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.
Related Pages
Students Social Media
News & Events
Association on American Indian Affairs’ Partnership with American Indian College Fund Creates Pathways for College Access and Success
Denver, Colo. – Since 2020, the American Indian College Fund (College Fund) has partnered with the Association on American Indian Affairs (the Association) to help administer the oldest Native scholarship program in the United States. The Association on American Indian Affairs Scholarship Program has been providing funding to Native students in undergraduate and graduate programs since 1947. Enrolled citizens of Native nations who are also enrolled as full-time students with a minimum 2.5 GPA may apply. Natives from both federally recognized and non-federally recognized Native nations in the continental U.S. and Alaska are eligible.
More recently, the College Fund has also begun supporting the Association’s Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS) scholarship that focuses on connecting Indigenous knowledge systems to western science by helping Native students find careers in biological sciences or Native studies. Both scholarship opportunities are funded by an endowment from the Elizabeth and Sherman Asche Memorial Scholarship, the Homborg Scholarship, the Mary Hemenway Memorial Funds, and donors. In the 2025-26 scholarship season, the association’s funding programs are expected to contribute $76,000 to the success of 35 Native scholars.
The College Fund assists with this effort by including both the Association Scholarship and CBIKS in its application and selection processes. Its one application process evaluates applicants for 385 scholarship programs. This streamlines the application process for interested Native students. Collaborative efforts like this leverage the strengths of various Native organizations to ensure students have both access and a pathway to success in higher education.
About the American Indian College Fund – The American Indian College Fund has been the nation’s largest charity supporting Native higher education for 35 years. The College Fund believes “Education is the answer” and provided $20.5 million in scholarships and other direct student support for access to a higher education steeped in Native culture and values to American Indian students in 2023-24. Since its founding in 1989 the College Fund has provided more than $349 million in scholarships, programs, community, and tribal college support. The College Fund also supports a variety of programs at the nation’s 34 accredited tribal colleges and universities, which are located on or near Indian reservations, ensuring students have the tools to graduate and succeed in their careers. The College Fund consistently receives top ratings from independent charity evaluators. It earned a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, a Gold Seal of Transparency from Guidestar, and the “Best in America Seal of Excellence” from the Independent Charities of America. The College Fund was also named as one of the nation’s top 100 charities to the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. For more information about the American Indian College Fund, please visit www.collegefund.org.
Journalists—The American Indian College Fund does not use the acronym AICF. On second reference, please use the College Fund.
College Fund Hosts its First Year Experience Symposium
For many Tribal College and University (TCU) students, including non-traditional students who work or are parents, the First Year Experience program will be the first opportunity to learn about their TCU and to forge a sense of belonging. The American Indian College Fund’s First Year Experience Symposium provides resources and support to first-year students and peer learning opportunities for the Cultivating Native Student Success (CNSS) Community of Practice groups. Over five years, program officers will support TCU grantee partners to create strategic enrollment plans and to address the priority areas where TCUs need assistance to design and implement strategies to promote Native student success. One common priority area TCUs identified is with students’ first year experience.
The First Year Experience Symposium welcomed 45 participants from TCUs and other colleges to learn about Native students’ unique needs and how to meet them.
Sessions included information on how to create a sense of belonging and inspire success. Dr. Benjamin Rieth consultant from the College of Menominee Nation shared how they use the Indigenous heart berries as a model and the 5 Rs of belonging (respect, relevance, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationship) to ground their activities in Indigenous ways of knowing.
Student activities at a welcome event over two days with allow them to create relationships with each other and faculty; participate in cultural activities such as talking circles, learning teas, and campus tours of the Green Bay and main campus; registration; textbook ordering; and other orientation activities. Students will also go through mentorship activities during the school year.
Non-traditional students who work or have children have the opportunity to meet with advisors individually while also learning what they might miss from the sessions and how to make up assignments.
Participants discussed incorporating cultural activities into orientations such as basket weaving, sweat lodges, late-work policies, tutoring services, and books clubs to meet student needs. The conversation also led to discussions around the unique needs of non-traditional students and transfer students and how we might engage these students in First Year Experience activities.
The University of South Dakota Native Student Services team presented ways they engage their living learning community by connecting students with Native Speakers. Students can engage, ask questions, and see themselves represented in a multitude of career pathways. They also work with Native students through TRIO and the Multicultural Office by providing support through an orientation created with a first-generation lens to make college more accessible for all students. Students learn about campus acronyms, financial aid, and office hours through this program.
Participants also learned about how Northwest Indian College engages with students both in-person and online after having the transition to online programming during the Covid-19 pandemic. Colleges spoke about how it’s best to meet the online student needs by offering programs entirely online rather than hybrid formats so students can be fully engaged in programming.
Kelly Church is a talented artist who weaves beautiful Black Ash baskets and hats, and Birch Bark bitings, among many other traditional creations Kelly’s Michigan roots run deep. She is a member of the Matchi Be Nash e Wish Tribe in southern Michigan and a descendant of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, a tribe from northern Michigan. She has taught many workshops all around Michigan, and her work is displayed at several museums.
Kelly writes, “My name is Kelly Church. I am a member of the Matchi Be Nash e Wish Tribe in Hopkins, Michigan. I come from an unbroken line of Black Ash basket weavers, and one of the largest Black Ash basket weaving families in Michigan. I learned from my dad Bill Church’ ba (has passed) and my cousin John Pigeon. I have been weaving for more than 25 years. I learned patience from both of these mentors because there is nothing quick about making a Black Ash basket, because you start right from the Black Ash tree.
I do harvest my own materials from the Michigan woods and forests. Where I am able to locate it depends on what kind of material I am looking for. I learned Black Ash skills from my father and uncle but have also learned how to harvest and work with the other materials from giving and sharing with tribal elders around our state, such as Gerald Wesaw, Ron Paquin, and Dan Walden.
I am inspired by many things when weaving my baskets but primarily leaving messages for future generations on how to continue the traditions or about saving seeds or the infestation of the Emerald Ash borer on our Black Ash trees. By leaving behind these messages, I hope to educate students and learners as well as help sustain traditions that have been maintained by us since before this country existed.