Through this grant, PTM Foundation engaged Schaghticoke First Nations to ensure that PTM Foundation organizational strategy, grantmaking, partner development, communications, community advisory council engagement, and all community-facing efforts are culturally responsive and authentically representative of the Communities of Indigenous Peoples PTM Foundation is looking to partner with, serve and support.
Tribal leadership works with PTM Foundation Director and the PTM Foundation Board, and the PTM Foundation Community Advisory Board to ensure all organizational language is culturally responsive, provides key information and background on community partner organizations and projects that will help inform PTM Foundation grants and core partnerships and community outreach, and serve as PTM Foundation community grant reviewers, in tandem with PTM Foundation Director, Oregon Community Foundation, and the organization's core partners.
Capacity Building Advisor: Sachem Hawkstorm
Sachem Hawk Storm is the chief of the Schaghticoke First Nations whose mission is to preserve, promote and enrich the Schaghticoke peoples’ heritage; provide a safe learning environment for Schaghticoke descendants in their search for direction; and whenever possible, support those seeking harmony and a greater understanding of our collective responsibility as human beings. The word “Schaghticoke” means “the Mingling of Waters,” and signifies the merging of what remained of the Algonquin Nations in the Eastern Woodlands in 1676. Sachem Hawk Storm is a direct descendant of the great Wampanoag Chief Wasanegin Massasoit and a hereditary leader of one the three remaining tribes of the Schaghticoke Nation. Like so many of his people, Sachem Hawk Storm was taken from his parents and raised in a family unfamiliar with his heritage. Emancipated at 15, his life’s journey has been one of reclamation, re-indigenization, and reconnection to the land. Since 2012, Hawk Storm has actively advocated for the implementation of the United Nations Rights of Indigenous Peoples and is the Schaghticoke’s main representative at United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Under Sachem Hawk Storm's leadership, Schaghticoke First Nations has created a 501c3 and has reacquired land in the Schaghticoke ancestral territory to establish a Conservation and Cultural Center that will also promote decolonization and ago-forestry. Under the leadership of Sachem Hawk Storm, Schaghticoke First Nations works in close partnership with local indigenous communities throughout the northeastern U.S., as well as with other Indigenous Peoples from around the world.
