GIA Statement on the Wildfires in Maui

Grantmakers in the Arts joins the nation in expressing our sorrow for those harmed by the wildfires in Maui, and wishes to share the following resources. Please email eddie@giarts.org with further resources you would recommend we list.   

Resources: 

• Maui Wildfire Relief  

• Maui County: Support for Maui Fires’ Victims 

• Red Cross  

• Hawai’i Alliance for Progressive Action 

• Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+) 

• NCAPER: National Coalition for Arts' Preparedness & Emergency Response  

• PAR: Performing Arts Readiness 

Places to donate:  

• Hawaii Community Foundation  

• Council for Native Hawaiian Investment  

• ‘Āina Momona 

• Hawai’i People’s Fund 

• NDN Collective  

• First People’s Fund 

• Native Arts and Cultures Foundation  

• Maui Wildfire Relief  

GIA recommends that our field support the cultural practices of Indigenous peoples due to the interrelationship between cultural and ecological practices. As GIA articulates in our Racial Equity Theory of Transformation, support for cultural self-determination is a part of support for economic self-determination. Self-determination is essential to reversing the economic extraction that results in increasing environmental vulnerability, devastation, displacement, and death. Please join Grantmakers in the Arts in listening to some of the first-person voices of our Indigenous colleagues as they explain why it is essential to honor the cultural practices of our Indigenous communities: 

• Unpacking the Landback Movement with Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota), Gaby Strong (enrolled citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate), Tina Kuckkhan (citizen of the Lac du Flambeau Tribe of Lake Superior Chippewa and a descendant of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians) and Quita Sullivan (Montaukett/Shinnecock) 

• Native Arts and Culture: Resilience, reclamation, and relevance with T. Lulani Arquette (Native Hawaiian), president and CEO, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation; Joy Harjo (Mvskoke Creek Nation), internationally renowned performer and writer; Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo), executive director, Harvard University Native American Program 

• Mítákuye Oyás’in: Our Approach to Taking Back Tribalism by Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota), president & CEO, First Peoples Fund 

• Indigenous Mobilization During Pandemic Times by Gaby Strong and Sarah Manning, NDN Collective 

• Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Lindsie Bear, program director, Native Cultures Fund, Humboldt Area Foundation 

• Our Collective Homelands: She’s Your Mother Too by T. Lulani Arquette, artist, president and CEO, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation 

• 2018 GIA Conference plenary speaker Corrina Gould, spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of the Lisjan/Ohlone 

• Buried in Shells by Corrina Gould, spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of the Lisjan/Ohlone and Michelle LaPena, Pit River Tribe