IMPACT REPORTS
Seven Year Impact Report: Free the People, Heal the Land
In NDN Collective’s Seven Year Impact Report, “Free the People, Heal the Land,” we reflect on seven years of building Indigenous collective power through our strategies of defend, develop, and decolonize. Rooted in the sacred significance of the number seven, this milestone report highlights generational organizing wins, including the Pactola Mineral Withdrawal and the release of Leonard Peltier, while facing the growing threats of authoritarianism, restricted civil liberties, and reduced community resources. Since 2018, NDN Collective has helped rematriate more than 177,000 acres of land to Indigenous ownership or control, trained over 1,900 organizers across Turtle Island, deployed more than $10 million in braided loan capital to strengthen Indigenous-owned businesses, and advanced wealth rematriation through transformative grantmaking and community development. Together, these efforts show us how investing in Indigenous self-determination helps build a more just and equitable future for all people and Mother Earth.
2024 IMPACT REPORT
The NDN Collective’s 2024 Impact Report highlights key achievements, that include distributing $26.9 million in grants, supporting twelve businesses with over $9 million in braided capital, returning 475 acres to Tribes and Community Land Trusts, training over 200 people in Indigenous communities, and organizing for the successful release of Leonard Peltier. The report details efforts in organizing, including tactical media, creative resistance, and various training initiatives. It also outlines the NDN Foundation’s grantmaking programs, emphasizing wealth rematriation. The report also covers the NDN Fund’s lending and impact investing and NDN Holdings’ community development and social enterprise work focused on land acquisition and asset building.
2023 IMPACT REPORT
During the first five years of any organization, the work is about showing proof of concept. For NDN Collective, that meant creating new movement infrastructure for Indigenous Peoples as well as actualizing our theory of change. One of the reasons we’ve been able to reach so many communities is because our theory of change is interwoven into our lived experience as frontline practitioners. Our work has touched so many parts of Turtle Island that we now can’t imagine a world without NDN Collective. We’re currently working to ensure that the groundwork that we spent the past five years building is here for decades to come so that we can continue to transform Indian country.
IMPACT STORIES REPORT 2023
This report highlights NDN Collective’s dedication to building Indigenous power through a variety of ways including organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building and narrative change. Most importantly, NDN Collective is supporting the creation of sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms and is redefining and revolutionizing the way in which nonprofits collaborate with Indigenous communities. The impact achieved through NDN Collective’s support contributed to each community’s ability to transform their systems, shift power, and generate sustainable solutions through Defending, Developing, and
Decolonizing that will last for generations to come.
5 YEAR IMPACT REPORT
Founded in 2018, NDN Collective was born out of a practitioner base of knowledge that originated from NDN Collective President and Founder Nick Tilsen’s experiences serving rural Indigenous communities through the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation. This orientation to the grassroots is foundational to our work in understanding the scale of systems, tools and resources needed to create lasting impact for Indigenous communities across the world.
