Native Workforce Partners (Albuquerque, NM)
Native Workforce Partners (NWP) is a Tribe-led coalition, fiscally sponsored by New Mexico Community Trust, bringing together Tribal and urban leaders from the state’s 19 Pueblos, three Apache Tribes, and the Navajo Nation to align workforce strategies, build capacity, and expand career pathways for Native communities. NWP’s state-level advocacy work is well-recognized among New Mexico’s workforce partners. The team is most proud of successfully uniting a diverse set of Tribal and urban WIOA and P.L. 102-477 programs under a single coalition table, a foundation the organization now aims to formalize and sustain through increased operational capacity.
Blue Lake Rancheria – Four Tribes Coalition (Blue Lake, CA)
The Four Tribes Coalition, housed by Blue Lake Rancheria, brings together the Blue Lake Rancheria, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, and Yurok Tribes in a workforce coalition, building on its pilot of the Four Tribes Pre-Apprenticeship for Low-Voltage Electricians Program. Grant funds will help coalition members continue to strengthen their shared purpose, priorities, and operating protocols. The Tribes will work to actively advance shared policy and funding priorities, most notably through the Tribal Energy Resiliency and Sovereignty (TERAS) project, and will meet regularly with state agencies to ensure workforce training opportunities, match funds, and utility rules reflect the needs of the four participating Tribal Nations. The team is most proud of building a coalition structure that upholds each Nation’s sovereignty while strengthening their collective voice on Tribal workforce and economic development priorities.
NACDC Financial Services – Mountain Plains Regional Native CDFI Coalition (Browning, MT)
The Mountain Plains Regional Native CDFI Coalition is a network of eight Native CDFIs and one CDC across Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota. This network currently collaborates on the Yellowbird Fellowship, a shared workforce initiative designed to strengthen Native workforce pipelines to financial services careers. The grant will be leveraged to develop a long-term sustainability and collaborative fundraising plan for the Fellowship, directly addressing the Coalition’s member-driven priorities for enduring sustainability and shared policy goals. By coordinating training investments across member organizations, the Coalition aims to reduce duplication, strengthen collective decision-making, and build lasting infrastructure the network can use to advocate together on shared workforce and economic sovereignty priorities.
