A campaign to transform the Indigenous landscape of the Twin Cities
The Urban Indigenous Legacy Initiative is a collective of 16 renowned Native American nonprofit organizations in Minneapolis and Saint Paul that have been providing powerful and effective services for more than four decades. This collaborative has now come together to support a shared mission of modernizing and upgrading each of their antiquated and deteriorating facilities. While some organizations have already begun work on their capital campaigns and have secured meaningful investments, by joining forces this collaborative effort will work to accelerate all projects involved. Once completed, this historic endeavor will enable all participating organizations to continue providing the highest quality services for the Native American community in the Twin Cities for years to come.
As was clearly demonstrated over the previous 18 months during the pandemic and civil unrest that rocked the Twin Cities, there remains an extreme urgency to combat the disparities that continue to burden the urban Indigenous community. The Urban Indigenous Legacy Initiative was founded because, simply put, Native American nonprofits do not have the resources to properly invest in their capital needs. Instead, all available resources have been dedicated to helping people through their programming and direct services to reverse these disparities. To this end, this initiative has now united to seek capital investments to modernize and bolster the capacity for all organizations participating within this effort.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 presents a unique opportunity for both government entities and the philanthropic sector to partner with the Twin Cities Native American community in a positive and impactful way by supporting this collaborative to achieve its stated goals. The organizations that comprise the initiative have committed to pursuing a single resource request so that partners with the Urban Indigenous Legacy Initiative can commit the required resources without having to pick winners and losers.
This is an opportunity for all of us to shape the Twin Cities Indigenous community for generations to come. Our ancestors passed on our culture, our lifeways, and our customs to our predecessors and to us. Our predecessors founded the very organizations within this collaborative, and then passed them onto the current leadership. Now it is our time to commit ourselves to pass on state of the art facilities with robust programming to the future leaders emerging from our community. It is now our time to play our role in this living legacy that spans millennia. It is now our time to build the future we want to see for our people. This is the very heart of the Urban Indigenous Legacy Initiative and we invite you to be part of this historic movement.
The Urban Indigenous Legacy Initiative is comprised of the following Urban Native American community organizations:
- Ain Dah Yung Center
- American Indian Community Development Corporation
- American Indian Family Center
- American Indian OIC
- Department of Indian Work: Interfaith Action of Greater St. Paul
- Division of Indian Work
- Indigenous Peoples Taskforce
- Little Earth of United Tribes
- Lower Phalen Creek Project – Wakan Tipi Center
- MIGIZI
- Minneapolis American Indian Center
- Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center
- Montessori American Indian Childcare Center of St. Paul
- Native American Community Clinic
- Native American Community Development Institute
- New Native Theatre
Contact your representatives and let them know you support the Urban Indigenous Legacy Initiative.
