New Songs Rising

This initiative expands opportunities for Indigenous girls and young people through grantmaking, convening and community building, and mentorship and peer support, with a specific emphasis on Indigenous cultural work, and also works to encourage the field of philanthropy to better meet the needs of Indigenous youth.

Funding priorities

The New Songs Rising Initiative exists to resource liberation for Native and Globally-Indigenous girls and gender-expansive youth by:

Moving financial resources to organizations and tax-exempt Tribal entities serving and supporting Native/Indigenous girls, especially those led by Native/Indigenous women and girls.
Supporting the skill-building and network-building among Native/Indigenous women and girls leading organizations and efforts.
Supporting research, particularly participatory research, that fills data gaps about how best to support the sovereignty and organizing power of Native/Indigenous women and girls.
Creating a container for conversations and political education between non-Native and other women and girls of color about how to move in solidarity with one another towards collective liberation.
Facilitating opportunities for funders to discuss how to decolonize philanthropic practices in order to mitigate or repair harm done to Native/Indigenous communities.
Providing visibility for powerful work being led by Native/Indigenous girls for other funders and philanthropic colleagues.

Advocacy and Support

With guidance from youth, meaningful areas that that we divest funds to include:

Access to culture, language, and traditional practices
Organizing
Policy work and Indigenous representations in politics and policy
Coming of Age ceremonies
Support and resources for system-involved girls and gender-expansive youth and their families
Community-building
Leadership development
Climate justice work
Prevention of violence
Resistance of violence
MMIR (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives)
Addiction support
Avoidance of surveillance
Cultural revitalization and rebuilding
Healing (personal, community, and intergenerational)
Community healing (aftercare work, including reparations)
Education (community-based and culturally-rooted)

Highlights

38

38 grantees from 15 different Indigenous communities

10

Funded 10 distinct intertribal projects

$2.9m

Distributed about $2.9 million dollars awarded through 99 grants

The New Songs Rising Fellowship

In 2022, we launched the New Songs Rising Fellowship, an 18-month program in which fellows deepened their sense of identity and belonging, honed life and career skills, informed the NSRI strategy through participatory grantmaking and other forms of feedback, received mentorship, access mental health support and personal coaching, and more. This fellowship was born out of a series of listening circles with our NSRI grantees, Indigenous youth, and their relatives.

The inaugural cohort consisted of 10 fellows, ages 13-24, from 7 different Indigenous communities.