Native Food Security projects are designed to ensure consistent access and availability to an abundance of culturally relevant foods that meet the needs and preferences of Native communities.
Donor Name: First Nations Development Institute
State: All States
County: All Counties
Territory: American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 05/14/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 1 Year
Details:
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities must have reliable access to traditional foods that support both physical and spiritual well-being. While conventional food security focuses on the nutritional needs of individuals and households, Native Food Security extends beyond sustenance. It encompasses the physical and spiritual nourishment of families, households, Tribes, clans, communities, lands, and the foods themselves to further the conditions that support Native Food Security.
Focus Areas
- Native Food Distribution – Providing Food to Community: Food distribution projects aim to increase access to healthy, culturally relevant foods within Native communities by supporting food distribution efforts, strengthening local food networks, and addressing food insecurity. These projects prioritize traditional and locally sourced foods while enhancing the capacity of Native food programs and initiatives to serve their communities effectively. Funding may support infrastructure, operations, and educational efforts that align with Native food sovereignty principles. Allowable activities may include:
- Infrastructure & Equipment Support:
- Establishing or upgrading food storage facilities, including refrigeration and freezers for perishable traditional foods
- Purchasing shelving, bulk storage containers, and food distribution equipment.
- Improving food distribution hubs to increase efficiency and reach
- Sourcing & Distribution:
- Procuring traditional and locally sourced foods, including wild game, fish, and heirloom crops
- Partnering with Native producers, hunters, and fishers to integrate traditional foods into pantry offerings
- Establishing relationships with regional food banks and suppliers to enhance food availability
- Community Access & Engagement:
- Organizing community food distribution events, including traditional meal giveaways
- Implementing delivery services for Elders, community members with disabilities, and those with limited transportation
- Developing culturally appropriate food assistance programs that reflect community food preferences
- Operational Capacity & Professional Development:
- Training and supporting pantry staff and volunteers in culturally relevant food distribution
- Enhancing food safety protocols, inventory management systems, and operational best practices
- Providing stipends for community members involved in food harvesting and preparation
- Infrastructure & Equipment Support:
- Food Life Cycle – Strengthening any Point in the Food Life Cycle: Food Life Cycle projects focus on strengthening the movement of food across the cycle—origin, tending, harvesting, processing, sharing, consumption, enrichment—by identifying and addressing specific Native food security challenges. As communities improve upon inefficiencies, inequities, deficiencies, and disparities of their food life cycle, they produce a continuous and regenerative food system.
- Food Life Cycle
- Origin: Improve the conditions of a food’s origin points or where a food life cycle begins within a Native community
- Tending: Improve the ability to cultivate and manage food sources on a community scale
- Harvesting: Improve the ability to gather or harvest foods responsibility at community scale
- Processing: Improve the ability to safely and efficiently process foods, ensuring they remain fresh and suitable for storage or transportation on a community scale
- Sharing: Improve the ability to offer food at the community scale
- Consumption: Improve the ability for Native communities to have access to a nutritionally rich and culturally relevant diet
- Enrichment: Improve the knowledge or ability to enrich the upcoming food cycle by supporting responsible waste management
- Challenges
- Inefficiencies: Wasted resources (time, money, labor, materials) due to poor processes, systems, or decision-making, preventing optimal outcomes
- Deficiencies: Gaps, shortcomings, or inadequacies in a system, service, or resource, indicating something is lacking or not meeting a required standard
- Inequities: Unfair, systemic imbalances in access, resources, or opportunities, often caused by structural barriers or discrimination
- Disparities: Measurable differences between groups, which can result from inequities, deficiencies, or other factors; Not all disparities are caused by inequities, but many are
- Food Life Cycle
- Wild Food Harvesting: Hunting, Fishing, Gathering: The Wild Food Harvesting projects support Native communities in sustaining traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering practices, reinforcing connections to cultural foodways. These projects promote knowledge-sharing and responsible harvesting while strengthening Native food security. Project activities may include:
- Access to Place: Lands, waters, and the natural environment
- Hunting Training: Workshops on traditional hunting techniques, tracking, safety, and ethical harvesting
- Wild Game Harvest Training: Training on firearms handling, species identification, hunting regulations, and sustainable practices
- Wild Fruits Gathering & Processing: Education on identifying, harvesting, and processing wild fruits, herbs, and plants
- Guided Fishing Activities: Traditional fishing instruction, water navigation, fish handling, and conservation practices
- Habitat Creation & Restoration: Initiatives such as tree planting, water restoration, and sustainable land management
- Educational Resources: Development of materials and programs on gathering, processing, and cooking traditional foods
- Transportation and Travel Support: Funding for learning exchanges, either for participant’s travel or transportation to learn or bringing in knowledge holders.
- Equipment Provision: Essential gear for wild food harvesting, including:
- Fishing, hunting, and harvesting gear
- Food storage and processing supplies
- Safety equipment
- Resilient Native Foodway: The Resilient Native Foodway projects support Native communities in strengthening food security in response to climate change and natural disasters. This initiative funds food security projects that enhance preparedness, response, and recovery efforts while prioritizing traditional ecological knowledge and community-driven solutions to build long-term food system resilience. Project initiatives may include:
- Response & Preparedness – Supporting immediate relief efforts and long-term strategies that strengthen local capacity to respond to climate-related disasters in native food systems, including food production, storage, distribution, and emergency planning to ensure food security in crisis.
- Habitat Restoration & Water Security – Revitalizing systems critical to Indigenous foodways by restoring watersheds, forests, and soil health, improving water quality, retention, and access, and investing in conservation strategies to sustain agriculture, aquaculture, and food practices
- Climate Adaptation & Mitigation – Promoting climate-adapted agriculture, regenerative farming, and traditional land stewardship practices that enhance food production while reducing environmental impacts
- Infrastructure & Native Food Distribution Resilience – Strengthening food storage, processing, and distribution networks to withstand climate disruptions, incorporating renewable energy solutions, and supporting localized food hubs to sustain Native producers and consumers
- Traditional Knowledge & Capacity Building – Revitalizing and strengthening Indigenous food knowledge and land stewardship practices through mentorship, intergenerational learning, and community-led training on traditional practices, climate resilience and disaster preparedness
- Policy & Advocacy for Food Security – Advancing Tribal policies that promote climate resilience, strengthen food security, protect Native lands and waters, and uphold the rights of Indigenous communities to control their food systems.
Funding Information
Total requests for project budgets within this funding opportunity can range from $10,000 to $40,000.
Grant Period
The grant period for this funding opportunity will be one year.
Eligibility Criteria
- Tribal government programs, Tribal § 7871 entities, Native-controlled nonprofit organizations, and Native-controlled community organizations are eligible to apply. First Nations defines “Native-controlled” as an organization in which a majority of the Board of Directors and leadership team are Native American, Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian.
- Examples of eligible applicants include, but are not limited to:
- Federal- and state-recognized tribal governments (e.g., tribal arts programs, tribal cultural and heritage departments and centers, tribal museums, tribal economic development departments)
- Native-controlled 501(c)(3) nonprofits
- Native-controlled community organizations with fiscal sponsorship
- Tribal § 7871 entities.
For more information, visit FNDI.
