Native Governance Center and Bush Foundation Partnerships

The Native Nations Institute (NNI) and the Native Governance Center are mutually committed to assisting tribal nations in strengthening their governance systems and their capacities to exercise their sovereignty. The service area includes 23 sovereign, politically distinct Native nations within Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. NNI has and continues to play a critical and primary role in the following:

• Native Nations Rebuilders Program – a leadership program for tribal citizens who want to strengthen their nation-building knowledge and learn how to implement positive changes at their Native nations. NNI has worked with nine cohorts since 2009.
• On-site and regional Native Nation Building educational and/or Governance Analysis for Native Nations (GANN) sessions.

The Bush Foundation Partnership was instrumental in assisting NNI fine-tune its GANN tool, broadening and strengthening NNI’s facilitation skill set, and expanding its curricular offerings. The BF Partnership has also supported the development of NNI’s Rebuilding Native Nations Online Courses.