter Herb Lee, Jr., a Native Hawaiian, cultural preservationist, musician, and 2025 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow. For more than 30 years—nearly half his life—Lee has been at the forefront of restoring ancient fishponds in the Hawaiian Islands.

30th March 2026

Growing Little Cherokee Seeds

If one seed can give birth to a giant oak tree, imagine what a group of motivated Cherokee mothers can accomplish. In 2018, a small group of like-minded Cherokee women launched Little Cherokee Seeds — a first-of-its-kind Cherokee language and culture immersion program for mothers and infants.

30th March 2026

The Birth of an Indigenous Midwife in Rural Alaska

In 2017, to help improve birthing outcomes and provide “culturally matched care” for Alaska Native families, Abra Patkotak and five other Indigenous women launched the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community (ANBC) in Anchorage. ANBC is a grassroots collective of Alaska Native birthworkers who offer, at no cost to Native birthing families, the full spectrum of reproductive health services.

30th March 2026

In Perfect Harmony: How One Colorado Couple Supports Native Communities

Aloke Guha and Gudrun Emrich met in college at the University of Minnesota. Aloke was working toward a degree in electrical engineering; Gudrun was focused on a biology degree. Now, more than 40 years later, they are married, have two grown daughters and an 11-month-old granddaughter who all live near them, and they share a passion for travel, music, art, and Native causes.

5th May 2025

The Ongoing Battle to Save a Sacred Apache Site

It has been a long journey for Apache Stronghold. A journey stretching out over two decades to save a sacred Apache site outside Phoenix ― and close to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation ― from being swallowed up by destructive copper mining.

First Nations • 22nd May 2025

Bernadette Demientieff's Fight Against Oil Drilling

In her seven years as executive director of the Gwichʹin Steering Committee (GSC), Bernadette Demientieff has fought hard against the powerful oil and gas industries, lobbyists, and congressional leaders to protect the Coastal Plain of the 19.3-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

First Nations Development Institute • 18th May 2026

Meet a Champion for Native Causes

The mistreatment of Native Americans throughout history has always been a source of sadness for 77-year-old Helen Hobart, whose British ancestors, she has been told, sailed on the Fortune into Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. “I grew up in a household where my father believed that white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were given the job to bring order and civilization to others.” But Helen had far different ideas, rejecting the colonialist ideology of her heritage. “I resonate more with the spiritual gifts of Native people and our reciprocal relationship with the world around us.”

First Nations • 17th May 2025

Stronghold Society Keeps Native Youth Moving in a Positive Direction

Walt Pourier, a well-known artist and owner of Nakota Designs, thought the best way to keep Native kids out of trouble is to get them on a skateboard. “Rather than feel defeated by the narrative that suicide is the second leading cause of death among Native youth, we created a movement that uses the Lakota concept of ‘skan skan,’ or ‘moving forward together,’ to give youth reasons to live."

2nd January 2026

A Texas Woman’s Journey from Fund Raiser to Fund Giver

As a former grant writer for an international human rights organization in Washington, D.C., Sophia Sutherlun has made the jump from seeking donations to giving them. "I’ve been on both sides of philanthropy," says Sutherlun, a longtime First Nations donor who has always valued giving and contributing to causes she believes in, including those related to Native Americans.

2nd January 2026

A Journey to Reignite Native Agriculture in the Pueblos

Food is life. Food sustains the body and feeds the spirit. With this knowledge as a framework, First Nations community partner YAKANAL, a New Mexico-based international program, is reconnecting Indigenous people to their land and traditional agriculture.

16th May 2025

Eagles vs. Wind Energy: A Losing Game?

The wind has been harnessed as a viable source of renewable energy for hundreds of years. But all this clean energy could come at a steep price. Those 30-foot wind turbines, with gyrating, 170-mph blades that look like gigantic blenders on the landscape, are killing our sacred eagles, as well as other birds and bats, in astounding numbers. (Photo credit: U.S. Dept. of Energy)

First Nations • 17th May 2025

‘Stay Curious About the World!’

Some people were born for a life of adventure. Jenifer Marx is one of those fortunate few. Once married to the late Robert F. Marx, a famous marine archaeologist and pioneering scuba diver, Jenifer has traveled the world, written books about buried treasures and shipwrecks, and has become a passionate supporter of Native causes.

First Nations Development Institute • 18th May 2026

STRONGER TOGETHER: The Value of Community and Storytelling in Native Fundraising

Storytelling captures the history, heart, and hope of tribal communities. These stories carry impact and help build relationships, understanding, and support for Native nonprofits and causes in the world of philanthropy. In 2019, First Nations created the Native Fundraisers Community of Practice (NFCoP), a unique program that brings together select groups of Native leaders working on the frontlines of fundraising to support community and economic development initiatives in their Native communities.

First Nations • 22nd May 2025

A Life of Reading, Riding, and Arithmetic

For more than a decade, Kathy Carnevale has supported many Native causes. The one that most resonates with her is food sovereignty. “Native people, the food, the culture, and the land are all connected. And when people are disconnected from the land and their culture, it is very detrimental.," she says.

26th July 2023

Troubled Waters: What the Aleut Community is Doing to Restore Health to the Bering Sea

The Aleut Community of St. Paul Island (ACSPI) is a federally recognized tribe of more than 1,800 enrolled members from St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea. This rural Indigenous community is historically and culturally tied to the ecosystem of the Bering Sea, home to large numbers of mammals, birds, shellfish, and at least 419 species of fish.

5th January 2023

How a Colorado Herbalist is Growing Philanthropy

Emery Golson has loved to grow things ever since she was a young girl helping her mom in the family garden. “I think that experience really connected me with the earth,” she says. Now everything that the 31-year-old philanthropist, herbalist, wife, and mother of two has a hand in seems to blossom.

26th July 2023

One Native Group’s Fight to Protect Sacred Land From Destructive Lithium Mining

The green-energy agenda coming out of Washington, D.C., is being touted as the panacea to climate change. But at what cost to some Native American communities? That’s what People of Red Mountain is asking ─ a grassroots organization of traditional knowledge keepers and members of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe fighting hard against a proposed lithium mine in Thacker Pass, Nevada.

26th July 2023

Meet the Doctor Bringing Peace and Improved Health to the World

Early in his life, Dr. Norbert Goldfield had his sights set on a career in Renaissance art history. Instead, he went into medicine to honor his parents’ wishes. “I come from a generation where I did what my parents told me to do,” he tells First Nations. For more than 30 years, Dr. Goldfield has worked at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, as a board-certified internist, caring for the “poorest of the poor” in his city.