Northland Foundation offers grants focused on missing, murdered Indigenous women

DULUTH — The Northland Foundation announced Monday that it has $25,000 available to individuals or small groups that are working to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women.

The foundation is offering up to 10 grants of $2,500 each to grassroots organizations that need a financial boost toward supplies, hosting events or paying workers.

Erik Torch, the foundation's director of grantmaking, stood in front of red dresses and shawls — symbols used in awareness campaigns — in the City Hall atrium to make the announcement. He said it's the grassroots groups that have done the most toward addressing the violent epidemic.

"And it is this grassroots work that will continue to move the needle on systemic and institutional change that will prevent tragedy from ever happening and will promote healing for those who have suffered violence and loss," Torch said.

Torch cited the 2020 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force report to the Minnesota State Legislature which found that Native American women are less than 1% of the state's population but are 15% of missing persons cases each month.

"And why [are] Native American people ... targeted?" asked Phoebe Davis of Duluth's Indigenous Commission. "It's because we're invisible. And in invisibility, you can disappear."

The Northland Foundation is accepting applications from those who live in the seven counties of northeastern Minnesota or the five Native nations of this region through Nov. 18. Awards will be determined by mid-December.

Rene Ann Goodrich of the Natives Lives Matter Coalition is one of the people doing the work. She passed out information about Sheila St. Clair, who was last seen in Duluth on Aug. 15, 2015, and a new campaign to raise money for a reward fund that was developed by her group and Mending the Sacred Hoop, which is focused on ending violence toward Native women.