July 16, 2025
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Press Release
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Now accepting applications, the fund is a critical step toward safeguarding a livable future for the next generation
New York, NY (July 16, 2025) — Today, Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP) announced the opening of its 2025 request for proposals for its Liberated Capital Indigenous Earth Fund (IEF), which will redistribute an additional $1 million to the $4.3 million already invested. Launched in 2021, IEF unlocks resources for Indigenous-led climate and conservation advocacy efforts. This new round of funding will also support Tribes and Indigenous organizations throughout the United States that are driving climate and conservation solutions rooted in ancestral wisdom and ecological stewardship and leading advocacy efforts to address systemic and policy issues.
To date, DWP has invested over $11 million in Indigenous communities across the United States through IEF and other Liberated Capital funds like its California Truth and Healing Fund and the California Tribal Lands Return Initiative, reaching more than 270 Tribes, empowering over 11,000 Indigenous youth, and contributing to the rematriation of more than 200,000 acres of land.
“Indigenous leadership is essential to healing our land and shaping a future where everyone can thrive,” said Edgar Villanueva, Founder and CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project. “For centuries, Indigenous peoples have sustained their communities and lands with strength and wisdom. This fund is an investment in that ongoing leadership—with the goal to turn ancestral knowledge into action and transform wealth into collective wellbeing..”
Despite recent setbacks in climate and conservation efforts, the path forward remains clear: our planet’s future depends on learning deeply from Indigenous wisdom and centering Indigenous communities in solution-building. Indigenous leadership to support, protect, and conserve land can reverse and mitigate climate destruction. The climate crisis will persist if Indigenous leadership is not recognized, resourced, and empowered to guide both conservation and climate action. “It’s only through mutual respect, collective responsibility, and shared power that we can shift towards mutual thriving, ensuring a just and sustainable future for all,” shared Dr. Dana Arviso, Director, Indigenous Programs at Decolonizing Wealth Project.
The additional funding will continue to drive Indigenous advocacy efforts rooted in ancestral knowledge, ecological care, and community self-determination. Focus areas include land and water protection, food sovereignty, climate justice, and an integrated approach to healing ecosystems and restoring cultural practices. These priorities aim to uplift Indigenous power-building, honor relational economies, and protect future generations.
Priority programs of the fund include:
- Ecosystem and Cultural Conservation
- Protection of ecosystems and bio-cultural heritage
- Restoration of water sources and other critical natural resources
- Management of land, forest, freshwater, and marine environments through Indigenous frameworks
- Food Sovereignty and Subsistence Rights
- Revitalization of traditional practices: harvesting, hunting, foraging, fishing
- Defense of subsistence resources, such as salmon
- Reinforcement of Indigenous food systems and climate resilience strategies
- Just Transition and Economic Development
- Advocacy and planning to prepare Tribes to transition to renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, hydro)
For those interested in applying for funding and resources, please visit: https://www.decolonizingwealth.com/initiatives/indigenous-earth-fund
About the Decolonizing Wealth Project:
Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP) is committed to bringing truth, healing, and repair to the global community. Established in 2018, and led by Edgar Villanueva, an Indigenous award-winning author, and expert on wealth, spirituality, and social justice, DWP operates through three key strategies: sector transformation, storytelling and culture, and reparative giving. DWP’s work has radically transformed the philanthropic sector and has facilitated the distribution of over $700 million for social justice efforts. Liberated Capital, DWP’s fund and donor community, has granted over $23 million to support economic solidarity, wellbeing, and earth and climate efforts primarily led by Black and Indigenous communities. In May 2025, DWP launched its 10-year Moonshot strategy to influence $1 trillion in reparative giving by 2035.
27 organizations will benefit through Liberated Capital, a fund of Decolonizing Wealth Project, helping to uplift Indigenous efforts across the U.S. to combat the climate crisis.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – November 25, 2024 – Today, the Decolonizing Wealth Project and their funding mechanism, Liberated Capital, announced the distribution of $1 million in grants to 27 Indigenous-led organizations and tribes across the US through their Indigenous Earth Fund (IEF). The funding will support grantees’ efforts to tackle climate change and conservation through traditional Indigenous cultural practices and innovations. Grantees include local organizations working toward ancestral land return, land stewardship and conservation, advocacy, and youth engagement and education.
Since its inception in 2021, IEF has distributed over $4 million in capital to 38 Native-led organizations, and, as a result, has engaged over 200 tribes across the U.S. These grant-making initiatives reflect the Decolonizing Wealth Project’s mission to redirect resources to historically overlooked or marginalized communities, with a focus on supporting traditional Indigenous cultural practices as effective solutions to the climate crisis. Highlights of past grantees who have made significant strides through their climate work as a result of IEF funding include SAGE Development Authority creating the first Indigenous-owned utility-scale wind farm in the U.S; the creation of an Indigenous Storytelling Hub featuring digital shorts and a podcast series set to launch in 2025 by Indigenous Led; dam removal and flow restoration campaigns led by Save California Salmon, and more.
“Indigenous peoples safeguard much of Earth’s biodiversity, yet philanthropy has chronically underfunded their work,” said Edgar Villanueva, CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project. “Our Indigenous Earth Fund addresses this critical gap by channeling resources to Indigenous climate and conservation leaders who have maintained vital ecological knowledge and practices across generations. This fund reinforces our steadfast commitment to Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.”
“Thanks to the generous support of Decolonizing Wealth’s Indigenous Earth Fund, the Bering Sea Elders Group has continued to realize our mission of protecting our traditional ways of life, the Bering Sea, and our children’s future,”
— Jaylene Wheeler, Executive Director of the Bering Sea Elders Group.
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