Community Research
December 2, 2022
Developing Culturally Responsive Community Insights to Inform Grantmaking
The Client
The Challenge
The Outcomes
The client is a leading national private foundation focusing on increasing equitable access to post-secondary learning and high-quality credentials to under-resourced student and adult populations.
The client wants to strengthen their grantmaking approaches to better support American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) adult learners. Above all, the client wants to know:
What are the existing culturally responsive approaches and frameworks for supporting AI/AN adult learners?
What are the next steps to leverage the current grantee network to better support AI/AN adult learners?
We conducted a comprehensive review and assessment of the existing high-impact approaches to supporting AI/AN adults. We showed, through the eyes of AI/AN students, how academic support varied among higher education institutions with differential commitments to AI/AN student success. The findings demonstrated the importance of continuing to fund tribal colleges and universities and Native American-serving nontribal institutions and identified potential directions to strengthen the impact of these institutions.