CO-CHAIR
Suzanne Benally is currently the Executive Director of Swift Foundation. Before that, she served as the Executive Director of Cultural Survival. She came to Cultural Survival from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where she served as the associate provost for institutional planning and assessment and associate vice president for academic affairs. She was also a core faculty member in environmental studies and a member of the president’s cabinet. Before starting at Naropa in 1999, she was deputy director and director of education programs at the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and director of the Institute on Ethnic Diversity at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. She has been a teacher at the university level and has served as a consultant to philanthropic foundations, nonprofit organizations, and many higher education institutions. Additionally, she has worked extensively with American Indian communities. Her interests, teaching, and passions are focused on the relationship between land, spirituality, and people as reflected in stories, and in environmental issues and Indigenous rights.
CO-CHAIR
Monica Aleman Cunningham is a senior program officer on the Ford Foundation’s BUILD team, working to advance the foundation’s efforts to support and develop stronger, sustainable, and more effective social justice organizations and networks across the globe. Her areas of concentration in BUILD are Latin America; Civic Engagement and Government; and Gender, Race, and Ethnic Justice.
Previously, she was based in the foundation’s East Africa office, where her grant making focused on increasing the capacity of national, regional, and global groups and supporting national and regional networks to advance a constitutional framework that protects the rights of women and other minorities, increases the participation of women in governance structures, and consolidates the infrastructure of the women’s rights movement. In addition, Monica led grant-making efforts to explore the links between customary laws and customs as they relate to women and sexual expression, using culture and religion as key entry points into understanding social change.
Before joining the foundation in 2011, Monica was executive director of the International Indigenous Women’s Forum, a network of organizations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Her extensive background encompasses expertise in community organizing, social movement building, and participatory monitoring and evaluation, all honed through her work over the years with national, regional, and global organizations.
TREASURER
Alice Phinizy, C.P.A is the Finance Director for the Disability Rights Fund, an international grantmaker funding disabled persons organizations advocating for their human rights. Alice has many years of experience overseeing finance and operations for a variety of nonprofit and for-profit companies. She has worked in the affordable housing and social innovation fields, and has also managed the business side of a world renowned brewery in Boston. Alice has experience building financial and operational procedures from the ground up, and has become a resource for compliance administration, offering assistance to nonprofit, university, and government organizations. In addition to being the Treasurer for IFIP, Alice is a member of the Human Rights Funders Network’s Human Rights Grantmaking Operations Steering Committee. Alice holds a Masters of Business Administration in International Business and a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Information Systems, both from Bentley University in Massachusetts.
SECRETARY
Angela Martínez has three decades of activism and international field experience accompanying social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean to advance the social, political and economic justice agendas of women, Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, youth, farmers, and LGTBI collectives. Angela has been working on natural resources rights and environmental justice, civil and political rights, and sexual health and rights through grantmaking, research, advocacy and capacity building. Angela launched and led the Latin America and Caribbean Program on Comprehensive Sexuality Education at the Mexican Institute for Family and Population Research, where she designed and implemented sexuality, gender, and sexual rights programs. Angela trained and successfully negotiated with governmental officials from the Education and Health Ministry to advance sexual and reproductive rights agendas in the region. She has also conducted ethnographic research and published its findings. Angela was born and raised in Mexico City and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
BOARD MEMBER
Steven Heim is a Managing Director and Director of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Research for Boston Common Asset Management, a globally recognized sustainable investment firm. Steven has over 25 years of experience in the responsible investment field and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples. Steven has worked to promote corporate transparency, accountability, and attention to sustainability issues. His efforts to protect the human rights of Indigenous Peoples have helped catalyze positive policy changes at U.S. and international companies including ConocoPhillips and Repsol that included direct engagement with Indigenous Peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Most recently he has helped lead global investor engagements with major banks regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline and urging them to revise the Equator Principles to respect Indigenous Peoples rights including FPIC. Since 2007, Steven has chaired the advocacy subcommittee of the Investors & Indigenous Peoples Working Group and he serves on the Board of Directors of Cultural Survival as Vice Chair.
BOARD MEMBER
Alvin H. Warren is a member of Santa Clara Pueblo where he lives with his wife Pamela, an Isleta Pueblo tribal member, and their three children. He’s a program officer for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation focused on Economic Security, impact investing, dual language education and indigenous initiatives. Alvin’s a former cabinet secretary of Indian Affairs for the State of New Mexico, lieutenant governor of Santa Clara, associate director of the Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative and land claims / water rights coordinator for Santa Clara. Alvin has helped tribes regain and protect traditional lands, ensure over 100 million in state dollars flow to tribes to build essential infrastructure, enact state legislation to ensure collaborative state-tribal governmental relations and positively transform narratives about indigenous peoples. Alvin co-chairs Dartmouth College’s Native American Visiting Committee, serves on the Khap’o Community School Board and Gates Millennium Scholars Advisory Council and recently joined the IFIP board. He’s also a longtime farmer.
BOARD MEMBER
Manaia King (Tainui, Ngāti Haua and Ngāti Koroki Kahu Kura), is deputy chairman of the JR Mckenzie Trust Board, and chairman of Te Kawai Toro the Trust’s Maori Development Committee, Te Kawai Toro. He was appointed to the board in November 2012 as the NZ Law Society representative and was made deputy chairman of the board in November 2013. Manaia is a lawyer who specializes in public health. He is employed by the New Zealand Ministry of Health as the Manager of the Chronic Diseases Team. It is responsible and accountable for an annual budget of approximately $120m which is used to commission prevention and health promotion programs in the areas of tobacco, nutrition and physical activity, alcohol and drugs, and sexual health.
BOARD MEMBER
Sofia Arroyo is the Co-Executive Director at EDGE Funders Alliance. Formally, she was the Executive Director at Sacred Fire Foundation, where she previously served as Director of Communications and Director of Grants and Partnerships. She is also a Steering Committee member at Kindle Project. She lives in Mexico City with her husband and two daughters. Sofia has a BA in Communications from Universidad Iberoamericana and worked in the film and advertising industry for many years before getting involved in the philanthropic world. While living in Geneva, she attended several UN meetings regarding indigenous issues and became interested in philanthropy. Sofia has since been a passionate and strong advocate for Indigenous Peoples worldwide and hopes to effect social change by raising awareness about the values and perspectives rooted in indigenous traditional knowledge.
BOARD MEMBER
Tricia Stevens is the Charitable Giving and Ethical Campaigns Manager for Lush North America where her team focuses on providing grants to grassroots organizations and indigenous communities working for social and environmental justice and animal protection around the world. She works directly with impacted communities to co-build consumer awareness campaigns that increase dialog and visibility for issues, hold governments accountable and improve corporate accountability. She also has a passion for storytelling and believes that film and media play a crucial role in elevating awareness and acting as a catalyst for change.
STAFF
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Lourdes Inga has over two decades of experience in international philanthropy serving foundations and nonprofit organizations with rights-based approach and social change missions. Under her leadership, IFIP is focusing on expanding Indigenous Philanthropy and influencing the broader field for the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples leadership, rights, and increased funding resources for Indigenous Peoples.
Prior to IFIP, she was with The Christensen Fund a private foundation which focuses on indigenous peoples’ rights and backing the stewards of cultural and biological diversity. Before that, she was with The Global Fund for Women; a public foundation focused on advancing women’s rights globally. Lourdes is on the Board of Saphichay, an indigenous-led organization that re-awakens indigenous identity, knowledge, and traditional practice in the Mantaro Valley of Peru. She has served on multiple boards and advisory roles including as founding Board Member of EDGE Funders Alliance and former Board Member of Grantmakers without Borders. Lourdes is from Lima; she is Quechua and Spanish-Croatian. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and stays engaged with the Peruvian diaspora.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Rachel Smith has worked with tribal people and organizations in various capacities, largely focused on policies and inherent sovereign rights of tribes to steward their traditional lands, waters, and natural resources. In 2017, Rachel was selected as a member of Environmental Fellows Program (EFP), a national program dedicated to diversifying the environmental field by placing graduate students from historically underrepresented groups in summer fellowship positions with environmental nonprofits, grant makers, and government sectors. Rachel was placed as an environmental fellow with the Marine Conservation Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation which included a deep dive into how environmental grantmakers set funding priorities, and how the Moore foundation partners with indigenous organizations and communities to meet shared land and sea stewardship outcomes. Rachel is in the process of completing her M.S. in Forestry at the University of Montana. Her graduate research focused on developing geospatial tools to assist tribal land managers in meeting their conservation goals. Rachel is interested in and motivated by ways in which tribal communities build capacity and develop movements to protect and conserve land, water, air, community health and cultural identity. She is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. Exploring hot springs, hiking with family, and traveling to places near and far are some of her favorite pastimes.
