Our Circle
Our Core Team
We are Native community members first: culture bearers, seed keepers, language instructors, aunties and uncles, organizers, and relatives. We come from and remain accountable to the Native communities NVR serves. As a diverse team, we carry our nations, our teachings, and our lived experiences into our work as philanthropic professionals, the way we were raised to: with reciprocity, humility, and responsibility to future generations.
Our Advisory Council
The Native Voices Rising Advisory Council tends the spirit fire of this work, keeping alive the intention and Indigenous ethos that guide everything we do. Like traditional fire keepers who maintain the flame that brings community together, our Council are our trusted relatives who ask the questions that keep us in integrity: Are we honoring all voices? Are we building true power in our communities? Are we walking in alignment with our values?
Our Community Reviewers
Community reviewers are the heart of NVR’s model: the Native community members who read every application and decide, by consensus, where funding flows. They are organizers, culture bearers, youth leaders, and elders from nations across Turtle Island, each bringing lived experience that lets them see the full depth of an applicant’s work. Many walk deeper into the circle over time, returning as screeners, advisors, and Advisory Council members.
Native Youth Grantmakers
In partnership with Native Americans in Philanthropy, we mentor Native Youth Grantmakers, the next generation of Native philanthropy. Youth grantmakers learn by doing: serving as community reviewers, sitting in the decision-making circle, and carrying real responsibility for where resources flow. Many continue on to serve on our Advisory Council. This is how the circle stays alive, elders passing the fire, and young people rising to carry it.
SAP Consultants & Coaches
NVR’s Supportive Assistance Program (SAP) partners with Native consultants, practitioners, and coaches who bring a depth of knowledge and experience in areas such as organizational development, fundraising, grant writing, communications, leadership, and human resources. They offer their unique gifts and perspectives from culturally diverse tribal Nations, sharing Indigenous knowledge for grantee partners’ capacity building initiatives.
Our Fiscal Sponsor
Native Voices Rising operates as a fiscally sponsored project of Common Counsel Foundation (CCF), a 501(c)(3) public charity with more than three decades of experience supporting social justice movements. This means every contribution to NVR is tax-deductible and stewarded with full nonprofit accountability, while NVR’s Native leadership, staff, and community reviewers direct our strategy, programs, and funding decisions.