Indian Land Tenure Foundation (opportunity)

The Indian Land Tenure Foundation is a national organization serving American Indian nations and people working to recover and control their homelands. ILTF works to promote education, increase cultural awareness, create economic opportunity, and reform the legal and administrative systems that prevent Indian people from owning and controlling reservation lands.

ILTF is accepting Letters of Inquiry to support various aspects of Native land recovery, with a focus on reacquiring alienated federal lands and ensuring  that Indian people have, at minimum, access to the financial and natural resources within their own reservations.

ILTF supports a variety of initiatives hat help tribes develop plans to reacquire reservation lands. One example is land and natural resource management plans that identify the future uses and benefits of recovered lands. Such plans are critical as tribes negotiate for the transfer of federal, state, and municipal lands to Indian ownership and control or in seeking loans.

Grants awarded for land recovery efforts will range from $10,000 to $100,000.

Proposals are accepted twice a year. However, applicants are encouraged to send Letters of Inquiry before submitting a complete proposal. For grants awarded in May, LOIs are due no later than March 3, 2014; for grants awarded in September, LOIs should be received no later than August 4, 2014.

To be eligible, applicants must be tribal, local, state governments, or nonprofit organizations with a 501(c)(3) designation, including educational institutions. All projects must promote activities that directly benefit Native people and strengthen their relationship to their homelands.