Mato Tipila. Photo by Angel White Eyes.

Maybe you’ve also felt the crispness in the morning air where you live, or watched leaves begin to flutter to the ground. As the busy summer season winds down, we’re taking a moment to rest and reflect on the new connections and collective work we’ve accomplished this summer. This includes educating communities on the risks uranium mining currently poses to the Black Hills through our ongoing webinar series.

The work continues as we begin a discussion about what it means to vote while Indigenous in the very system that colonized our nations, not because we believe voting will meaningfully solve the challenges we face, but because, as organizers, we see it as one tactic among many. We already engage with these federal systems across our organizing strategies, and we’ll use every tool at our disposal to defend our land. One current land defense effort is submitting public comments to protect the Roadless Rule, which safeguards 45 million acres of forest land from development.

We know these fights to protect the land can feel endless at times. That’s why we’re grateful for the chance to reflect on our win at Pe’ Sla, detailed in a recent Guardian article. One lesson stands out as we head into new battles this season: no single tactic wins these fights. It’s the stacking of legal action, direct action, and public narrative, each protecting and reinforcing the others, that built the leverage needed to win at Pe’ Sla.

A group protests outside of the Supreme Court to protect the Indian Child Welfare Act.

We know that voting as an Indigenous person can be complicated. As we gear up for the midterm elections in November, we think it’s important to begin discussing what Choctaw journalist B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster called the “Native Vote Dilemma” – that existential question of how we engage with the political system that colonized our land and continues functioning as a settler-colonial nation-state.

As Indigenous peoples, we are accustomed to generational battles. The fight to both return and protect the Ȟe Sápa (Black Hills) in South Dakota is one of those fights. Our sacred sites and waters are constantly facing threats from new mining efforts.

Art from the Northern Organizers Camp in Fairbanks, AK. Photo by Angie Sollea.

NDN Collective offered a Tactical Media training at the 2026 Northern Organizers Camp in Fairbanks, Alaska. The camp was hosted by Native Movement and held at their Wellness & Resilience Center called Nankat (“on the land” in Gwich’in). We learned about current organizing efforts and struggles that northern organizers are facing, including the decline of the salmon population because of the ongoing impacts of commercial fishing and the Ambler Road project. This 211-mile-long proposed Ambler Road project would directly impact the migration path of the caribou. Native Alaskans live a subsistence lifestyle and deeply rely on these food sources for their rich nutrients and to carry forward their cultural lifeways.

Sadie Red Wing is a Year 2 Collective Abundance Fund Awardee who continues to demonstrate what is possible when talent, determination, and opportunity come together. Since receiving the award, she has grown her graphic design business and also gained a deeper understanding of her relationship with money. But Sadie is making an impact far beyond her own business. One of her proudest accomplishments was designing the Native American Heritage Month Football helmets for the University of South Dakota Coyotes, which received regional recognition and celebrated Indigenous representation. As her client relationships continue to grow, so does her vision of using designs to uplift Indigenous organizations and communities. We are honored to uplift Sadie’s continued success and look forward to seeing where her creativity and leadership will take her!

Nick speaking with matriarch warriors Madonna Thunder Hawk and Lilias Jarding on Season 4, Episode 8 of the LANDBACK For the People Podcast.

On this episode, Nick sits down with two matriarch warriors who have been fighting to protect the He Sapa for decades: Madonna Thunder Hawk (Oohenumpa Lakota), a longtime Indigenous organizer, and Lilias Jarding, Executive Director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. Since the 1970s, they have organized both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to stand up against mining threats from corporations in the Black Hills.

The warning delivered to the Pe’ Sla Protectors by the US Forest Service officials, May 1, 2026. Photo by Willi White.

When two Oglala Lakota scouts heard drilling was expected to begin on Pe’ Sla, the sacred prairie in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they set out on back trails. They needed to find out where. That’s when they saw a deer break ahead and a red-tailed hawk soar above them – less like a coincidence than being led, the scouts said. Over a rise, they came upon a road freshly cut to the dirt. They followed it, past a parked truck. “Oh my god,” one of them said, seeing a drill turning. “They’re drilling now!”…Continue Reading

Back in early 2026, NDN Collective staff deployed to the Twin Cities to support the organizing efforts defending communities against the cruel ICE occupation. During this time, NDN Collective CEO and founder Nick Tilsen had the opportunity to speak with Twin Cities-based organizer Jason Sole, a formerly incarcerated abolitionist who was granted a unanimous pardon in late 2025 …Continue Reading

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed rescinding the Roadless Rule, which was enacted 25 years ago to prevent industrial logging and road building across 45 million acres of national forestlands. There is currently a Draft Environmental Impact Statement comment period open until September 21.

Submit a comment to the Forest Service urging them to finalize DEIS Alternative 1 to keep the Roadless Rule in place! Learn more about why the Roadless Rule is important here.

We are hosting a series of webinars to educate the community on mining projects currently threatening the Black Hills. 

Graphic Art by JayCee Beyale.

For generations, Indigenous Peoples have been preparing for this moment. NDN Collective has built power through grantmaking, storytelling, frontline action, and sustainable investing.

The For The People Campaign is designed to provide critical resources directly to Indigenous communities through our existing grantmaking programs and organizing work to strengthen our movement, enhance the resiliency of frontline actions, and continue making transformative change under this authoritarian administration.