before we get started i wanted to ask kevin walk or the president of the northwest area pound nation just to come up and share a couple words to kind of get us start morning everybody it is a pleasure to be with you in this beautiful space to talk about this report northwest area foundation is is really delighted to have been able to be of help to native americans in philanthropy and the council of nonprofits in moving this piece of research forward and i just wanted to take a second to explain why this is important to us the moines prayer specially the last part of what he had to say really captured in much better words than i have where we're coming from if you if you visit our office in st paul one of the first things that you'll see when you walk in the door is that in big letters all down a wall it says we believe prosperity is possible for all we believe prosperity is possible for all simple words but to me that is almost a radical statement in today's world but that is what we believe in it is the value that animates what the northwest area foundation is all about  we think that the native communities in minnesota urban and reservation and all across the eight states were active our communities with a bright future and we are committed to the idea of helping native organizations and native people find the path towards the future of their choosing your own version of what prosperity means we are trying to make resources available to to move in that direction so in order to do that it's really essential to ask ourselves what assets already exist in the native community what assets are already there and how can they be advanced to help people move forward to the future of their choosing that's why this research is important to us and asks what is the state of the nonprofit the native nonprofit economy in minnesota and what next how can the nonprofits themselves and funders and others think about getting towards a better future so that's why this research is exciting to us i want to thank martin and the several other members of my staff who partnered with the folks who did this work to get us here this morning i'm really excited to hear what's to come so with that i'll get out of the way and turn it over to daniel and to jane or back to martin you know you just never know but you can never get enough martin that's what i always say so not really sure what that means but i'm i'm might resemble that remark i guess i just wanted it to help with a little bit of a context but i just wanted to you know share something personally my my family is is you know kind of a product of the relocation era my my grandmother from the leech lake reservation in the early fifty's most of her family moved down to the minneapolis st paul area as part of part of that that federal policy around you know helping create additional opportunities you know moving indians into urban areas and when i got to be an adult i moved back to my home community went to college up there and s my my whole adult life has been either on the leech lake reservation i lived on the blacks reservation with my wife for about ten years until i moved back down to the cities so now you know i kind of find myself as an urban indian and you know about was considered myself a reservation indian and most of my thinking and my thoughts and my my priorities and the values that i carry today came from my home community and so this morning when i when i arrived at the foundation now moreover by the by the river there in st paul and you drive across the river so you look at the river and you know rivers have a significance and in native culture and you know i got out of the car and i stood up and i looked to the sky and there was an eagle that was coming from the bluff to the from the east flying right over me and he got to the other bluff and then he circled around and the  you know sometimes i question in my own life what is it that i'm doing and and coming from a culture of trying to always be in touch with things around you and in your environment for me it's always affirming to see that my relatives in the sky are there for me they're listening to me and looking out and everyone that's here today are meant to be here today and so this is a good thing it's a start of a new conversation it's a start of a new way of looking at things so i want to thank all of you here and i really monod to be here standing here today where did this work come from i just wanted to share just real briefly about that in the northwest area foundation is kind of what attracted me to the foundation is the commitment that they've had historically t native communities and in our in some of the bold steps and leadership that the foundation has provided we're always trying to find the things that increase our effectiveness in giving and we find ourselves in a leadership position and often look to buy or peers to provide guidance or direction or connections to the communities and again but you know coming from a reservation background coming back to the urban you know we we in  philanthropy we think a lot with the mind you know we do this research we develop these logic models we come up with these approaches and so this is this really has started out very very much in that vein and to you know really help the native community grow as part of the community broader community you what we decided we need to do is we need to first understand what that what that environment looked like and saw a body year and a half ago we started having conversations internally about you know what what does this nonprofit sector look like in indian country in reservation communities it's very small in urban areas it's pretty strong and why is that and what what's the synergy that exists there what's the depths of services what's the needs what's the impact been so today's conversation is really about helping us ground each of us to better understand what those challenges and opportunities are and then i think as and you know so eloquently put it then what we need to do is we need to connect those dots with our hearts and then as we go out to day as you look around the real music or all the partners that are here to help build community not only for the native community but the whole community because we're all we're all related and so i just really again thank you for being here today and i hope this is a good meaningful and please share all your your questions and concerns that you have with us and we'll move forward in this part of a trend or jane her stead the primary author to take a look at the native situation with the nonprofits in the state of minnesota so it is common it ng in today's event where quickly go over the agenda for you so daniel and i will go over the reports i'll do more of the quantitative information and he'll do a little bit more of the qualitative information and then we'll have a little break and then we will have a community response panel made up of various community members and nonprofit organization leaders who will share their stories their strengths their challenges and what they are doing to face the future at this point and then we'll have a luncheon discussion and see what kind of information we can come away from this meeting with you know where to start moving in the direction that we need to be moving into thank you shannon so i started this looking at first of all as the state of minnesota and looking at the locations of where native programs are located and as you can see they are this this is a map of the communities in minnesota a very broad base to start but what i found was sixty five nonprofit organizations with five a one to three status lots of programs that serve native americans that are based within other programs and i also took a look at tribal communities and the programs that they sponsor and found that of these organizations that i took a closer look at twelve hundred one individuals are employed by these non profits and we have a lot of history to go over that  kind of brought about how all these non profits came to the places they are today so when we looked at the population of where people have been native people have been living in the state you can see that they are situated around the tribal communities and then in the urban areas of minnesota minneapolis st paul  h metro areas like that so i started looking at some of the literature and some of the reasons as to why people ended up in there is that there had and i found that there are different kinds of organizations many have evolved over time over space and over place there are native led nonprofits there are also those programs that work under other organizations and they're also programs that are sponsored by tribes so in trying to the segregate the data that i had it was it was it was really difficult to say well you belong in this category or belong in that category but in the end we came up with sort of a plan for how these organizations would fit into the scheme of this report and it's  it's a place to start talking about how this all works so as we look at the organizations that i studied more in depth the activities that go on with these organizations are on the screen and they're also in the report but  the largest is the as you can see from education and human services standpoint those are where the largest areas of activity are occurring at this point but there are so many more organizations that are doing so much more in this community and i am amazed that everyone who works so diligently to provide services for our  community it was a little bit difficult to narrow down the activity areas as well because there's a lot of different skills as to what services activities people do so what we came up with is on page fifteen which you can look at at your leisure but to narrow it down but yet be inclusive of all of the organizations that we looked at i also asked questions of all of these organizations that i talked to and asked who do they serve and the majority of the organizations serve anyone who walks in their doors there are some organizations that have specific requirements from the  the grants that they get that they can only serve tribal people there's also a little bit of policy and politics to go along with that as we all know but when we're looking at something like the indian child welfare act that is for those services are provided for the tribal members and their children and the children that need their services so depending upon what kind of services and where the funding comes from and what the funders have as regulations as far as the grants go that is what they followed but generally they all most serve anyone who walks in their door and then when i i took a look at specifically where are these non profits located in the state compared to where the people live and the majority of the nonprofits are located in the urban  areas so there is a disproportionate amount in urban areas compared to rural areas and i think daniel talk a little bit more about why it why is that and how what can we do to help those rural organizations to have better organizational sustainability and how to help them prosper so as you can see a lot of them are located in the metro area there's a some in duluth and right near some of the reservations but the majority are in the urban areas and i'm part of what we looked at was the legislation and the relocation policies and as we delved into that data we looked at where they're getting their funding and we also looked further but and i'll get to that in just a minute so we looked at where where do these nonprofits get their funding and that was some of the questions that i asked in the interviews and generally the largest is the state of the government and whether it's federal state or county and whether it's grants or contracts it's through the government that these nonprofits are getting most of their money trouble contributions was the smallest portion of those funding sources and many more are turning to earned revenue at this point and that's sort of a little trend that's going on the more working towards that trying to earn the revenue i looked at the top ten organizations by their expenditures and they're on the screen and they're i don't think there are any surprises there these are all organizations that we're well aware of and  i also looked at once we had the data for where they're located and and things like that we looked at when these organizations were formed and it turned out that a lot of them were formed right after the relocation era and when natives started coming to the city areas and so the majority of the non profits that are in existence today were born out of that era and the things that happened when they came to natives came to the city and there weren't any services and programs that were culturally appropriate for them so that's where a lot of the  multi service organizations came into being so when i collected the data i carried out fifty one qualitative interviews and i looked at  lots and lots of documents i looked at ninety tax forms i looked at previous literature written by community members laura waterman woodstock from elie webster from point him in and the two thousand and twelve blueprint which they're still currently working on and i also looked at census data and what you have in front of you is the result of all of that information and then we'll be able to take some questions after daniel goes a little bit over what he found with the qualitative and of that sioux community which is one of the four one of the dakota communities and within the state of minnesota i did grow up in the in the cities year i did spend some time down working in my community but i can i think it's safe to say that  i'm a city boy saw it's it was i just want to say i want to thank the northwest area foundation for being a leader and in flann therapy and supporting native communities i want to say it was a pleasure and an honor to partner with the minnesota council on nonprofits on pulling together this report and i also want to give a special thank you to jane for all of the hard work she did collecting the data analyzing it and pulling this report together  think it it a great job so was as jane shared with you we weren't just with this research report we weren't just looking at the data of the native nonprofits in the state of minnesota we we also asked some we wanted to hear your stories we wanted to hear from we wanted to hear from the native nonprofits what they see is their strings what are their what would what are that the assets of native non profits we also want to ask them about their challenges you know there's there's reality certainly of working in the in the nonprofit field  and you know there might be even other challenges that are faced by by native non profits and then we also ask them if they had any recommendations for for how to collaborate how to build relationships and those in the report the first one there certainly that there is an active and these these four responses that we have here for the strings these are not all of the strengths of the native non profits these are more of the four main strengths that we had been received through the interviews and the surveys so the active community network with as connected as has the native non profits and the native community is our reservations we sit on boards of nonprofits together we come to community forms were important research reports are shared so we see each other and in many different settings so are certainly connected in that is a a definitely a string of native non profits there are also the acid base models of community building and looking at what is what is what is good what are the assets of the native communities and building upon and supporting our assets and in what's working rather than looking at things through a deficit space model where you focus on the passion of native communities lies and then finding a way to to even fund those passions it's a it's a strength that the native communities are able to identify those assets and then build upon them as as jane just shared with you a lot of with the study in effect of leadership we've got a number of nonprofits that are twenty plus years old and one of the ways that they're able to get to being so so effective and so valuable to the community over a long period of time is the fact that leadership is able to guide the community and the staff and the board towards towards the missions of the organizations and certainly having a number of stablish season leaders running the native nonprofit organizations in in minnesota is is a strength and then last adapting to non profits adapting to stakeholder and community needs this is a way for the strength is that since the the network is so active it is so connected native non profits have ear on the ground they know what the needs of the community is if things are changing the community is good about letting the nonprofits know that services might need to be changed up so remaining nimble remaining flexible not going with a one size fits all model to providing services we know that doesn't work and that strength that made them around profits is the fact that they can that needs to really needs to take place it's it's unfortunate they're growing up the history books that we were all taught from all told the story from from one perspective it doesn't mean it was wrong it was just not necessarily the native perspective in the fact that i think oftentimes people view native people in the context of the history books and that not too often do people are people able to engage with with native communities so there's always those questions of do indian still live in t d s is it native american is it american indian is it first nations is it is it indigenous peoples which which is the recurrent term to use and for that i'll give you my best and no offense to the lawyers in the room my best lawyer lawyer response is that it depends it depends upon who you're talking to as to who his term that you can use so  you know just just keep that in mind that challenges to for native non profits is the fact that really coming from different worldviews and finding a way to  another as to where each is coming from is is something that is is a continue challenge but also it's also an opportunity as well for for native nonprofits the second one their future leadership transitions with as many of the amazing established non profits that we do have in the community it is going to it is getting to the point where or at least for the leaders of the organizations are looking to to retire or move on to their next adventure and so the challenge is is ensuring that the next generation of leaders is is prepared and ready to continue to lead the non profits and the the amazing work that's been done  far i've got a program we've got a program timeline versus funding cycles there is a challenge this is you know when when nonprofits start as we all know in our nonprofits engage in programs those programs usually exist for longer than a year however the funding cycles generally don't last longer than a year at a time so if you have a three year program or project that you're working on it's great when you have that first year of funding to get started you get all excited you give all this momentum going but if you don't have continued funding you're not able to accomplish your goals to carry all your logic models and it's part of that nonprofit hustle with as soon as you get that first year funding you don't know if that second year is going to to come about so you're constantly fund raising to ensure that you can complete your your program or your project and then the last one there the misconception of access to gaming resources i don't know where this came from been notion that gaming revenues as successful as a good as they have been and as generous as tribes are with their gaming resources that they should be able to fund and support every single native person an issue that exist and jeanne just shared with us the data that of funding that goes to native non profits native non profits reported five percent of the revenues coming from tribes so that right there just goes to show you that as as generous and as philanthropic it strives are that there's still not able to meet all of the  fund all of the needs that exist in the community so i could say more about that but i'll stop there and so then we've got to record the recommendations part of the report's recommendations for funders  to learn about native communities access native intelligence that is certainly an asset of strength of native non profits work together to develop joint metrics for you know more or less you're working on the exact same issue you might just have a couple different ways of of accomplishing the goal so look at different ways to how you're measuring success and work together toward that  you know i just i just talked about provide long term funding to support programs in operations adopt lodging models that are based on community assets as opposed to community deficit so continue to support the strengths of native communities native non profits and in and kind of what that first point there with their metrics in the way that you measure success and then lastly support youth and development leadership development as a part of program funding and thinking about the future leadership transitions engaging the youth i mean it's cliche to say that the children are future but they certainly are and we need to make sure that we prepare them to become the next generations of leaders and set them up for to be successful and another thing i want to say with at least that first point there this is all about relationship building build relationships with native non profits native communities get to know one another there is an excellent resource that you can check out that if you don't have a copy of it it is on the native americans and philanthropy website it's called context is everything it was it was a wonderful publication that was the lead author was wilma mankiller and it's all about how to engage in relationship building with native communities so if you haven't had a chance to check out context is everything we have recommendations for non the end of nonprofits develop partnerships with native non profits to provide culturally relevant programming to native clients so if you are a non native nonprofits and you provide programs and services to the aid of clients career look in the find the best way to provide culturally appropriate services to them look to partner with native organizations ask them in a work with them to see the best way to meet the needs of the client the second one there learn about native non profits and identify those organizations that it's similar missions i mean this is all about relationship building you're going to notice a common theme with me when i get to the next point their relationship building relationship building relationship building exist within a vacuum what effects the larger community does affect native communities so if you're working on an issue that that is more general broader in and in context include native non profits include native communities engage with them and work together to resolve the issue at hand and then lastly recommendations for native nonprofits learn about other native this comes along with that continue to adapt and be flexible to the native to the the native community and the needs of all of it prepare for lead for transitions in leadership through mentorship so support leadership development efforts of the emerging leaders and continue to prepare them engage in success succession planning really prepare the next generation of leaders to continue the  work and then lastly strengthen relationships and support with tribal governments that are providing services in urban areas and i think i mean this this works back and forth whether it's in the urban area in the or in the rural community in the reservation  community in my opinion travel government should be providing service programs and search and be the only one providing programs and services to to the reservation communities and shared the chart there that most of the native non profits exist with that live or are in the urban communities and that the there are those that exist out state but there could be more and it could be a way for profits to look to expand their services and provide those services in the reservation community so work with tribes engage them and see see where it could be a good fit to provide those programs and services and then lastly the report conclusions here i just grabbed this paragraph out of the report so if you want to go ahead and read that there in your program that's where it is but i have at least wanted to leave you with this there that nonprofits are strong they face challenges and through building relationships we are better equipped to work toward healthy and sustainable native communities thank microphone so if you do you'll just have to speak o yes i should have said my disclaimer right away that i have tried to find every nonprofit native nonprofit organization and if i have missed any please i will give you my e mail address and we will take additions to the report for a while joy i didn't look at other communities to compare i looked at other communities to see what they have been doing but i didn't compare them no this report is the first that looks at native nonprofits as a whole so this is the foundation from which we can start building those relationships and working towards our goals so that's what this report started to do and it's meant to be the first of the reports that will build like you're asking joy on the on the differences between different nonprofit