July 30, 2025
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Press Release
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - July 30, 2025 - Today, Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP) continues its commitment to supporting Indigenous communities through the distribution of $648,000 to 15 Indigenous-led organizations and Tribes across California as part of the multi-year California Truth and Healing Fund (CATHF). This investment supports California Native Tribes and organizations' vital work of capturing authentic narratives and supporting healing and repair. As the state reckons with the historical and ongoing harms facing Native communities, these resources aim to restore cultural lifeways, affirm sovereignty, and build a future grounded in self-determination.
Now in its fourth year, CATHF supports California Native communities leading advocacy, healing, and storytelling efforts. While independently resourced through DWP’s funding vehicle, Liberated Capital, CATHF complements the work of the government-led California Truth & Healing Council by equipping Tribes and Native-led organizations with resources to drive local programs and hold the state accountable to delivering on its commitments to California Native communities.
“The California Truth and Healing Fund represents our ongoing commitment to resource Indigenous leaders on the frontlines of transformative healing and repair efforts in California," said Edgar Villanueva, Founder and CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project. "We're investing in the advancement of a true historical record of what transpired against Indigenous communities across the state - and supporting community healing that will transcend generations.”
As part of the continuation of CATHF, DWP plans to host a grantee partner convening aligned with the release of the California Truth & Healing Council’s report, expected in the second quarter of 2026. The convening will provide training, encourage collective advocacy, and support efforts to advance and enact the report’s recommendations.
DWP has invested more than $5 million in CA-specific Indigenous work across multiple funds, with CATHF specifically awarding over $2.7 million to 20 tribes and organizations since 2022. Nationally, DWP has invested over $11 million in Indigenous-led efforts that touch on truth, healing, climate, and land return.
“When Decolonizing Wealth Project launched this fund, we knew that California’s Native Tribes and Native-led organizations needed adequate resources to actively participate in the state’s initiatives—both to inform and shape them, and to ensure the government remains accountable for its commitments to Native communities. However, we also recognized that this fund provides a vital opportunity for California Native people to collaborate and coordinate efforts beyond the Council that are focused on truth, healing, and repair across the state, advocating for reparative actions at the state level,” said Dana Arviso, PhD, Director of Indigenous Programs at Decolonizing Wealth Project.
Grant decisions were made by an advisory board of California Native Americans and grant amounts range from $5,000 to $50,000. Advisors include Kouslaa Kessler-Mata, Professor, USF, Truth & Healing Councilmember, Yak Tityu Tityu Chumash; Erica Costa, Attorney, Pomo and Wailacki; Chag Lowry, Educator, Yurok, Maidu, and Achuwami cultures; and Taylor Pennewell, Tyme Maidu Nation, Berry Creek Rancheria, Executive Director of Redbud Resource Group.
The 2025 California Truth & Healing Fund grantee partners are:
- Amah Mutsun Land Trust (Santa Cruz, CA)
- Blue Lake Rancheria (Blue Lake, CA)
- California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (Nevada City, CA)
- Gabrieleno-Tongva Council San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians (San Gabriel, CA)
- Indian Cultural Organization (Redding, CA)
- Kwaaymii Laguna Band of Indians (Pine Valley, CA)
- Pala Band of Mission Indians (Pala, CA)
- Redbud Resource Group (Santa Rosa, CA)
- The San Luis Rey Mission Indian Foundation (Vista, CA)
- Tolowa Nee-dash Society (Crescent City, CA)
- Tsnungwe of California (Salyer, CA)
- Witʔukomnoʔm Language and Culture Project (Oakland, CA)
- Wukchumni Tribe (Visalia, CA)
- ytt Northern Chumash Nonprofit (San Luis Obispo, CA)
- Yurok Tribe (Klamath, CA)
About the Decolonizing Wealth Project:
Decolonizing Wealth Project’s (DWP ) mission is to transform wealth into collective wellbeing. 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 funding vehicle 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. www.decolonizingwealth.com
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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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