Tiwahe Foundation has launched a Rapid Response Fund to get resources directly to the people protecting our community.
Why this fund exists
Our community is experiencing an escalation of state violence through immigration enforcement, with harassment, detention, and family separation increasingly shaping daily life across BIPOC and immigrant communities in Minnesota. Native people, including our most vulnerable relatives who are unhoused or living with addiction, are being targeted, harassed, and detained, and federal officers have denied Tribal IDs as valid documentation of citizenship. Many Native people, including our elders, are carrying deep fear that is already preventing access to essential parts of life, including ceremony, work, and support services. Resourcing community response means we can live through this moment together in safety while actively building the future we want to see, because safety is not individual, it is collective, and it extends through our relationships with our BIPOC and immigrant relatives.
What this fund supports
This fund moves resources quickly to support community-led safety, healing, and mutual aid, including the real costs our people are carrying right now like food for gathering spaces, gas for community rides, blankets and cold-weather gear, and other essential supplies and equipment. Native relatives are stepping into leadership for both Native and non-Native community in this moment, guided by our responsibilities as first peoples and stewards of this land, to care for all our relatives. Tiwahe’s role is an organizer of organizers: we convene and facilitate across jurisdictions, help ensure vital community work is recognized and resourced even when it falls outside mainstream philanthropy’s radar, and use our values as a compass to stay oriented toward care, solidarity, and enduring traditional practices. Alongside immediate support, we are also building spaces for collective healing, visioning, and world-building rooted in traditional ways of being.
For donors
Your gift helps move resources where they’re needed most, when they’re needed most, without pushing the financial burden onto people who can least afford it. This is community care in real time, and it helps sustain a collective response grounded in safety, relationship, and cultural continuity.
Click Here to Donate to the Rapid Response Fund
For community applicants
If you are doing community-led work that supports safety, mutual aid, organizing, or culturally grounded healing, we want to hear from you. This fund is designed to support real needs as they arise, especially for people and groups who are often overlooked by traditional funding systems.