Autonomy Fund for First Nations

Supporting First Nations-led initiatives and solidarity projects building territorial autonomy, mutual aid networks, collective governance, and regenerative futures.

The Autonomy Fund for First Nations supports projects advancing territorial autonomy, community self-determination, and regenerative ways of living rooted in First Nations leadership. We champion creators, organizers, educators, and communities building systems of mutual aid, direct democratic governance, land stewardship, peacebuilding, and international solidarity. Through locally grounded yet globally connected initiatives, we seek to help seed innovative, liberatory, and sustainable paradigms for the future.

audience:indigenous

Eligibility

We support projects led by First Nations communities, as well as projects working in active solidarity with First Nations peoples and autonomous territories. We are particularly interested in initiatives that strengthen community self-governance, territorial stewardship, mutual aid, ecological regeneration, cultural continuity, and collective liberation. Projects should demonstrate a commitment to transparent resource management, community accountability, and long-term social and ecological wellbeing.
To qualify for this fund, projects must meet the following eligibility requirements:
- Be led by a First Nations community, organization, or collective, or demonstrate active and ongoing solidarity with First Nations communities through meaningful collaboration and shared leadership.
- Support territorial autonomy, community self-determination, collective governance, peacebuilding, mutual aid, or other forms of community-organized social infrastructure.
- Demonstrate practical efforts to build or strengthen locally rooted systems of cooperation, resilience, and collective care.
- Operate through collective governance structures. Projects organized solely by an individual without meaningful community participation or accountability are not eligible.
- Demonstrate transparency in the stewardship of financial and material resources, including mechanisms for public accountability.
- Support alternative and community-centered economic models such as mutual aid networks, gift economies, solidarity economies, commons-based systems, cooperative ownership, or circular economies.
- Demonstrate a commitment to collective liberation, social transformation, and the peaceful dismantling of oppressive systems.
- If funds are used for land acquisition, the land must be held as a commons through a land trust, community trust, Indigenous stewardship framework, or comparable legal structure that permanently prevents privatization.
- Demonstrate ecological and regenerative practices, including stewardship of land and water, biodiversity protection, regenerative agriculture, circular resource systems, or zero-waste culture.
- Contribute to education, cultural development, research, media, storytelling, documentation, or other initiatives that strengthen autonomous community frameworks and regenerative futures.
- Foster collaboration, solidarity, or knowledge exchange between autonomous communities, movements, territories, or networks working toward shared goals of self-determination and community resilience.
Projects may include community infrastructure, educational programs, research initiatives, cultural preservation efforts, land stewardship projects, cooperative enterprises, media and storytelling, peacebuilding initiatives, mutual aid networks, and other creative endeavors that advance First Nations autonomy and regenerative community futures.

Projects (13)

7 curated · 6 submitted

Project	Status	Raised
Inter-Woven	curated	$662
CD, Álbum de Kunarevolution	curated	$20
Construyendo Nuestras Autonomías	curated	$7,455
Voices of my Community: Anthology Project	curated	$0
Casa de Paz	curated	$55,257
FROM MINE TO CLINIC NIGERIA	curated	$612
Agile Garden	curated	$434
Akuya	submitted	$234
The Dream Seed	submitted	$10,762
Libp2p: The Internet Without Gatekeepers	submitted	$60
CL-074	submitted	$32,443
The International Artists Project Documentary	submitted	$563
Multidisciplinary Project: "La Historia tambien es Cueca"	submitted	$814