Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI)
The purpose of the AMRA Native Authors Program is to support a cohort of Native American authors, working in different literary genres, with the end goal of creating a path to publishing new literary works. This program allows Native authors the support and public platform to tell our stories rather than having our stories be told by non-Natives.
John Day (St. Paul, MN) – John Day was a part of the Why Treaties Matter selection team, is very familiar with MHC ways of working. He is American Indian. |
Nanette Missaghi (Eden Prairie, MN) Nanette Missaghi was part of the community work group that developed the educator guides for Why Treaties Matter and instrumental with piloting the guides/exhibit in Eden Prairie schools. She is American Indian. |
John Bobolink (Minneapolis, MN) was recommended to the panel by the group that created the original Indigenous Arts bill. He is American Indian. |
Laura Benson
Minnesota Humanities Center
laura@mnhum.org
651-772-4244
$850,000 the first year and $850,000 the second year are for a competitive grants program to provide grants to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of Minnesota.
The Minnesota Humanities Center must operate a competitive grants program to provide grants to programs that preserve and honor the cultural heritage of Minnesota or that provide education and student outreach on cultural diversity or to programs that empower communities to build their identity and culture. Priority must be given to grants for individuals and organizations working to create, celebrate, and teach indigenous arts and cultural activities and arts organizations and programs preserving, sharing, and educating on the arts and cultural heritage of immigrant communities in Minnesota.
First and foremost, the authors will have works that have been developed and improved throughout the program.
The authors will see and have a path to publishing, which may include journals, non profit or for profit presses, magazines, online journals, etc. There are many forms of publishing. Each will determine with their mentor the particular publishing path that makes sense for each work.
At NACDI/AMRA we value evaluation. To show our progress toward our goals, we use qualitative and quantitative information, staff experience, cohort member experience, mentor experience. We will use survey tools with our authors, mentors and audience members (for the public readings). We have a strong history of collecting feedback through our networks that include person to person, social media, and other ways to collect survey information.
NACDI/AMRA holds transparency as a value. With the permission of our authors and mentors, we will share our results through our online social media platforms and our newsletter. We will utilize suggestions from our first cohort of authors and mentors to make the program stronger. This is also a strength of NACDI/AMRA collecting suggestions and adjusting a project along the way.
In progress