CPF Capacity Building Grant

The Colorado Plateau Foundation (CPF) provides capacity-building grants ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 to Native-led organizations on the Colorado Plateau. Since its founding in 2012, CPF has allocated over $1.2 million to support more than 60 initiatives, fostering community resilience and cultural preservation.

The Colorado Plateau Foundation (CPF) is a Native-led foundation that supports the cultures, lands, and waters of the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau Foundation invests in Native-led organizations working in four priority areas on the Colorado Plateau – protection of water, protection of sacred places and threatened landscapes, preservation of Native languages, and sustainable community-based agriculture. As our mission, Colorado Plateau Foundation connects the philanthropic community to on-the-ground initiatives by growing a sustainable supply of resources and giving grants that enhance the work of Native-led organizations on the Plateau.
The Colorado Plateau is centered in the southwestern United States, in an area termed the Four Corners region which extends into Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. The following tribal nations govern the lands of over a third of the Colorado Plateau: Hopi, Zuni, Navajo Nation, White Mountain Apache, Hualapai, Havasupai, Ute, and Kaibab Band of Paiute.
The Colorado Plateau Foundation emerged to address a regional need for a bridge between the Colorado Plateau’s Native communities and the national philanthropic community in response to the lack of philanthropic dollars reaching rural, Native communities on the Plateau, despite both overwhelming need and the presence of established Native-led organizations who were leading transformative work.
Our grantmaking priorities are informed by tribal leaders from across the Colorado Plateau. Through a series of inter-tribal gatherings, cultural and community leaders from Colorado Plateau tribes identified our four priority giving areas as requiring immediate and sustained attention.
We value a culturally centered model of giving that meets grantees where they are at and then supports their growth into organizations capable of accomplishing sophisticated and positive change to protect the Plateau’s environment and cultures. We give capacity-building grants in amounts between $1,000 and $25,000 to organizations working in our four priority issue areas. Since 2012 we have given $1,200,000 to over 60 Native-led initiatives.
Sustainable, Community-based Agriculture
Native foods and traditional farming are essential to the Colorado Plateau’s tribes. We support organizations that are reclaiming sustainable, community-based agriculture.
Colorado Plateau Foundation's capacity building grants support proposals in the range of $1,000-$25,000 to build local capacity and long-term sustainability of your organization addressing at least one of the four priority areas: Protection of water, Protection of sacred places and endangered landscapes, Preservation of language, and Sustainable, community-based agriculture.

Eligibility

CPF supports native majority-led Non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations, Tribal governments with IRS 7871 status, and organizations with a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor within the tribal nations on the Colorado Plateau.