Something you might not know about Newman’s Own Foundation, the grantmaker established by the late actor Paul Newman, is that it’s been working with and supporting Indigenous communities since the 1990s. Part of the foundation’s mission is to “nourish and transform the lives of children who face adversity,” and in 2022, it dialed in on Indigenous Food Justice as one of its three priority areas.
Like other funding leaders, the foundation’s Indigenous Communities Officer Jackie Blackbird and her colleagues were intrigued by how “the power of collaborative funding” could advance its work. “We knew it was something that we wanted to do,” Blackbird said, “but we needed to ensure that we got the partners and the timing right.”
A little over a year ago, the stars aligned — not only around collaborative funding, but also around participatory grantmaking.
Foundation reps attended the Native Americans in Philanthropy annual meeting and saw an opportunity to shift power by bringing Native youth into the grantmaking process. NAP, which runs a Native Youth Grantmakers cohort and, just as importantly, has experience with collaborative funding mechanisms, came on board as a partner. Next, the two brought in Novo Nordisk US, the subsidiary of the Danish pharmaceutical corporation. “We were interested in placing 18- to 24-year-olds at the center of grantmaking decisions because this age group offers unique insights and perspectives that are vital for addressing contemporary community needs,” said Director of Corporate Sustainability and Social Impact Kate Masuch.
In mid-June, the NAP announced the Indigenous Tomorrows Fund (ITF), a participatory grantmaking initiative in which 18- to 24-year-olds connected to Indigenous communities will award up to 24 grants of $30,000 for a 12-month term, focused on Indigenous approaches to health, wellbeing and wellness.
The fund is an example of participatory grantmaking in action — still relatively rare across the philanthrosphere, despite some years of rising interest, and all the more so because it places decision-making power in the hands of young people. It’s also a critical new funding source within the historically undercapitalized Indigenous grantmaking ecosystem. At a time when 1 in 4 American Indian and Alaska Native households with children are food insecure, stakeholders plan to scale the fund to $25 million to $50 million in aggregate support over the next five years.
“The spark for the ITF is a belief in the wisdom, creativity and vision of young people in a landscape that historically overlooks their power,” said Erik Stegman, CEO of Native Americans in Philanthropy, which is housing the fund. “It’s our vision of reimagining how resources move to communities in ways that honor self-determination and intergenerational knowledge.”
An overview of the ITF’s participatory grantmaking process
Newman’s Own Foundation, which distributes one hundred percent of its parent company’s after-tax profits to charity, has given over $600 million to social impact organizations since 1982. Last year, it provided $2.7 million in grants to its 39 Indigenous Food Justice grantee partners.
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk US, as a subsidiary of Novo Nordisk, is separate from but related to the gargantuan Novo Nordisk Foundation, which controls the holding company that owns Novo Nordisk.
Support for Indigenous communities from Novo Nordisk US dates back to 2010, when the company, working with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, created a 10,000-square-foot wellness facility, alongside a mobile health clinic to serve the remote areas of the 100,000-acre reservation. Twelve years later, Novo Nordisk US partnered with Oklahoma State University’s Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy to engage with five tribes across the state in developing food sovereignty initiatives that address the root causes of adverse health outcomes.
In a similar vein, the ITF, which is accepting applications through July 22, aims to address what Masuch of Novo Nordisk US called “the root causes of poor health.” Projects funded through the new Indigenous Tomorrows Fund should align with one or more of the following areas: Promoting food justice and access to nourishing foods for children, advancing community health and wellness, and strengthening connections between food, culture and healing across generations.
As far as the grantmaking process is concerned, the aim is to first “recruit young people who are connected to Indigenous communities,” Stegman said. Next, the fund will provide these individuals with what he called “training on philanthropic systems and processes” and connect them with mentors and advisors in the philanthropic sector. Using their lived experiences, insights and a vetted rubric as guides, youth participants will then evaluate grant programs and decide on how many awards to disburse.
After the grants go out, the youth reviewers and advisors will check in with recipients toward the end of a one-year performance period. The fund will disburse over $700,000 during its 2025 pilot year.
The fund aims to train Indigenous youth in philanthropic practices
Many philanthropic leaders clearly seem to appreciate the idea that individuals with lived experience should have a say in how funding reaches their communities. However, our coverage suggests that participatory grantmaking has yet to reach anything resembling critical mass, primarily due to funders’ reluctance to outsource decision-making.
The ITF is predicated on the belief that young people should shape the funding agenda and decide where the money flows, as opposed to, say, foundation program officers with advanced degrees. As Blackbird put it, this is “a departure from traditional philanthropy.”
But reluctance to give up control doesn’t entirely account for funders’ tepid embrace of participatory grantmaking. Some balk at building a new and potentially costly grantmaking program from scratch. Others aren’t sold on the idea that outsourced grantmaking leads to a more effective allocation of the foundation’s finite resources. Some have suggested that career grantmakers may be concerned about losing their jobs.
The partners behind the ITF clearly felt differently. “We believe that shifting power to our youth who are closest to the issues in their communities and allowing them to influence their communities with intention will prove to have a positive and measurable impact on the long-term, negative health outcomes affecting Indigenous communities,” said Blackbird of Newman’s Own Foundation.
Again, it’s hard to deny that a 20-year-old’s ideas on how to advance community health in their own community will differ from — and may even be an increment over — those of a middle-aged foundation program manager living thousands of miles away. That said, I’m obligated to note that participatory grantmaking has its own set of pitfalls.
For instance, while external decision-makers with lived experience are attuned to issues facing their communities, in some cases, they aren’t well versed in how to wield the levers of philanthropy — by, for example, implementing performance evaluation metrics or integrating their work with that of local policymakers — to galvanize the kind of system change they envision. It isn’t their fault, of course: They’ve been asked to make grantmaking decisions precisely because they don’t hail from the foundation world. But this can frustrate grantmakers’ best-laid plans to shift power.
With that in mind, I was struck by how the ITF will provide youth participants with training and access to philanthropic advisors before they evaluate applications. It’s an important part of the effort because, ideally, it bridges the gap and lets the young decision-makers benefit from at least some of institutional philanthropy’s tools and organizational know-how.
Related Inside Philanthropy Resources:
For Subscribers Only
The fund plans to expand and is recruiting new partners
At the conclusion of the ITF’s 2025 pilot, Indigenous youth grantmakers, funding collaborative members and NAP will review and assess the process to facilitate the launch of an expanded program. The focus will be on “indicators that reflect improved overall wellbeing and a more active voice in creating a sustained, healthier environment for Indigenous people,” Blackbird said.
Stakeholders are in the process of inviting additional funders to serve on the ITF’s advisory committee comprising youth, elders and mentors, and nonprofit organizations that engage in youth-led work. Participating funders will provide guidance to the youth who will lead the work and inform the creation of long-term guiding principles, a request for proposal and measurement rubrics for the fund.
“Between 2026 and 2030, our goal is to work up to regranting $5 million per year,” said NAP’s Stegman. The expanded fund aims to increase the number and size of the grants it disburses, engage additional funders and document and share the model with the broader philanthropic community. (Foundation leaders who are interested in becoming ITF cofunders can contact Savannah Baber, NAP’s Indigenous Leaders Initiative program manager, at sbaber@nativephilanthropy.org.)
It’s been a year since Newman’s Own Foundation reps attended the NAP conference and brought NAP and Novo Nordisk US on board to develop what became the Indigenous Tomorrows Fund. With more funders likely to join them, Stegman and his colleagues envision the ITF as a source of steady support — and a reminder to their grantmaking peers of the importance of transferring power beyond the foundation’s four walls.
“In conventional grantmaking models, decision makers are typically removed from community realities,” he said. “Native youth witness and experience the harmful impacts of persistent underinvestment in education, mental health, food security and more. And they know firsthand what is needed to improve their environments in a way that is rooted in culture and place. We believe this can and should be a new paradigm for philanthropic practice.”
