Art and culture is how humanity makes sense of and shares the world around us. Art gives voice to our fears, our dreams and it invites others to know us and to know themselves.
I was taught that our arts carry the spirit of the people. It is through art that we know ourselves. It’s through art that we will go forward into the world and it is through art that our cultures will be remembered.
—Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) Poet and Musician, Oklahoma
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You can make an enormous difference in lifting up the voices of Native artists to help create a more inclusive, prosperous, healthy and inspired world.
The arts and cultures of the diverse First Peoples in this country are powerful, beautiful and growing, and offer perspectives that can inspire creative and provocative new discussion on some of our nation’s toughest collective challenges.
Help us honor millennia of First People’s arts and cultures, while encouraging the talents and vision of today’s artists by giving as generously as you can.
The greater world is looking now in some ways at the Indigenous cultures, knowing that there’s something very powerful in there, and it stems back to the art ways. The foundation gave us a seed to plant and there’s so many plants that are going to grow from that.
—TahNibaa Naataanii (Navajo) Diné be’ iiná (The Navajo Lifeway), Arizona
We are forever grateful to the Native nations and tribes, foundations, nonprofits, businesses, and individuals who have so generously enabled the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation to provide the following assistance as of July 31, 2016:
$7355290
Total program support
182
Native artists and organizations
30
Different states and the District of Columbia
Unless we make a conscious effort to bolster our Indigenous arts and link our elders with emerging Native artists, those voices can be lost.
When we lose a generation of artists and culture bearers, we lose a generation of deep wisdom and young people are left without roots from which to draw life and hope.
