A Tangible Step Towards Reconciliation

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As we approach the National Day of Mourning, we refuse to forget this land’s history of colonial violence. We are grateful for the opportunity to follow the leadership of the many Native organizers central to grassroots gender justice movements as we mark this day.

In our role as a by-and-for community funder, we hold a profound responsibility to help resource the repair, reconciliation, rematriation, and self-determination of Native peoples. Land acknowledgments are a good and free way to begin to practice solidarity, but social justice funders can and must do more.

Since 2019, Third Wave Fund has responded to the creative call from Indigenous peoples’ funds, such as the Manna-hatta Fund, Shuumi Land Tax, and Real Rent Duwamish, for settlers and people not indigenous to this land to “pay rent” to the Native peoples whose land we live on. Paying rent has been a small yet tangible way that Third Wave Fund resources our staff to support the self-determination of Native communities wherever they reside, even as we still have more to do to fully answer the call.

Growing from a staff of eight in 2019 to 18 in 2024, we’re working towards the recommended contribution amount of 2.4% of operating budgets for nonprofits. In 2024, we increased our Real Rent contributions for the first time in three years. Moving forward, we commit to continue making increases on an annual basis until we can fully meet the recommended contribution amount.

This year, we paid rent to: 

• Chi-Nations Youth Council (IL / Unceded lands of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and the Potawatomi, along with dozens of other tribes) 
• The Chúush Fund: Water for Warm Springs (OR / Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs)
• Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania (PA / Lenapehokink "Land of the Lenape")
• Manna-hatta Fund (NYC / Canarsie Lenape Land)
• Marshville Organic Community Farm (St. Helena Island, SC)*
• North American Indian Association of Detroit (MI / Unceded lands of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and the Potawatomi)
• Onondaga Nation Land Care Benefit (NY / Catskill Mohican Land)
• Pamunkey Indian Tribe (VA / Tsenacommacah — Powhatan, Monacan, Manahoac peoples) 
• Pueblo Action Alliance (NM / Tigua (Tiwa) Land)
• Wabanaki Alliance (ME / Wabanaki Nations Land) 
• Waccamaw Indian People (SC / Waccamaw Land)

You don’t have to work at a social justice organization to pay rent! If you’re moved to contribute, in whatever meaningful amount that works for your financial situation, you can start today by  beginning your research on whose land you currently reside. 

Thank you for joining us in our collective work of repair.

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*Third Wave Fund acknowledges that the land we occupy today is the traditional territory of Native peoples. We also acknowledge the forced labor and enslavement of African people. Indigenous and African peoples—past, present, and future generations—land and labor are central to our histories, and whose exclusion and erasure we seek to redress.