Think Indian Community Awareness Grants

Think Indian Community Awareness Grants of $2,500 are available to student groups and accredited higher education institutions. These grants encourage institutions who serve Native students to promote the positive message of “Think Indian,” the vibrancy of Native students, and the highlight the support provided by Native scholarship programs to their campus and community.

“Think Indian” was originally created as a public awareness campaign to promote the American Indian College Fund, and the many ways that its scholars contribute to, and change our world. Its message connected so deeply with Native students and institutions that it was revived in 2018, specifically to promote the College Fund’s scholarship, and other student programs.

The American Indian College Fund has created a grant program to highlight its “Think Indian” campaign, and scholarships program for Native students. The grants are intended to encourage institutions who serve Native students to promote the positive message of “Think Indian,” the vibrancy of Native students, and the highlight the support provided by Native scholarship programs to their campus and community. Projects must engage or include Native students.

Student groups and institutions can use grant funds for any activity or project that will promote the “Think Indian” campaign and scholarships in their community. Programs can include, but are not limited to:

  • Informational, social or artistic events
  • Art displays, installations or murals
  • Music performances or video screenings
  • Local awareness, publicity or marketing campaigns
  • Online/social media campaigns
  • Participation in existing campus or community events
  • Themed volunteer or service events (including Native vote or census projects)

CLICK HERE to view summaries of the 2019 awarded projects.

 

News & Events

We’re Still Here: Culture, Community, and College at the Heart of Native Resilience 

Cheryl Crazy Bull - headshot

Cheryl Crazy Bull, President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund

We know the news media and now, social media influencers, don’t intentionally give positive free “advertising,” and it is often very hard to have positive outcomes from remarkably ignorant and dangerous comments. But this week tribal colleges and universities and Native students received a bit of free advertising after a Fox News commentator made a genocidal remark on her social media account (in response to a college professor’s presentation about Native sovereignty) that “we didn’t kill enough Indians.” That remark unwittingly underscored the importance of tribal colleges and universities. 

Make no mistake. The post is both hate speech and a thinly veiled threat, and the comment has no place in public discourse. The individual who made the comment is known for the hatred she regularly spews, but that isn’t the point I wish to make here.  

Instead, I wish to explain how comments like these demonstrate the importance of tribal colleges and universities. 

Imagine if your children heard comments like this in the classroom, in the media, or in their communities. Imagine if your children were discouraged from pursuing a higher education, were bullied, or were told they shouldn’t even be alive. Someone made a comment like this about a Native college professor who has, despite the odds facing Native people, entered college, persisted, graduated, and is now teaching Native students and others about our histories, our cultures, and our legal rights as Indigenous people—all subjects that were denied to our people for generations. 

That’s right. Our children and grandchildren are learning in tribal college classrooms about their legal rights as citizens of sovereign nations. They are learning about our ties to our land. They are learning about the trust and treaty rights inherent in these legal agreements with the U.S. federal government to provide our people with education, health care, housing, the right to practice our spiritual and traditional practices, along with the right to our land itself. 

Native students and graduates are revitalizing our languages, our communal values, and our science that helped us, for centuries, be proud stewards of the land and its inhabitants—all its inhabitants. 

Native students, like any student, have the right to learn about their proud backgrounds. Our children are the descendants of people who know how to survive. They have the right to celebrate their cultures and histories without mockery, bullying, or threats to their existence. 

We know weakness and fear hide beneath such hateful words. We’ve been here before. 

After generations of Native students endured abuse in boarding schools, tribal nations revolutionized education for their people by creating tribal colleges and universities. These remarkable institutions are the perfect places for Native students to study. Chartered by their tribes while serving entire rural communities in the spirit of kinship, tribal colleges build strong community members and even stronger communities, teaching their students that every one of us, and each and every one of our gifts, is needed to build a stronger community and nation. And they do this while providing all students with an affordable, relevant higher education steeped in Native traditions and cultures.  

Tribal colleges and universities are not just educating individuals. They are building strong communities where all our children in rural communities can be seen, heard, and respected for their contributions. 

Many elected officials and pundits advocate cutting funding for these remarkable institutions the Carnegie Foundation called “underfunded miracles,” as they are making significant, even unprecedented, contributions to their communities, regions, and states.  

But these people don’t understand what they are up against: generations of resilient people from resilient nations. We’ve seen and heard far worse. Such ugliness and short-sightedness are not a surprise to us. 

What might be a surprise to them, however, is the number of decent people who share our communities’ values, rooted in the belief that education is the answer—not just to our communities’ issues and to making our children’s dreams reality—but also to the challenge of creating a stronger, more beautiful nation where all of our children can bloom.  

Whether Native or non-Native, students who study ranchland management at a tribal college in the Great Plains, the arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, nursing in rural Montana where health care worker shortages are threatening the longevity of its citizens, these students and others who become electricians, social workers, and entrepreneurs are the key to our communities’ prosperity. 

Tribal colleges and universities, our students, and graduates are working to develop stronger, more vibrant communities nationwide. There is nothing to fear about that, no matter what the pundits and fearmongers might say. 

We thank you for joining us and honoring us with your support as we speak the truth about our Native histories and identities as we work to fulfill our commitment to create stronger Native communities and a stronger nation for a better America—where we can all thrive as committed and respectful neighbors. 

Please continue to follow this blog, where we will be sharing our vision for how we can make that happen together, ensuring the tribal colleges continue their remarkable work serving their communities, and that we ensure every Native student who wants an education has the resources to do so. 

 

Our Work Is Not Finished

As we learned last week, the nation’s legislators passed the Trump Administration’s reconciliation bill that included significant budget changes for many programs including many that serve Indian Country.

In spite of the outcome, we want to thank you for your calls and emails to your elected officials on behalf of Native students and Native higher education. You showed up for what is right: the future of our communities.

As you know from our advocacy, we opposed the reconciliation bill because of those budget changes and how they impacted education, health care, and safety. At the College Fund and throughout Indian Country, we are deeply worried about the cuts in funding and the changes in programs.

The future for all of our communities is intertwined with EVERY ONE of OUR shared communities. Our nation’s future depends on the future of every one of us. It is more critical than ever that we work together to educate the doctors, teachers, scientists and leaders of tomorrow.

The federal budget will have a profound impact on education, not just for Native communities, but for everyone. And although much was lost, we want to take time and remember our work together culminated in a few wins, too. For example, Pell Grants remain intact, ensuring the nation’s low- to middle-income students can study and enter the careers of their choice. In addition, “Workforce Pell Grants” were added for qualifying students enrolled in accredited workforce programs in high-skill, high-wage areas, even if the programs were short-term.

Know that our work is not finished. In Native cultures, we believe we cannot afford to throw away a single person’s gifts. Every individual has something to contribute, and every talent must be fostered for us all to flourish. To that end, we invite you to continue to walk beside us as we work to ensure Native students can further their education to give back to their communities—and that the remarkable tribal colleges and universities who serve Native and rural communities keep their doors open to graduate the skilled and talented workers we need.

We will be sharing our initiatives on our web site and social media regularly and we look forward to working alongside you as we work together to build a better future for our children, grandchildren, and generations to come.

URGENT! Last Chance! Help Stop the Big Beautiful Bill!

The Big Beautiful Bill Is Headed to the House of Representatives for a final vote. Call your representatives and make your voice heard NOW to stop it! The bill will negatively impact Native students and higher education institutions by:

    • Changing federal student loan programs and financial aid including student loan repayment plans and ending some income-contingent plans like the SAVE plan, capping Parent PLUS loans and eliminating the Graduate PLUS loan program for new borrowers
    • Altering Pell Grant eligibility and possibly reducing funding for certain students.

It will also harm rural and Native communities by:

    • Eliminating health insurance for 17 million Americans;
    • Increasing the cost of health care;
    • Closing hospitals in rural communities, reducing jobs and also access to health care;
    • Reducing and eliminating food assistance for millions of vulnerable children, veterans, and other Americans;
    • Eliminating millions of jobs;
    • And exploding the national debt—all while increasing the tax bills of the nation’s average citizens.

If you haven’t joined us yet (and even if you have) now is THE time to make your voices heard for your communities. Tell your Representative NO—this Bill is harmful for Native communities, rural communities, and average Americans.

How you can help: Please contact your elected Representatives today and ask them to say “No” to the Big, Beautiful Bill.

Script:
Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP]. I’m calling to ask that [YOUR REPRESENTATIVE’S NAME] oppose passing the One Big, Beautiful Bill. This bill’s Pell Grant and student loan policies will create unnecessary barriers to achieving a higher education for low to middle-income students, especially American Indian and Alaska Natives.

URGENT! Last Chance! Help Stop the Big Beautiful Bill!

Limiting students’ access to funds for education will also lead to an economic fallout in terms of their ability to participate in the workforce and spend their earnings in the market, while also creating a shortage of skilled, qualified, and very needed workers in their communities and a dearth of other important and needed programs and services in rural and Native communities.