Why is it so hard to change things here?  

How come others do well and we don’t? 

Why can’t our leaders do a better job for us? 

Why don’t people here care, and get involved?

These questions and a whole lot more have been asked for a long time in Native American communities and organizations around the country.  Some of the answers are easy and some are not. 

We have developed an empowerment process called The Art of the Native View.  View a short video from The Art of the Native View about understanding the environement. (recorded at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, ND in January 2010)

Our work has been used in Native American Communities and organizations through out the United States. Our experience has prompted us to develop certain techniques and methods that have yielded remarkable results. The process focuses on non-western approaches to helping Native communities and orgnaizations build their leadership, capacity and cohesion.  It is designed to prepare people to gain a basic knowledge of effectively working within or partnering with Native communities and organizations. Participants learn to take a culture-centered, and strength-based approach to empowerment and acquire skills to effectively engage the community to positively change their future.  The key focus is to embrace culture as the main ingredient.

The Art of the Native View touches virtually every facet of life in a Native community.  The approach we developed to empower Native communities and organizations requires that all parts of the community or organization become involved in their future; and that future needs to have something for everyone.  Our approach strives to establish balance; so it focuses on people, place, and things with equal emphasis or what we call the Native Triple Bottom Line.  We reinforce the need to engage the community or organization holistically to address issues from a human, social and environmental view (people, place and things) and reclaim balance.  When that happens there is nothing that cannot be accomplished.

 There are six key facets to our empowerment/development work.  All these areas are presented from a native perspective and fashioned to provide an empowering and grassroots philosophy that resonates in Native communities and organizations with remarkable results. 

· Mobilization and Organization -- address the major contributors to begining effective Native community and organizational development and empowerment.

· Assets and Capital – understand assets in your community or organization. They are a powerful way to mobilize a community or organization in places where mobilization was previously lacking or ”impossible”. 

· Capacity Building – as we begin working in a community or organization, we must come to understand the dynamics that make us do what we do. What is there and what is missing to be successful, on your own terms.

· Leadership – designed to expand the leadership base of the community or organization and to generate capacity and structure all from a Native perspective -- not just leadership but Native Leadership.

· Visioning and Planning – visioning is the process to create a powerful new context of hope within the community or organization.  Planning is the process of making those dreams come true.

· Resources and Project Sustainability – getting the structures in place to attract and handle resources that are needed to sustain the efforts of the community or organization.  Getting what you need to keep the dreams alive.