South Dakota: Governor's Award for Supporting the Arts in Tribal Communities

2019 awardees of the South Dakota Governor’s Awards in the Arts. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Baker

This year, there is a new category of the biennial South Dakota Governor’s Awards in the Arts—presented by the South Dakota Arts Council and Arts South Dakota—that honors efforts to support tribal communities. The Outstanding Support of the Arts to Native Nations with Lands in South Dakota Award recognizes an individual, organization or business that makes significant contributions to arts traditions and revitalization in Native communities. The 2019 awardee is Lakota Funds, which is the first Native American Community Development Financial Institution in the country. Established in 1986 with the goal of disrupting the cycle of poverty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Lakota Funds began as micro lender and today has a loan portfolio exceeding $2 million. Its artists lending and technical assistance portfolio includes small loans, grants, arts business coaching and on-line courses for arts entrepreneurship. Through partnerships with First Peoples Fund and Lakota Federal Credit Union it has enabled Rolling Rez—a mobile art space, business training center and bank that fosters creative economic development—and also is helping build the Oglala Lakota Arts and Business Incubator, which features studios, classrooms, a gallery and a digital media lab. Additionally, Lakota Funds hosts the annual art market and exhibit to encourage cultural tourism on the Pine Ridge Reservation and maintains a directory of traditional and contemporary artists working there. To learn more, contact SDAC Director Patrick Baker.