Harvard Kennedy School has announced gifts totaling $15 million in support of a major expansion of the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development.

Recent gifts include endowed funds as well as current-use funds to meet the immediate needs of the project from donors such as the Endeavor Foundation, the Chickasaw Nation, Joseph P. Kalt and Judith K. Gans, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, and the Circle of Supporters, an advisory board of the project. The funding includes support for a new professorship, programming initiatives, and a senior fellowship as well as expanded work to include public policy and public administration research and teaching to advance governance, leadership, and economic and social well-being in Indigenous communities and nations. In addition, the funding will support field research projects, documentation, and dissemination of examples of outstanding tribal governmental performance; and advancing innovative and longstanding work on the governance and development of Indigenous nations and communities.

“This is an important moment in the history of Harvard Kennedy School,” said Megan Minoka Hill, Oneida Nation WI, senior program director of Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and director of Honoring Nations. “With these endowments, the school is committing itself to supporting Indigenous governance and development in perpetuity, and providing a place to welcome and honor the voices and perspectives of tribal leaders across Indian Country, alongside all world leaders. It is an incredible validation of the impact of the project’s 35 years of research and teaching—done in partnership with tribal nations—to support Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty.”

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