Programs

2010 will mark the first year of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation’s grantmaking program.  The Foundation will seek to support innovative individuals, organizations and communities across the 48 states, Alaska and Hawaii. In our initial years of funding, NACF is offering awards that will reflect its modest endowment. As the Foundation grows in the coming years, we anticipate increased support to our artists and communities.

See links at left for our 3 Initiatives and criteria.
 
After decades of visioning, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) is the first permanently endowed national philanthropic organization dedicated exclusively to the revitalization, appreciation, and perpetuation of native arts and cultures. Through grant making and charitable contribution, NACF will work to increase the capacity of native cultural practices by investing in communities and artists with an eye toward cultural continuity, innovation, environmental stewardship, and social justice.
 
We are focusing on three areas of strategic interest:

1. Artistic Innovation - Through the Soul of an Artist: Supporting contemporary Native artists.
2. Mobilizing the Community Through the Arts: Community based projects that involve the continuity and expression of cultural knowledge and artistic practices.
3. Strengthening the Arts and Cultures Infrastructure: Increasing the capacity of organizations that support Native arts and cultures.

We celebrate ... the hoop dancer, the totem carver, the basket weaver, the storyteller and those Native artists that cultivate traditional knowledge. We celebrate the land, our languages, our ceremonies, our fires - these ways of life which uphold our aloha, our traditions, our heritage and our cultures. Our ways of responding to the land, to the great mysteries and to the beauty therein - this is what is at stake.
 
We embrace innovation ... the performance artist, the videographer, the painter, the poet - trickster, seer, orator - the Native artist and culture bearer have always adapted to change, modified their tongue and responded to the environment with a critical eye.
  
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