Racial Equity and Healing

Meet Our Grantees

Providing energy with an Indigenous lens: Q&A with Navajo Power co-founder Brett Isaac.

Racial Equity and Healing

Honoring Tribal Sovereignty

We recognize and honor Native people and their unwavering commitment to ensuring that all people thrive. Since time immemorial, Native people have upheld their traditions and cultures while making innovative contributions for a sustainable future. We commit to a future grounded in respect for the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples.

We partner with organizations that honor Tribal Sovereignty. This means Indigenous communities are leading the decisions and charting their own culturally appropriate methods toward healthy early development outcomes for Indigenous children.

Our investments help support:

New Mexico

A Commitment to Children Today and Tomorrow

We focus our investments in four counties — Bernalillo, Doña Ana, McKinley and San Juan — and partner with the 23 Sovereign Pueblos, tribes and nations statewide. Our focus is on child-centered and community-led strategies that strengthen leaders, systems, policies and practices. Our aspiration for all children to grow, learn and thrive is being realized through innovative models that yield sustainable positive outcomes, including:

New Mexico

Welcome to New Mexico

Welcome to New Mexico – a tapestry made up of the rich stories of people, cultures, languages, land, history and community pride. In New Mexico, we cherish all the mosaic cultures of our children and honor all of their identities. The threads of traditional knowledge and continuous innovation flow through the generations giving today’s New Mexicans a deeply rooted base of knowledge about what fosters children’s spirit and well-being. With these woven threads, champions and advocates for children envision a child-centered future and embody a movement of collective action and innovation.

Community grantees and partners of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation are central to this child-centered movement. Their decades-long commitments have led to historic transformations in systems and policies that advance the well-being of underserved communities and their youngest members.

At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, our strategies cut across the political aisle, philanthropic siloes, diverse sectors and issue areas. And in partnership with the 23 Sovereign Pueblos, Tribes and Nations, we commit to a future grounded in respect for the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples.

All in the service of children – so every child knows without a doubt they and their future are cherished.

Education & Socio-emotional Learning

Preschools impacted by Socio-emotional Learning Program “AtentaMente”

Primary schools benefiting from Socio-emotional Learning Program “AtentaMente”

Learn more about AtentaMente’s SEL program

Health

Community Water Management

Access to water is a fundamental need, which our community partners have established as a priority. We support local leadership, innovation and expansion in work toward sustainable water management strategies. The scope of grantee initiatives has broadened from families to groups, to neighborhoods and even communities, significantly increasing water access.

See what community water management looks like in remote communities of Chiapas.

Photo: María Luisa Gómez-Pérez, chair of the Association of Water Boards of the Municipality of Sitalá. Credit: Duilio Rodríguez

Family Economic Security

Grantee Spotlight

Universities in Mexico collaborate with local communities in Yucután to create an economy of solidarity.

Family Economic Security

Funding Focus: Expanding Economic Opportunity

We help build and strengthen culturally relevant local and regional institutions to expand economic opportunities for families, entrepreneurs, cooperatives, social enterprises and other groups.

These institutions include:

These institutions expand economic opportunities by providing new incentives, risk-sharing initiatives and financial products.

Our primary focus for economic security is on supporting agriculture, especially coffee, honey, the traditional milpa system of farming, backyard vegetable gardens and animal husbandry. We also help strengthen related value chains, from production to marketing, with a recognition of the central importance of territory and land to Indigenous communities of the Chiapas Highlands and inner Yucatán Peninsula.

We also support community ecotourism, as well as cooperatives and other organizations in the artisanal sector to increase income through market access and value chain strengthening.

Education & Language Revitalization

Indigenous Language Revitalization

In Mexico, we support culturally and linguistically relevant (CLR) education because it is essential for children’s growth and success. We do this by investing in teacher training, recruitment of community educators, scalable CLR educational models and CLR educational materials.   

Indigenous language rights, preservation and revitalization promote the well-being of children, families and communities well beyond the classroom walls. Our broader language preservation efforts are fueled by an understanding of its importance in all aspects of life and by our dedication to racial equity.  

Grantee spotlight

Rising Voices, an initiative of Stitching Global Voices, provides training, mentoring, funding and network-building tools to help people from underrepresented communities tell their stories digitally. In southern Mexico, WKKF supports the organization’s work in leadership development, network expansion and generative exchanges for young digital activists working to revitalize local Indigenous languages.  

Food Systems

Notes from the field

The Agroecology Fund of the Yucatán Peninsula is a locally managed fund supporting community-led, inclusive and participatory initiatives promoting sustainable agriculture and climate resiliency.

Learn more about the Agroecology Fund of the Yucatán Peninsula.