• Native American Project Home
• CCC's Work with Native Americans
• Building the Field of Native American Organizing Nationally
• Building the Field of Organizing in South Dakota
• Housing and Communications Technology - Extending the Federal Trust Responsibility
• Native American Background Information

An Introduction to the Native American Project

The Native American Project is the heart of the Center for Community Change’s efforts to build grassroots leadership, organizational capacity, and a more unified voice among Native Americans for social and economic justice.

Native Americans are often left out of race and class analyses in this country. Yet, Native Americans are among the key constituencies whose leadership is critical to creating lasting social change in the nation. That is why the Native American Project has a long-term commitment to building Native American leadership, upholding Native American rights, and elevating the issues that matter most to Indian communities.

The Native American Project combines grassroots community organizing with coalition building, state and national policy work, strategic media work, and research. The Native American Project provides Indian-led organizations with the tools, resources, and alliances needed to protect the rights of Indian people and to build strong, sustainable communities.

The Native American Project works closely with a wide range of well-established and influential Native American organizations, such as: the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians; the American Indian Housing and Community Development Corporation; the Southern California Indian Center; The Teton Coalition; and, a number of American Indian tribal colleges and universities.

Through these relationships, the Native American Project seeks to strengthen Indian-led organizing, and to advance public policies and programs that benefit Native Americans. The Native American Project utilizes two broad approaches toward these ends.

1. The Native American Project is building the field of Native American organizing by cultivating grassroots leaders, incubating new organizations, and connecting Indian-led organizations to each other as well as to other constituency-based organizing groups.
2. The Native American Project is advancing a national policy agenda that extends the “federal trust” responsibility to off-reservation Indians by defending their rights to a range of federal resources, particularly in the areas of affordable housing, homeownership, and information technology.