Seven generations from now, 23-year-old Jada Allen (Lumbee) hopes the issues facing Native youth have nothing to do with limited resources.
“I would love for us to get to a point where the challenges that we’re tackling are not that we don’t have the money to do something,” Allen told Native News Online.
She is working to make that future a reality. Allen is part of the 2026 cohort of Native Youth Grant Makers, which this week awarded 27 Native-led organizations more than $1.6 million in grant funding. The cohort is a program of Native Americans in Philanthropy, a D.C.-based nonprofit that aims to increase philanthropy investments in Native communities.
The awards were funded by NAP, Newman’s Own Foundation, Novo Nordisk, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, and Bezos Family Foundation, and were granted through NAP’s Indigenous Tomorrow’s Fund.
The cohort, made up of 10 Native youth ages 18-24, designed the fund and led the process, from criteria and the request for proposals to vetting applications and, ultimately, awarding the funds. Allen said they designed the request for proposals around a metaphorical garden centered around the Three Sisters. These crops are foundational to many Indigenous diets, which include squash, beans, and corn. The cohort asked applicants to describe how they approach their work using this metaphor: squash representing specialized work aimed at one area of community wellbeing; beans representing interconnected work spanning multiple areas; and corn representing systems-level work that connects a community ecosystem.
“A lot of us come from communities where the three sisters are very well known, and we wanted to make sure that we were funding a widespread representation of what it means to be a Native org serving your community — nourishing what nourishes us, healing, building power, and activating abundance,” Allen said. “
The cohort also noticed which applicants involved Native youth in leadership. Allen spoke about one organization whose application was led by a young person in the community who discovered the funding opportunity and worked with aunties to apply.
“To me, that is the goal, to have youth at the beginning and the end of it,” Allen said.
Awards were allocated into three funding levels: $25,000, $65,000, and $100,000. Grantees span organizations working on substance abuse recovery, youth development, literacy, environmental issues, and more, including All Nations Recovery, Coastal Salish Youth Recovery, NDN Girls Book Club, and Save California Salmon.
Allen said her experience in the cohort has been fulfilling and energizing.
“Programs revolving around Native youth can be kind of tricky,” she said. “Often they are Native youth focused, and not native youth led, and that decision-making power often does not necessarily align with the youth. With NAP, we have been a part of this process since the very beginning.”
With Native youth facing disproportionate challenges compared to their non-Native peers, Allen urges communities to involve them in leadership and decision-making processes, especially when it comes to funding.
“Native youth have agency,” she said. “Native youth are leaders in their own community. It takes a lot to take on the responsibilities we place on students: to be language learners, culture bearers, and sometimes caretakers. The work that we do is already present in our communities and is valued and meaningful.
The best thing you can do is integrate Native youth into your leadership structures. Your organizations should include our opinions and input, and we will all be better off for it.”
