The challenge

The harsh beauty of northeastern Arizona is home to the Hopi nation, 12 villages on 2.8 million acres. About 7,000 Hopi live on the reservation. For many generations, the Hopi have lived as farmers in a land of little rain. The isolation of the tribe — the reservation is 98 miles from Flagstaff, and a four-hour drive from Phoenix — contributes to a 55 percent unemployment rate, poverty, and a host of other problems, including poor housing and a lack of running water and electricity.

Seeds of commitment

Barbara Poley and Loris Ann Taylor are great-great-granddaughters of Chief Loololma of Oraibi Village. In the early 1900s, Loololma traveled to Washington, D.C., and discovered a far more complex and populous world than his home in the isolated Hopi mesas. “When he returned home,” Poley and Taylor write, “he instructed his people to get an education in the white man’s ways and in their fields of knowledge, because Hopi survival would depend on it one day.” Chief Loololma’s descendants took that advice to heart. Taylor and Poley both graduated from Northern Arizona University with undergraduate and graduate degrees. They returned to the reservation where both worked as administrators for the Hopi Tribe.

When they were urged by tribal members to spearhead the founding of the Hopi Foundation in 1987, Taylor and Poley helped found an organization based on the principle that native people’s cultural values should shape their lives. The foundation is based in Hotevilla, Arizona, one of the reservation’s 12 villages, and has 15 staff members. The Hopi Foundation is one of the first independent foundations in Indian country. In their work creating and expanding the foundation, Taylor and Poley are guided by the belief that the Hopi principle of Itam naap yani — “doing the work ourselves” -- can be transferred to solving reservation problems by developing Hopi solutions and Hopi leaders.

Accomplishments

Poley and Taylor skillfully adapt community foundation practices to reflect Hopi cultural values. For example, putting money aside for the future is not a traditional Hopi custom, so the two women engaged the tribe in their endowment-building efforts by comparing savings to seed corn — that part of the harvest set aside for the future. The comparison resonated. Today, the Hopi Foundation has almost $1 million in endowed assets and the tribe has come to value it as a long term resource. Poley serves as the foundation’s executive director. Another success has been the Hopi Education Endowment Fund, a separate $10 million endowment that uses coal-mining royalties to fund scholarships. Poley and Taylor were instrumental in convincing the tribe to support the fund, which serves Hopi youth.

Two of the Hopi Foundation’s first projects were economic initiatives to bring jobs to the reservation. Native Sun produces and markets solar-energy systems on both the Hopi and Navajo reservations. These systems bring modern conveniences to residents who balk at electric lines because they want to retain the look of centuries-old architecture. In another project, called Gentle Rain, Hopi women use their talent as seamstresses to incorporate traditional Hopi designs into fleece clothing sewn from material made of recycled plastic.

In December 2000, Poley and Taylor worked with other volunteers to launch the first Hopi radio station, KUYI, after five years of planning that included raising $400,000, learning FCC regulations, setting up equipment, and finding volunteers and staff. KUYI has become an integral part of tribal life. Its music and news link the community and keep the native language, culture, and traditions alive. Since 2001, Taylor’s major responsibility has been as the radio station’s general manager.

Another initiative focuses on preserving traditional homes and ritual gathering places that are in danger of crumbling. The Hopi Foundation has brought together tribal leaders, Hopi religious leaders, the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, and architectural experts to rebuild structures. In related work, the foundation created the Rock Quarry Project, which employed master Zuni quarriers to train young Hopi in how to mine and shape sandstone for building. The National Park Service then hired these trained stonemasons to preserve ancient Hopi ruins.

The foundation’s work extends beyond Hopi borders. “The historical experiences of Hopi and other Native Peoples create a heightened concern for human rights issues around the world,” Taylor and Poley write. The Hopi response was to help sponsor the Center for Prevention and Resolution of Violence in Tucson, Arizona, which provides medical treatment and other assistance to indigenous people from 35 countries who are political exiles or victims of torture. The Hopi tribe established a $10,000 award that has so far been given to three clinicians who are dedicated to healing the wounds of torture victims.

Leadership style

All the work Taylor and Poley do is guided by Hopi culture. For example, the Hopi traditionally held nayas, or work parties, to help one another with weddings, farming, building, and ritual practices. “Hopi people shared resources and practiced reciprocity with bartering as the basis of our economic system,” Taylor and Poley write. “These historic practices inform all of our work —and it is our job to perpetuate, enhance, and expand them in the context of today’s world.”

Leadership is a complex topic in a culture that values humility and where calling attention to oneself is considered inappropriate. Poley and Taylor strike a delicate balance: They are respected for their achievements but have retained a humility that is an intrinsic part of their effectiveness. There have been other hurdles, as well. “Male chauvinism at Hopi is a major challenge,” the two women write. After returning to the reservation with an education, they discovered some men, and even some women, felt women should not be leaders. The pair persevered. “We have worked hard to empower local women by helping to establish the Hopi Women’s Coalition, supporting a convening called Girl Power, and supporting female candidates for public office.”

Poley and Taylor are strong believers in tribal self-determination. They write: “We see our people as strong people, not as weak, deficient people that need to be fixed. The Hopi have a rich living culture that has sustained them for over a thousand years, and it is this very foundation that will sustain them for another thousand years.”

The two clearly understand the different skills they bring to their partnership. Taylor says she “takes chances by challenging old thinking and pushing boundaries. Of the two of us, I am the intellectual and writer: I often put our ideas and concepts into words. As the broad picture person, I work behind the scenes.” Poley, in contrast, considers herself “the steady, protective, and nurturing mother in the organization. I make sure the details are all in place.” They work together using the Hopi model of consensus. If they don’t agree, they keep talking until they reach as close to agreement as possible -— and then they move forward.

The future

Taylor has become the executive director of the Native Radio System, which comprises 33 native-owned stations and is based in Oakland, California. She expects to be back on the Hopi Reservation in a few years, continuing work for her people. Poley plans to remain on the reservation. “One of our next major projects is to create, with help from our local communities, a premier Hopi Leadership and Mentorship Center with Hopi and non-Hopi mentors,” Poley says. “The best investment of my time for the next five years is helping to enhance our Hopi Nation through developing good leaders.”

More about Barbara Poley, Loris Ann Taylor, and the Hopi Foundation

“The Hopi Foundation...deserves special recognition. The foundation's motto, Lomasumi' nangwtukwsiwmani, means ‘the furthering unity of aspiration blossoming into full maturity over time.’ The Native Sun team of both Hopi and Navajo technicians have worked together to install more than 300 solar systems, and provide an excellent example of collaboration between sometimes conflicted tribes.”
– Lakota Times, April 12, 2000

"What they have accomplished in one of the most tradition-bound Native communities in the U.S. in just over a decade is an inspiring model of perseverance in the face of adversity. They have moved a community that did not know the meaning of the word philanthropy into one engaged in community-controlled philanthropy. But on their own terms!”
– Carla Roberts, Vice President of Affiliates, Arizona Community Foundation