Our Grantmaking Approach

The Christensen Fund supports the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement in advancing the inherent rights, dignity, and self determination of Indigenous Peoples. We are committed to centering Indigenous leadership, voices, and perspectives for Indigenous Peoples to secure and exercise their rights to their land, territories, resources, and sovereign systems of governance.  Through our trust-based approach to grantmaking, we aim to provide multi-year, unrestricted grants whenever possible to causes, organizations, and leaders we believe in. These grants allow our partners to utilize funding however they see fit and allocate resources where they are most needed to advance their work.  Our grantmaking strategy centers our work on achieving the promise of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the global standard that both asserts and recognizes Indigenous worldviews and values and establishes a universal framework for recognition of Indigenous rights. By rooting our strategy in UNDRIP, we recognize the decades’ long fight of Indigenous Peoples to codify their rights, and improve their daily lives. Applications for grants are accepted by invitation only.  The Christensen Fund works to identify grantmaking opportunities in which we can make the most impact and offer long-term partnership to organizations. Occasionally, we issue open calls for proposals, which we will announce publicly on our website and on social media.