Native American Community Development Institute

NACDI is committed to transforming the American Indian community to effectively respond to 21st-century opportunities.

At the foundation, NACDI's work is to facilitate changes as four pillars, Community Engagement, Community Organizing, Community Development, and Indigenous Arts and Culture. NACDI uses these four pillars to strengthen community, build opportunities, and transform our community based on our shared Native values, traditions, cultures and practices. These are community-led efforts to bring prosperity to the American Indian community. 

Through a range of projects that emphasize community capacity building, NACDI partners with a wide network of Native and non-Native organizations to create a vibrant, healthy and balanced community where there are economic opportunities for Native people, and where Native cultures are celebrated, honored and shared with the greater community.

This approach has changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in Minneapolis, painted numerous murals along the American Indian Cultural Corridor on Franklin Avenue, and substantially increased voter turn out in the Twin Cities Urban American Indian Community, all while providing the skills and tools for leadership to community members.

All My Relations Arts

All My Relations Arts focus on the strength and beauty of American Indian Arts. As currently the only contemporary American Indian fine arts gallery in the Twin Cities, we play a critical role in providing top quality space to show and sell the artwork of Native artists practicing today. This work is broadening awareness of Native arts to build a stronger understanding of and economy around art produced by native people from this region.

American Indian Cultural Corridor

The focus of our development efforts is on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. This historic heart of the American Indian community is primed to become the center of the economy of the Native American community. This American Indian Cultural Corridor is a unique destination, nation-wide and a model for equitable urban development in a community of color. Through working together, the substantial resources and landholdings of the American Indian community can be transformed from an infrastructure of social services into an entrepreneurial corridor that is a home and workplace for native people as well as a destination for the entire Twin Cities region.

Pidamaya, Miigwich, Thank you!

Your financial support provides the resources we need to staff and manage this important and diverse work. Through high-capacity staff with wide skill sets, we are able to make progress on multiple fronts to benefit the community and build equity.