Our Story

In 2010, Native Organizers Alliance (NOA) was established as a project of the Alliance for a Just Society.

NOA was structured as a Native network that taps into the political power of our people, and the wisdom of our ancestors, to drive change in Indian Country.

Since NOA’s founding seven years ago, over 550 Native leaders and organizers have participated in the culturally-based Native community leadership trainings. NOA provides an ongoing learning circle to draw from experiences from across Indian Country based on providing technical support, leadership development, mentoring, and strategic campaign planning, along with on-the-ground support. NOA has also assisted tribal leaders and community groups in developing local trainings and campaigns that have tribal and national impacts on policy.

In the struggle to prevent the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in 2016, NOA was uniquely positioned as a national Native network to support the #NoDAPL social movement as well as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Many alumni of the NOA training program were working on reservations, in cities, and on the ground in the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Based on these relationships, NOA helped create a cohort of those participants who share a common theory of change and a deep sense of the social, political, and spiritual significance of the struggle to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The importance of the Native vote in the 2020 elections and the impact of COVID-19 on Native communities, specifically Native Elders, moved Indian Country to sound the alarm on how we continue to organize and mobilize in Native communities. The significant organizing influence that elders have in Indian Country is a tradition that is intertribal and historic and shared with other ethnic groups globally.