DECOLONIZING WEALTH PROJECT AND LIBERATED CAPITAL ANNOUNCE 2024-2025 GRANTEE PARTNERS OF CALIFORNIA TRUTH AND HEALING FUND

The organization will award 18 Indigenous-led organizations $865,000 to continue their critical work in helping Native American Californians Advance Healing Through Narrative Projects, Landback Efforts, Language and Culture Restoration, and more

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – November 13, 2024 – Today, the Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP), through its Liberated Capital fund, announced the distribution of $865,000 to 18 Indigenous-led organizations and tribes across California as part of its multi-year California Truth and Healing Fund (CATH) initiative. With 13 returning grantee partners and five new tribes and organizations joining this cohort, grantees will use the funding to advance their efforts, including critical work to uplift California Indian boarding school testimonies and narrative projects, capacity building for land trust and landback efforts, archaeological tribal data collection, engaging California Native youth, and more.

Now in its third year, the multi-year grantmaking initiative supports California Native American families, communities, tribes, and organizations engaged in advocacy, movement-building, and healing. The fund helps tribes and organizations execute their own truth and healing programs in local communities across the state.  While the fund is private and independent of the State of California, it leverages the work of The California Truth & Healing Council, created by Executive Order N-15-19, by providing California tribes and Native-led organizations with resources to participate in the state’s process and holds the government accountable to deliver on its promises to Native people.  

Since its inception, the fund has distributed over $2.1M in capital to California Native tribes and organizations with the goal of resourcing Indigenous leaders with tools for the path toward healing and reconciliation in the state. Decolonizing Wealth Project believes that California’s truth and healing process creates an unprecedented opportunity to build public and political will across the state and further energize the call to establish the federal Truth and Healing Commission under S.1723/H.R.7227. In service to work happening beyond California, DWP launched the National Truth and Healing Fund dedicated to addressing historical harms, including the painful legacy of Native American Boarding Schools, by providing funding to support national efforts to advance reconciliation and healing across Indian Country. 

“When we look back at history, at how wealth has been accumulated, it’s been extracted from Indigenous communities, Black communities, low-wage workers who have been exploited, mostly people of color and we need the rest of the world to understand our experiences, to take ownership and to be a part of the healing with us,” said Edgar Villanueva, CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project. “We are resourcing folks here in California to be at the table, to hold the state accountable to deliver on its promises to Native people so that the state can go beyond apology and actually put its money, its policy, and its power behind healing in a way that is driven by the self-determination of Indigenous people in California.”

Today, Decolonizing Wealth Project released An Invitation to Heal, a visual asset to accompany the California Truth and Healing 2024-2025 grants. The video features footage and interviews from an April 2024 convening of California Truth and Healing Fund grantee partners in Santa Rosa, CA. Designed to introduce future truth and healing storytelling, the video affirms the need for truth and healing in California Native American communities while introducing the concept that healing is needed for everyone.  

“We are stories and if you want to learn what the true history of this place is, then you have to listen to the experiences of its Indigenous people,” said Teresa Baratta of Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians and Redbud Resource Group.”That looks different for different people but we have to listen to each other’s truth if we want to heal and create a better future for children”

In speaking about how the fund’s resources supported her personal healing journey, Lena Bommelyn (Tolowa Nee-dash Society) said,

 “I have wondered about my parents’ experiences at Chemawa and Sherman (boarding schools). I never had the time or resources to find out the truth about what happened to them so very far from home. Pulling back the curtain to find the truth and finding out more of what happened to them helps me understand them. I was able to give testimony on the stage of Sherman and tell the world how horrible his experience was and how his abuse there carried over to his family later on in life. Knowing how the children had no safe place, and no one to protect them explains so much!”

“Truth and wellness process is important for Indigenous people but there’s a very important part of it being left out,” said Valentin Lopez of Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and Amah Mutsun Land Trust. “And that is the healing that must be done by the perpetrators,” he continued. 

Grant decisions were made by an advisory board of California Native Americans and grant amounts will range from $5,000 to $50,000. Advisors include Kouslaa Kessler-Mata, Professor, USF, Truth & Healing Councilmember, Yak Tityu Tityu Chumash; Erica Costa, Attorney, Pomo and Wailacki; Chag Lowry, Educator, Yurok, Maidu, and Achuwami cultures; and Taylor Pennewell, Tyme Maidu Nation, Berry Creek Rancheria, Executive Director of Redbud Resource Group.

The new grantee partners for the California Truth & Healing Fund are: 

• Yurok Tribe – Trinity-Klamath, CA
• Pala Band of Mission Indians – Pala, CA
• Koy’o Land Conservancy- Roseville, CA
• Indigenous Justice- Sacramento, CA
• Kwaaymii Laguna Band of Indians- Pine Valley, CA

The returning grantee partners for the California Truth & Healing Fund are:

• Blue Lake Rancheria – Blue Lake, CA
• Gabrieleno-Tongva Council San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians – San Gabriel, CA
• Wukchumni Tribe – Visalia, CA
• Tolowa Nee-dash Society – Crescent City, CA
• Tsnungwe of California- Salyer, CA
• Scott Valley Indian Community – Etna, CA
• Indian Cultural Organization – Redding, CA
• Amah Mutsun Land Trust – Santa Cruz, CA
• Redbud Resource Group – Rohnert Park, CA
• California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project- Nevada City, CA
• Fernandeno Tataviam Band of Mission Indians – San Fernando, CA
• Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians – Willits, CA
• ytt Northern Chumash Nonprofit – San Luis Obispo, CA

ABOUT DECOLONIZING WEALTH PROJECT

Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP), an Indigenous-led racial justice organization, works globally to disrupt the existing systems of moving and controlling capital using education and healing programs, radical reparative giving, and storytelling. Through its fund, Liberated Capital, DWP moves unrestricted resources to Indigenous, Black, and other people-of-color-led initiatives working for economic and racial justice. 

www.decolonizingwealth.com  

www.decolonizingwealth.com/liberated-capital 

Link to CA Truth and Healing Visual Asset: https://youtu.be/J6zzp4rb1c0?si=Qe0tfPy2uz-adyBn 

Link to CA Truth and Healing Stills: HERE

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