Our mission is build Native-led capacity and serve as a strategic advisor to both donors and indigenous communities.

Resilience

"As our Senior Development Advisor for the past year, Evelyn Erickson has completely changed the way we approach development, resulting in a three-fold increase in foundation funding due to the experience, wisdom, and many relationships she possesses within the highly-specialized Indigenous philanthropy sector. Evelyn isn't just a consultant. She is an essential member of our leadership team, and a kind, compassionate person who cares deeply about our work serving Indigenous people."

Chéri A. Smith (Mi'Kmaq descendant), MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow, CEO & Founder of Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy

Strategy

Operations

Communications

Development

Fundraising

Testimonials

Strategy

“We had the dream of an Indigenous-led NGO and Evelyn helped us recruit board
members, navigate major organization structural changes, develop our mission
and vision, attract donors, and stay the course to see our dreams through.

Evelyn acted as both a catalyst for the changes we needed and as an even-keel, committed
mentor to leadership and guide for the board.

Most importantly, Evelyn believes in what we are doing deeply, and her belief, shared values, tenacity and ability to empower others is just what we needed to achieve our dream of an Indigenous women-led NGO, She also has great personal style! “

Vicki Wellspring
Community Herbalist, Advocate, CA-State Certified Domestic Violence and
Sexual Assault Peer Counselor and Chairperson of Xa Kako Dile

Operations & Development

“Evelyn Arce and Indigenous Resilience Consulting expert involvement and guidance is helping our not for profit successfully launch our immediate and far reaching visions. Her eagle-like insight and involvement has helped us grow our impact, and more than double our funding and partner circle, in under a year! Eva
and IRC are an amazing gift for us, and for any foundations who are seeking to find a most direct path to achieve their good missions, with excellence.”

Jetara Séhart, Founder and President, Love Wild
Horses®️Lovewildhorses.org

Founder & CEO, Evelyn Erickson, spending time with Achuar children.

Fundraising

"Evelyn is a force of nature! Her boundless energy and clarity in how to catalyze donors and partners is a rare gift. We have seen her work in action, and it has helped us immensely."

Beth Rattner, Executive Director

Biomimicry Institute

Publications

for specific strategies to support Indigenous peoples

Founder & CEO, Evelyn Erickson, reuniting with family from Cucunuba, Colombia

2016

Drops in the Soil, Not in the Bucket: The Case for Borderless Indigenous Philanthropy

This article begins with the question of how philanthropy can possibly address the magnitude of the environmental and cultural change which is occurring on a global scale. Philanthropy can be more effective by making true partnerships with Indigenous Peoples whose accumulated knowledge and understanding is increasingly making our collective response to change more effective.

2015

New GrantCraft Guide Explores Grantmaking to Support Indigenous Peoples

A new guide released today by GrantCraft, a service of Foundation Center, explores how funders collaborate with and bring support to indigenous communities around the world. Funding Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Support, developed in partnership with International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) and launched at an event hosted by the Ford Foundation, illustrates how donors see indigenous populations as important partners, especially in the areas of environmental defense, climate change, and global food security, because they live on lands holding much of the earth's remaining biodiversity.

2014

The Kogi: An Urgent Call from Guardians of the Heart of the World

In August of 2013, we had the rare honor of being invited to visit the Kogi (Kággaba), the most isolated of the Indigenous groups of the Sierra Nevada to share their story and message with the world. It is our intent to amplify their voices, their words and their vision.

2013

Standing Shoulder to Shoulder with Indigenous Peoples on the Frontlines: Evelyn Arce

Arce has continued to bring diverse people and organizations together in re-envisioning the role of philanthropy in empowering local communities to make changes in a global world. Arce is passionate about her role in bringing a voice to marginalized peoples— people too often cast into the dark shadows of neo-colonial histories. “My grandmother and mother are both very strong forces in my life,” she says. “They were mestizas who lived in our ancestral village of Cucunubá, located in central Colombia, north of Bogota. My grandmother taught me the old ways by example. She would nurture sick birds back to health, do cleansing rituals with coconuts to ‘clear all the bad spirits,’ and work with medicinal plants. My grandmother was a single mom and my mother was a single mom, so they taught us how to be very independent and self-sufficient. “Both my mother and grandmother gave me my strong work ethic. My grandmother was a seamstress and worked long hours for very little pay. My mother came to the United States when she was 30 years old to escape the violence in Colombia and give her children a better life. She worked three jobs to support her seven children.