FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, May 21, 2026
Rapid City, SD – Today, Indigenous powerbuilding organization NDN Collective released a new impact report illuminating the organization’s first seven years of work.
“Although there are so many things that NDN Collective has put out into the world over the past seven years, one of the most impactful things we did was to inspire people to believe in something bigger than themselves: to fearlessly stand up for their people, Nations, and homelands,” said Nick Tilsen, founder and CEO of NDN Collective. “We will be here for the foreseeable future because resistance is required in this moment, and organizing resources and building our skills to work towards Indigenous Liberation while fighting against authoritarianism is who we are and what we are about.”
The report highlights that since its inception in 2018, NDN Collective has:
- Rematriated 177,000 acres of land to Indigenous ownership or control
- Granted $111 million to over 1,200 organizations and individuals
- Invested at least $12 million in community-led regenerative development projects to create schools, housing, jobs, and other social infrastructure
- Deployed $10.6 million to Indigenous-owned businesses
- Impacted over 1.1 million people through our projects
- Trained over 1,900 people in creative resistance, powerbuilding, advocacy, and other organizing strategies
“With this report, we aim to tell our stories in our own words with a focus on the impact NDN Collective has had, uplifting not just the numbers but the peoples, lands, and waters behind them,” said Martell Hesketh, Impact and Learning Manager at NDN Collective. “We see this as a resource, a learning tool, a way to be accountable to our communities, and a way to share examples of our theory of liberation in action. It’s also a way for us to deeply reflect on and evaluate where we are as an organization and where we’ve come from – so we always have a clear and unified vision for the path ahead.”
“When I reflect on the last seven years, I think of a word in my language: Ea,” said Camille Kalama, NDN Collective board member. “Ea is life, breath, respiration. It also signifies sovereignty and independence. The work we’ve done – such as building schools, reclaiming and restoring homelands, supporting language revitalization, fostering cultural practices, and developing values-aligned economic initiatives – are all in service of Ea. To decide how we want to raise our children and what they learn in school: this is Ea. This is what it means to breathe.”
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NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.
