Verónica Hirsch:

"Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I'm your host Verónica Hirsch. On today's program we are honored to have with us Eileen Briggs. Eileen is a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures Program in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. Eileen is also certified as an economic development finance professional, is President of the tribally owned energy corporation and is a small business owner. Eileen, welcome. Good to have you with us today. I've shared a little bit about who you are but why don't you start by telling us a bit more about yourself. What did I leave out?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I grew up on the reservation. I lived my young life there and then moved away and got some great experience living in other states working with other tribes in Wisconsin and Minnesota and then back in South Dakota working with other Lakota tribes in the region and it's just...it's great to be back working for my tribe, for my people and I think that I have been very fortunate to along my journey to have a lot of tools in my toolbox added as I've went along and to be able to bring them back home and gain so many more. So I just...I live there in the Eagle Butte community, our tribal headquarters and make my home there with my extended family."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Eileen, could you please describe the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures Program? What prompted its creation and what brought about the partnership with the Northwest Area Foundation?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures Project is really the kind of project that I think a lot of our reservation communities sort of are in a way working towards without that kind of a title and for us it's really a larger strategic planning process that came to us through our partnership with the Northwest Area Foundation. And it's a project that's focused on poverty reduction and of course in Indian communities, our communities in particular we have very high rates of poverty for the nation and so we really had this opportunity with the 10 year poverty reduction plan to look at poverty and to stand around it together and determine what strategies and initiatives that we think would make an impact. And so what brought it about was the opportunity that the Northwest Area Foundation was bringing to the region that they serve and the Northwest Area Foundation selected Cheyenne River along with two other tribal communities in this round that we were invited in 2003 to participate in. And so we went through a process of strategic planning with an investment from the Northwest Area Foundation. That process was phenomenal in and of itself to give our reservation leadership, community members and organizations across the reservation a chance to talk to one another and to develop a strategic effort to address poverty."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Can you please describe what the Tribal Ventures Project's purpose is?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Our purpose is specifically focused on this 10 year effort that began in 2006 to address poverty on the reservation and implement the strategies that came from the people and that the tribal council ultimately endorsed and made the focus of the plan and our efforts for the next 10 years. So our work and the mission of Tribal Ventures is to implement that plan, to take the ideas and make them into reality, to try them out. Some of them were brand new things that never existed on the reservation. All of the projects are focused on long term results and impact for our communities and were projects that weren't there on the reservation before. And it's really given us a chance to look at the kinds of ideas that came from the people and the kind of responses and designs that we would want to create for our own people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned how the people really helped direct the Tribal Ventures Project strategies and focus. How were their opinions and their insights solicited and the incorporated into the project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"It was a very intense and really rewarding...I was able to be a part of that rewarding experience and a very focused engagement and a focus on inclusiveness. So it was a strategic effort to reach out to all of our communities. We have a very large land base, 2.3 million acres of land. And we have 19 communities on our reservation, small. 20, 25 houses to a larger city of 5,000 to 7,000 people. And we visited each of these communities and visited with our people. We sat with them over kitchen tables, had conversation, posed questions about what did they think poverty meant, talked about what ideas, what were the issues that were facing them. It really was a very...very thoughtful process of 18 months of not only going to the people in the communities and having conversation numerous times but we also engaged with tribal leadership following each round of community meetings and would share the themes that were emerging, have conversation with them and then we would return to the communities and have further conversations as well as meet with tribal organizations and programs of the reservation. And we also realized that our young population of 19 to say 30 were not really engaging in these community meetings and so we made a decision to survey them in a different way and so we conducted what was called the Young Voices Survey and we surveyed 704 young people, men and women throughout our reservation in their communities and in the larger city to get their ideas and thoughts around workforce development, education and future focus for the young people. So it was really a phenomenal process of engagement on numerous occasions over an 18 month period filtering that through systems and ultimately a core group of around 80 people participated in a...I think we were about six weeks of intensive meeting. We met every week for three hours. We had put in thousands of hours of meetings where people would basically distill this sort of idea into a tangible vision and strategic thought around what that program or that initiative would focus on. For instance, there was very much an effort around financial literacy. That wasn't the words that people said. What our people said were things like, "˜Our young people, our kids are getting taken by this money. They're getting taken,' they'd say. Like they would have a car and then they would make payments and then not be able to keep the payments up "˜cause they lost their job or some change had happened and they wanted to turn that car back. Well, obviously it affected their credit but the families were saying, "˜they're getting taken.' Or even if they're getting, they're paying really high interest rates. So we took statements like that and then a core group of people engaged in a process of saying, "˜Well, how would we...what would we design a program around to address that issue?' And that emerged financial literacy and youth development, an individual development account project. So those are the sorts of engagement that we were able to give and bring to our people to really include them in the process of creating this plan."

Verónica Hirsch:

"With the Tribal Venture Project's focus upon citizen engagement, how does that ultimately support or to what extent does that support the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's nation building efforts?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think it's a core foundation. I think it...this project was a project of the tribal council, the tribal leadership and very intentionally focused on engaging its citizens in a process of thoughtfulness and ideas and seeing their ideas actually come together in a plan.

I don't think that we were really calling it nation building efforts in any way, shape or form at that time but it really has as I've come to understand the nation building process it really was the kind of project that people felt included obviously. It also was a process that was transparent. It was the kind of project that wasn't...had an intention of trying to rebuild trust with community members from the tribal council and so oftentimes there's sometimes contentious situations or relationships sometimes between the tribal citizens and tribal government in public meetings and these opportunities dissipated that a little bit and demonstrated to ourselves as tribal citizens and us also just within that dynamic of tribal governance and government that things could be done in a good and appropriate way. And we're really proud of our people who participated in this opportunity because they're really...it is very much indicative of our culture to come together as extended families or tiyospaye and speak about and talk about an issue and then be able to take that, send somebody with that information to the tribal leadership or whomever and this was a component of that. And I think as a foundation of our nation and our culture that I think that created a bedrock for the nation building for our people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Who led the Tribal Ventures Project development?"

Eileen Briggs:

"The tribal council and the tribal chairman, Harold Frazier at that time, was the lead person to ensure that this happened. He was very much in support and understood the opportunity that was brought to us by the Northwest Area Foundation and he selected a long time tribal administrator and tribal citizen who has worked with many years, her name was Sharon Vogel and she really took on the project as the opportunity of a lifetime really for our people. The chance to...a once in a lifetime opportunity to really go out and talk with our people and have a process. So Sharon Vogel was the project administrator and then I worked as a project researcher and coordinator to help with sort of the logistics and then the development of the plan itself."

Verónica Hirsch:

"To what extent did the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council, tribal citizens and/or tribal department staff influence the project's development?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think they were crucial. The tribal council met in with us along with the tribal chairman regularly and we had probably four to seven I think retreats with them where we would basically walk through the input that was coming from the people and then get their feedback and then as things got more refined ultimately they would provide input about the design of different programs but also the intent of the initiatives. The same for the program directors. They were all...those that were interested and obviously had a fit with this initiative, any of our workforce development efforts and our education systems, they were engaged to give their input and they were...when I talk about those thousands...thousand hours one July that we worked together on this, many, many people donated their time to be a part of designing the wording for the description for each initiative and strategy area which really is the focus of the effort."

Eileen Briggs:

"I think our tribal constitution sets the bedrock for the way the governance system works and the administration of the tribal efforts work and I think that this constitution provided for the proper oversight of the project. It also provided for just the development of the project. The tribal council was the final say to the plan. We talked about that with our tribal citizens that tribal council would have the final say but they could see where so many of our people's ideas had come into the plan that it wasn't the sort of thing where tribal council was just going to go into a side room and decide how would this investment be utilized. The constitution has a lot of challenges but I really felt like we used the...our respect for our tribal leadership and our tribal government appropriately throughout this process and I think that that reinforced the leadership and the governance structures that were...that are in place that work really well. But I also think just in general this process was so much really a self-determination type of effort. We were determining ourselves and I don't know if I mentioned this in the previous comments but we ended up with a $9.5 million investment from this Northwest Area Foundation to implement the ideas that came from our people and so this has really been a process that has been a part of trying to engage in a different way, try to self...design our own efforts and work collaboratively. So as far as policy specifically and the kind of constitutional sort of underpinnings, we really used what we had well and I think exercised the sovereignty to do things the way we wanted to do ultimately in the plan. And I just would make a last note that the way the tribal government made the decision about who would govern this project in order to ensure its sustainability and continuity was they determined to create a...delegate an authority board which they as a tribal council could do and they seated one of their tribal council members continuously on the project so they were always engaged fully in the project through their tribal council representative but they seated a board of partners who really focused on ensuring that project's success long term because we had continuity and focus."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. On that aspect of the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board, could you please describe the role of that board?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, the board's role was really to ensure that the project was implemented throughout the 10 year project as well as to ensure that we had designed partnership and oversee the funds that...there was of course the accountability of funds but also to ensure that we had an opportunity then policies that were fair and were not...were free of sort of political influence or situation, had some autonomy to make decisions, they were given that. And so I think that their role has been crucial to be able to focus on this and steer this course...keep it on course I should say, to move this project forward and to step back and do the reflecting about what have we learned, what has this process taught us and to have those opportunities together. And I think one of, it's not so much what their role was or their mission but I think you...we saw in our community many of our organizations, tribal organizations and nonprofits sort of sometimes working in silos and not connecting and I think this Tribal Ventures Plan in its...because it was a partnership board was to build the understanding and communication between those entities and organizations so that we can address these issues more collectively."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned that the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council created the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board. I would like you to perhaps address what criteria were specified to create the board? You mentioned that a tribal council member remained a permanent part of the board. What other criteria were in place?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, there...it's a unique situation. We have a tribal council member as I mentioned. We also have two members of the community that are...well, we have members, I shouldn't say just two. But we have members of the community on the board that are living in poverty that have struggled with some of the challenges related to that. We also have partners that were key entities or stakeholders that were carrying out components of the plan that were actually sitting with the partnership...on the partnership board to help design and continue to ensure this participation. So the criteria included stakeholders as well as tribal leadership and community members."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Realizing that the board included such a wide range of citizens who had various areas of responsibilities, can you please address how the board's creation ultimately promoted broader citizen inclusion and engagement?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think that having our community members seated on the board who had the real life experience with the challenges that our families are facing really helped us to always have that lens constantly on everything we were doing from our communications to the approaches that we were taking, the policies that were being implemented and then the kind of broader learnings that we're applying because this challenges around poverty and the struggle day to day around survival make it difficult to sort of be thinking long term so we not only got to kind of because when you're thinking and you've got a project and you're managing something, you're thinking this longer term effort and sometimes it's...sometimes you have a disconnect from the lived experience and when we have these continuous conversations and meetings, and I don't think we're so...any of our families are...when we live on the rez or with our communities we're not so far removed but you can get...you can lose sight of that and I think having that engagement together did support this project's success so far that we've seen that input available but also vice versa. Giving families and our community members that were on the board the opportunity to see a perspective longer range that maybe they wouldn't have had access to. And so when it got to the communities, when we'd do our community meetings, we would very much sort of speak to that perspective because we're rooted in it, we're right next to it, it's our friends and relatives who have informed how we approach talking about these issues, the ways and the methods that we describe, the efforts and the impact and outcomes of our work."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. What institutional support does the Tribal Ventures Project need and have?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think that we have seen over time, again, we've had a 10 year...we're running towards a 10 year, very close to that timeframe, of institution of the government, the organization, knowing what Tribal Ventures is, that we have a grant from this private foundation, we have these initiatives and I think that we've had a lot of support because people have seen the ideas that came from the people come to life, they have seen real change in their families; people getting their GED, financial education, jobs being created. We've seen the kind of policies and activities that we want to see happening in our communities, some adjustments. Sometimes they don't know that Tribal Ventures is...the investment from Tribal Ventures has helped to make that happen so I think that's one of the things that we do need is more of our story to be told and understood, the sort of what's behind the scenes. But I also think that we are very much accustomed in our tribal communities and we're no different to different federal funding sources or governmental funding and so we sort of get to look like another program–that program. And this has been more than just a program. This is really about a process and a movement towards moving our families forward collectively in a strategic effort and I think that that's a little hard to get your head around because people are just looking, "˜Well, what is your program and what can it do for me or my family or our community,' and when we're dealing with such larger issues, we...I think that's one of the things of the institution's understanding their role, the opportunity of engagement and it's sort of a living, breathing entity or organization. It's a process. I always say, "˜Well, we're not really a program, we're a project,' and it's a project that came from the people and a plan that we're seeing the results of over time."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. I want to return a bit to the role of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council and its...I believe you mentioned previously that ultimately the tribal council decided what would be really the major focus areas for the Tribal Ventures Project. I'd like to ask what role does the council play in the day to day operation or the day to day governance of the Tribal Ventures Project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, in our day to day operations the tribal government as a whole, the council doesn't play a role specifically. Because they set the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board with delegated authority on their behalf to manage this project for the duration of the funding it's really been able to create a little bit of that autonomy but also the trust and respect. So a number of things happen that do engage with tribal council. One, all of our reports go of course to our Board but they go...the same reports go to the Council and to the Northwest Area Foundation so there's a lot of transparency and communication through myself as the executive director as sort of the conduit of information and sharing but we do have a tribal council member who serves on our board. We've had three different tribal council members serve during the time period that we've been operating and our tribal council member–for instance, when we are drawing money down from our accounts into the operating, they're a signer on that so they do see every time we're drawing down, they know what we're going to use the money for so we have that accountability and transparency as far as this isn't just running its own program over there. Tribal council has some awareness and knowledge of course through...that tribal council member knows the detail of the activities and the goals and the intentions for that year and then now with this funding source. So we have some of that accountability that I see that they are involved in day to day through that tribal council representative."

Eileen Briggs:

"I think what we've needed for... I think that we've needed for the last seven or eight years is the opportunity to try these new ideas out, sort of the trust. We've needed the trust, we've needed the encouragement and the...I guess we have some level of autonomy but the understanding of what Tribal Venture's role is, what our project is and to let us do what we said we would do without distracting from that work. And we've had that and I think that that has been very remarkable. And we look for...as we look forward I think the work is really about what we need, it's really about again more conversation collectively in order for us to determine now what will we...what have we learned from this 10 years of poverty reduction efforts, what have we learned about ourselves, about our families and what direction does it give us about a future that we need to create and the kind of strategic thinking that is useful for our people. And I guess the last thing I would say about that is that I think that we have shown that strategic thinking has really been beneficial and so now the challenge is you have a different council, a different group of people so it's continuous education and conversation about what this project's intention was and what we've learned from it and then are we ready to do more strategic planning."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. What efforts have been undertaken to educate the tribal council regarding their roles and responsibilities to the Tribal Ventures Project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, it's been an effort that I've taken on each new election that we have. We have staggered terms every four years so every two years I have...sometimes can have a set of new elected officials so I meet with the tribal elected officials and give them an orientation independently, just sort of walk them through what we...our purpose is, what our outcomes have been and what we intend to do. And then understand that this is a grant from the Northwest Area Foundation and that we have our responsibilities through a memorandum of agreement with them and so we just really clarify the roles of everyone very early on in their election being seated, after being elected. And the other roles that we've done is really helping as each tribal...new tribal elected chairman...we've had...this is...Harold Frazier is the chairman again so we've had technically three different chairmen in the time that we've worked this project and so again just my relationship with whomever is elected, respecting their leadership role, giving them as much information as I can so they know where we're at and just that process of seeing what we've learned. And so we do meet with them annually, the Tribal Ventures Board and the Tribal Council itself. We have a retreat and discuss this year's efforts and again our goals for the next year."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Regarding the annual meeting with the Tribal Council and the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board, how effective have those meetings been? Have...has there ever been discussion or suggestions regarding to how... Has there been discussion or suggestions regarding how to increase the efficacy of those annual meetings?"

Eileen Briggs:

"We've had these annual meetings... We've had annual meetings both on the reservation and off the reservation for Tribal Ventures Board and the Tribal Council to have conversation and my estimation of them they're very effective. Tribal council oftentimes are obviously meeting in official sessions and they don't often get to have sort of larger I would say conversations around the larger issues and just their own space to have conversations collectively. So I think we've created a space for that through the annual meetings or the project...the retreats with the council. I also think that it's given some insights to the efforts of nonprofit organizations and the role that they play in the community. It's helped to educate one another around the kind of collective efforts that we're doing. There are...there's...obviously we all work in our own little world and I think it's raised the awareness of each other's responsibilities, particularly around the kind of program deliverables and the kind of accountability that we all have and I think that that's made it really effective. And as far as feedback about when they want them, tribal council members say, "˜We need to have more of these,' so they're very interested in those. The other piece of that is really trying to have it go beyond just a presentation of outcomes and impacts but really create the space for the kind of dialogue and conversation about what are our core issues, what directions are we going and build relationships to move that way. We don't always have 100 percent participation from council but we've had I would 60 to 75 percent participation nearly every time."

Verónica Hirsch:

"What do you suggest could be done to maybe increase that participation level?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, we do find that if we have...it's sort of a 50/50 opportunity. If you have the retreat or the meeting on the reservation you may end up with more participation but there's sort of a distraction that happens with daily life and situations and so it's hard to stay focused. We do have council members who do not travel so I think that that's sort of our...we might have more participation if we kept...are able to keep it closer to home and been able to create that environment for focus."

Verónica Hirsch:

"What strategies have been used to engage and educate Cheyenne River Sioux citizens about the Tribal Ventures Project's process, where it is right now?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, we've used a number of different techniques. One.. Of course we've done a newsletter that has sort of summarized each project and given little tidbits of information. We actually hosted a radio show on our local community radio station regularly on...and it was not only just about Tribal Ventures but it was about the...looking to the future and projects that were happening on the reservation so we brought in other entities. So I think that in and of itself showed our people an opportunity to communicate about the efforts and progress of Tribal Ventures in conjunction with other progress and efforts that were happening on the reservation. So those two mechanisms through communication I think have been key. And then we've been very diligent about our communication with tribal communities that we visited in the first place. So we return to communities on an annual basis to do sort of an updates, give a report to the community so we'd give a presentation, we'd have different participants and different initiatives speak about their experience and what they got from that. Then we also held...periodically we would host a large community celebration. Again, in our culture and our way we realized that this was a gift that came to the Cheyenne River people and this...for this gift we give thanks and so we would have an annual...not annual but about every three or four years we'd give a [Lakota language] which is Thanksgiving gathering. So we would feed the people and have a celebration and at those events we sort of would do the reflecting back again of sharing about what the progress has been. So that sort of 800 people coming to a gathering is one example. And then also very small events and programs where we would present to programmed officers and departments again about what our efforts have been. And timely, trying to find places where there might be a natural intersect. And as we've come towards...we're coming towards the end, we're not completely finished with our project, recently we've used two specific tools. One has been again the community meetings so I just finished 45 presentations throughout the communities in about three months and with that we actually used videos. We designed and created these videos that helped tell the story of the strategic areas of economic, community and individual development of the plan as well as our Voices project and then the overall impact and outcome of Tribal Ventures. So these short four minute videos have been phenomenal where we've been able to interview participants, people have been able to see their relatives and see different components and parts of the reservation benefit from the efforts of the Tribal Ventures plan and I think that has been really helpful and we are seeing some momentum here for people feeling positive about the work that was done not just for Tribal Ventures but really proud of our own people for the steps that they've taken to take this path that Tribal Ventures has created for people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned several means of engaging and updating the community on the status of the Tribal Ventures Project including the newsletter, radio broadcasts, community meetings where videos were features, the [Lakota language]. Were these various methods...were they part of a larger citizen education plan?"

Eileen Briggs:

"No. I think we were...we were looking at I think as much as it formed was our commitment to the respect we gave to our community members who gave us so many ideas in the beginning of the effort and tribal leadership and it was that continuous I guess the continued commitment to their voice and their ideas that came from the people and the respect for them that we of course needed to bring that back to them because this came from them. This came from the people so this needed to return in a good way to give them the updates, let them know what's happening and I believe that when people saw the plan when it was written that they could see themselves, they could see their families. They actually saw their quotes. We had quotes from people in there. Maybe not identified but people could see themselves in the plan and so that I guess...that commitment and respect for them was so important to us that I guess that was the underlying plan was that we would of course give this back to them, take this back to the people "˜cause a lot of times we get these grants and programs and they come and go and we don't one have the resources to do that communication to talk about the impact and the outcomes of that and so we're trying to see not only is this different money but we're trying to show our people that we can do this. We can tell our stories about what has worked, what hasn't worked and where we need to go from there and give people the opportunity to participate in that so it's not a separate effort. And I think we've modeled that."

Verónica Hirsch:

"What participation method or venue do you feel proved most effective?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think these videos have been phenomenal. I think obviously face to face meetings. We was in a small community, Thunder Butte. It's a small community of 10, 15 houses and around 45 miles from our tribal headquarters and was there a couple of...just a couple nights ago and we were just...we got the feedback. They were participating. We had 10 or so people there and the reality was people said, "˜Nobody comes out here. Nobody comes to us and tells us these things.' So they were so appreciative of the meeting, of being face to face and then I think the videos have been just incredibly effective. They were very short and concise, positive but they didn't just gloss over things. They tried to talk about the issues that we were dealing with but in a way that people could absorb and I think that those have been really effective."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. How are coalitions built between and among other Cheyenne River Sioux tribal departments and programs with the Tribal Ventures Project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think it's happened in a number of ways. Obviously around areas of interest. We had a financial literacy, youth individual development account, effort there and that effort focused on a lot of young people so there were efforts to reach out to schools, connecting to that program. There was also an effort within the tribal government with their employees to increase financial education amongst employees. There has also then grown out of that a larger...we don't necessarily call ourselves a coalition but a group of people who are focused on workforce development coming together talking about just really what does a workforce strategy look like on this reservation but understanding that the basis of that is we need to understand each other. Programs and departments don't necessarily know what someone's role is, they have an expectation that's maybe not realistic or they don't realize there's an opportunity that they're both going after because there isn't necessarily communication. So I think that those coalitions or those coming together have helped to improve services, to help us to coordinate better. I don't at some level sometimes collaborate but I think sometimes you kind of go with just communication and coordination first and then you get to some collaboration over time. So that's the sort of effort that I think we've seen sort of outgrow with our partners. And I would say that the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board in and of itself is the kind of collaborative work between tribal department programs, nonprofit, community members, tribal leadership so that itself has its own dynamic that is impacting the kind of understanding that we need to have collectively to address issues like poverty and other issues on the reservation."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Were any external partners included or approached in a type of coalition framework and when I say external I mean external to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I know that we worked with the...we created a Cheyenne River Chamber of Commerce and they connected to other native chamber of commerces to do... They connected to other chamber of commerces in both native communities and non-native communities to understand and educate and make connections. We also saw the South Dakota Indian Business Alliance engaged with some of the efforts with Cheyenne River as a result of our work together. We saw with a number of the work around GED attainment. We created a very successful GED program and that has built our understanding and relationship with different organizations in the state that provide similar services to better provide services on our reservation and also to improve the kind of services needed to be provided to native people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. I'm going to transition here and ask you to in a sense predict what... What dynamic do you think would exist within the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation among the Lakota people there if the Tribal Ventures Project did not exist, had not come into being?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I moved home about the time this project emerged on the reservation so I don't have a ton of sort of previous experience but...but, I think that...we have a lot of challenges with our own trust of one another, our own sense that we can...we have great ideas but I think that we often worked in silos and I think that that was a result of very much governmental resources and scarce resources and then all of us having to sort of protect those resources. I don't think that people intentionally were trying to be territorial, I just think that you've got...that naturally started to occur. And so I think that that would have continued I think to a larger extent. And there wouldn't have been this opportunity for sort of a collective effort and reaching out to our...think of our whole reservation and not just your community or your family but we could think of us collectively. And I think intuitively we want to think of ourselves as the Lakota...Four Bands of the Lakota that live on our reservation but oftentimes when you're mired in survival and struggle and just trying to keep what you have and maintain that in the midst of much, much challenge it's difficult to think of the larger, bigger picture and I think that that's one of the things that I think has made a...we've seen an impact. And then I would just also add that the work of the tribal council over time to see that this continued on. That in and of itself... When tribal programs or funding comes and goes and you're kind of used to, "˜Well, that used to be here, it was good but it's not here anymore,' usually in three year timeframes–we had 10 years of effort and it's...we're going to be in the same boat as we look forward. Will this just end? What will we do? There's a lot of questions in front of us as a tribe but regardless of that, we've had this time to sort of stop and think together and I think that that may not have happened for...and it's hard to predict or to be able to say, "˜Well, this wouldn't have been here.' But we know that lives and resources have been changed, opportunities that weren't here before that really just made sense like, "˜Yes, we should have that,' but we never had the resources to make that happen. And we have opportunity now with our own tribal...some tribal resources that we have available now and I think this has helped to demonstrate a collective effort. Obviously I've spoken about that but I think it also demonstrates the creativity and the thoughtfulness that's necessary for effective programming and we have some resources available to us as a tribe now through some settlement money and some decisions are being made and you're hearing things like, "˜Well, we need to think that out or have a strategic plan,' and I'd like to think that Tribal Ventures would have...has influenced that but if not we may have just been acting again in a survival mode. "˜Here's some money, let's spend it. Let's not think about what...' Not that our people didn't think but I think that you just get caught up in reacting. That's all. And I think we've been able to have at least a breather and take a pause and make an effort together."

Verónica Hirsch:

"How does the Tribal Ventures Project represent Cheyenne River Sioux citizens and reflect Lakota values?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, one of the values is about respect itself and I think that the work that we've done with our partners is really about trying to meet people where they're at, be respectful of their opinion and position but also try to give this exchange an opportunity for everyone to have room to be where they're at but also emerge from that in a place of your own vision for yourself and I think we reflected that on an individual level and then the community's vision of itself and then our families and our whole economy really that vision. And I think that those kind of respecting...we're always kind of putting those lenses...asking ourselves those... We'll run into challenges, communities or projects that we got started really...many of them have been very successful but we've hit a lot of bumps in the road, things that didn't go the way we wanted them to, partnerships that didn't work out the way we thought they would. And we always come back to asking ourselves, "˜Well, what do our values tell us? How should we handle this? What should we do?' We had some contentious issues a couple of times and we really just felt like, "˜Well, we need to go there and just listen and talk to one another and understand each other.' And that in and of itself is a reflection of how we do business. We are very much committed to our communities, the historical and cultural connections that are in our communities and in our families and so when we approach communities even for a community meeting we'll say, "˜Well, who's the grandma in that community?' or "˜Who's the person that we reach out to?' "˜Well, that's who this is, this is the person but that's her nephew so you can him.' So we're very much going within the dynamics of our own community and respecting that process even who's cooking. We're going to make sure we ask appropriately for someone to cook for us and try to feed our people and do things in a way that is comfortable for them and respecting that and giving thanks. I think that that's something that we really focused on at Tribal Ventures is to be able to be appreciative and thankful for what we have and to be honest about the opportunities. That's another value of ours is honesty and being honest about things when they didn't go well and things when there's opportunities and challenges that we have to say, "˜We have to look at this. This isn't...' I always say to people, I say, "˜Well, no one's going to care about this place as much as we do and so we're the ones that are going to have to lead this change and have to be willing to listen to one another even though we disagree. We still have to have those conversations.' And I think that value of fortitude, of being something to stay with something is very much underpinning of the work that we've done to say, "˜You've got to stick with this and we've got to keep going with this because the children are depending on something to happen.' And so we're very much talking about values. We recently did a support of a couple of veterans groups who were going to be traveling across our reservation and elsewhere and so we supported them by creating these t-shirts and we wrote, "˜The Lakota Values,' on the back of the shirts and we said, "˜These are just words unless we live them.' And so we're sending a message around values and talking about that as well as we created this cultural mini-grants. We had small amounts of money that really were giving people opportunity to carry out their ideas that they felt would support and encourage a positive Lakota cultural value. So all kinds of ideas from horse rides for young men and women who wanted to learn about horsemanship but also our culture and our values "˜cause no one was teaching them that. So we supported that in a small way. Other projects...we're helping other community members think about the positive decisions and positive lifestyles about living this life and choosing to live in the wake of many suicides that we have in the community. So there were every ideas that came. People have really good ideas about promoting positive self-identity and our cultural values and so we put out a little bit of money to help to support food or t-shirts or something that they wanted to make it happen but they made it happen. And I think that that self-determination or that value of...that you know what you need to do and to support that and with this little bit of money...it was a little bit of a catalyst, it was an activity that we did but we found that people really wanted to talk about their values and it meant so many things to different people and yet as a group we will not move forward with any kind of poverty if we don't feel good about who we are, if we don't live the values that we have as a people and we don't talk about them. So I think just the process that we've engaged in with our community just sort of...it's embedded. It's real hard to pull it out and say "˜Oh, well we were talking about values on Thursday.' We live them and talk about them more directly with people to shine a light on it when we can but just to remind ourselves that we're Lakota, we need to be Lakota."

Verónica Hirsch:

"How do Cheyenne River Sioux citizens understand and define their tribal council's roles?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think there's a couple of things I...my perspective is. I think that they have a lot of expectation of their tribal leadership to be their advocate, to be some sort of a social worker problem solver, to be a legislator, to be a diplomat, sort of ambassador for the tribe and those roles are a lot of different hats but I think because of our community and many other communities I'm sure face this, there is an expectation a lot in that social worker problem solving advocate role and so I think our community members sort of define like, "˜You're supposed to be my spokesperson.' And that's very much part of our traditional life ways that we have an [Lakota language] and you send someone up to be that head person to speak and so that's who's...even though we have a political process and elections now, it's still embedded in sort of who from that community are they putting up to speak for them. And so when you're up there and you're on tribal council, that is the expectation that you're going to be the conduit for any elected leader but a lot of times you're trying to help someone get their electricity turned back on which many elected officials in the United States do not have to deal with on a daily basis but I think that the expectation is very high for our tribal leadership and understanding those roles and responsibilities is really key because oftentimes your time is used up filling some of those hats and you're not able to focus on the legislative part or fix things on a policy level or legislate. And oftentimes, this is just my opinion but I think as a leader sometimes it's overwhelming–it is overwhelming and so I can... "˜Let me do the thing I think I can handle. I'll work on this electricity thing or this other problem that I think I can make changes and this is a whole other arena that I'm not as knowledgeable about or I haven't learned as much as I want to yet to really affect the kind of changes.' So I think that's the balance that we have facing our...when we look at our tribal elected leaders. But we as a people in our...what I've seen at home is that our people very much respect that that tribal leadership is a responsibility and they respect that. They don't agree with it a lot of times and that's okay. I don't think that's been the issue of not respecting it but I do think that they see that it could be better and they would like to see some changes. I think that's a larger see change and some things that can happen over time but we have made the IRA government system work fairly well on Cheyenne River because we are Four Bands of the Lakota, we have... Before the IRA government we were already doing sort of representative councils to make decisions around our area but what I've seen since then is that we realize that things could be improved and we want to make changes. But our leadership and our tribal citizens need to be clear about what all those roles are because I think we become mired in the role of the problem solver and the challenges because so many people are in survival mode."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. You've mentioned citizen participation in some of the Tribal Ventures Project's community meetings. You mentioned that community members expressed gratitude for having Tribal Ventures staff come to them and to really make a deliberate effort to engage them. Now this far into the timeframe of the Tribal Ventures Project have you noticed that citizen participation has increased in these type of community events?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I don't know that I've seen a huge increase. I think that social media has changed in the last 10 years for this reservation and I think that participation in face to face meetings you're kind of getting around the same number of people coming. It depends on the community. We were in a what I would call more traditional community of Green Grass recently. We had 25 people come. That's phenomenal. They have like maybe 20 houses there so we had a big turnout for that community and they very much are reflective of...they don't have as great of internet service there so they're very much communicating word of mouth, telephone, face to face works best for them so we have great participation. Other communities where there's a lot of technology and that, a younger population is using that. They're getting information in a different way. So I think that that's changed us a certain amount so I don't know if I've seen participation in that way in our community meetings. We have different Facebook groups that definitely have a lot of...it's a great place that you can stand behind your computer and have all kinds of opinions and ideas and sharing that happens with social media. And so I think that kind of participation is...we're seeing that but I don't know if we've seen the kind of participation that is sort of engaging to change things collectively in a face to face way quite as much. Not in my experience. But I think that we're ripe for it because we have the social media to gather people. I think our colleges are a nice central location as well, our tribal college so those are some places where I've seen a little bit more participation but they're a little bit more engaged. It's sort of indicative of the structure of education."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You've mentioned the changing dynamics of participation mechanisms. How do you think the Tribal Ventures Project can address those changes and maybe even harness some of let's say that youth involvement albeit that involvement takes place as you mentioned maybe behind a computer screen? Do you think there's a way to even using that means to somehow inspire or promote an increased level of let's say youth citizen participation?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Oh, definitely. I think that we see young people participating in their own way. We have a group of young people on our reservation currently that are very concerned about some issues–health issues, some environmental issues–and they have organized themselves to do some research and collectively try to advocate on that and it's a different arena than I work in every day but I watch that and I'm in awe that they have taken on these steps and I certainly can't speak to every detail of that but they're going to be participating in a research conference that we're going to be having in a few weeks and I just see them wanting to be engaged in something and I feel like the work that we've done with Tribal Ventures and I think the work that we see tribal programs and departments do, they...we certainly have not excluded that kind of participation so we're welcoming it, making room for it and opportunities for the kind of participation that we all need. And I would also make a comment around communication. I think that that's a critical issue in many, many of our communications that the communication is very low, trust is low, so is the sense of...leadership is low and I think we have these high incidents of sort of imbalance in our community and oppression and racism and things like that that we're facing but I guess I have done some understanding but I see this kind of thing that we should push down on some of those things that are really high but I think the work of really trying to grow and push up levels of trust and leadership and communication can naturally push those other things down in what I've come to understand. And so I really think that communication is a key component. And if I had a magic wand and I could say, "˜I would like to have every tribe have some significant communication tool consistent for just information and positive stories but the kind of information that...' We don't have that as consistently as I would like for our people because when you don't know, you're going to be in poverty, you're out of the loop, you don't know... If you're not related to the right person, you're not connected in some way, you can become disconnected and it can hurt, your family can continue to be disenfranchised I guess in a way, like struggling out there. And I guess I feel like any tools, whether it be a newsletter or radio or the sort of videos or trying to harness how we can use social media and other tools to try to communicate that that's sort of my own interest but I see other tribes... I watch the Confederated Tribe of the Umatilla. They have an amazing newspaper that they've had for many years. Well, they have some gaming money, they can support that and just understanding what did that sort of communications office of the tribe do and how much does it cost to run one and what kind of deliverables can they provide the people? There's always challenges with that but I just feel like that's a gap that's missing in our communities is communication and particularly from the government. So you have this continued disengagement of citizens because there's no communication, websites aren't updated, there isn't sort of anybody who's writing about what's happening that's good and we just like to talk about what didn't go well and, "˜Did you hear what they did?' And that's in every community but I feel like we have a gap there and that could really affect some change."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. The Tribal Ventures Project spearheaded a large data collection attempt to learn about the tribal community. What was happening at the community that made that particular project, that data collection project a priority?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think two things. One, we had a 10 year poverty reduction plan with the Northwest Area Foundation where we were really looking at the kind of outcomes and impact that we were making and trying to determine what would be the key indicators, what data points will we point at from 2006 to 2016 to indicate some kind of change. And of course we were looking at census data which is not reflective of Indian communities and is historically under representing our statistics for our families and demographics and we really felt like we were just...that was our only option and as much as we looked at other points where we could talk about participation outcomes and things around that, it really didn't really show kind of where the status of our families was at so I think that was one of the drivers behind that. And I think the other was just the overall dissatisfaction with the census and how it isn't good data for us as Indian people. And so we said, "˜Well, we have an opportunity to use some of the Northwest Area Foundation investment here under our evaluation to create this...some tools and so we made a decision to create a baseline dataset around our families. And we decided to do a household survey across the entire reservation surveying every fourth house on the reservation and up to five families in that home. And I think it has been a very remarkable effort. It's sort of like...sometimes I step back and I say, "˜Whoa! What did we do?' Because we got in deep in families. We got participation from 819 families, from 520 some households across the reservation, both native and non-native, drove every road on the reservation, used our own tribal members to do the surveying, got three attempts at every house. Our methodology is very solid and our sample size is amazingly large. But that dataset has created a baseline about lots of information. We asked over 160 some questions around land, around their home, around the demographics or the people and their household characteristics. Were people a veteran, what was their highest level of education at this point, how many children were in the house, what were their ages? We asked questions around income and expenses for their home. How much money do you spend a year on birthdays? How much money...do you...who do you trust to lend money to or who asks you to lend money? Do you trust banks? Lots of questions. And then we asked a lot of cultural resource type of questions. Do you hunt traditional foods? Do you pick traditional foods? Do you participate in cultural activities? What do you...how many times a year? Lots of questions. We asked a lot of very quantitative questions as well as qualitative questions. We asked questions about...qualitative like what do you think the hardest thing is about being Lakota today and that kind of information. 819 families participating and giving us their input and providing us what we call the Cheyenne River Voices Research Project. It is the voices of our people. It is an opportunity to now have a tool. We have an executive summary of that that we've created to help our tribal leaders have some direct feedback and what we call backup. We like backup for their...maybe your gut check says, "˜Well, yeah, of course we spend a lot of money, leaves the reservation to shop at these larger discount stores.' But what percentage of our people shop at that and we can tell that story. We have an actual number. How many people have children in their home? How many people have a cell phone? There's so many questions that we asked. We're basically sitting on...we call it a treasure chest of data and information for our people. I don't think we've even begun to understand even how we can use that because it is fairly fresh. It's been in the last year. But we are definitely seeing people saying, "˜This is a tool. This is something I can use to design program or this is a tool we can use to support grant efforts, this is a tool we can use to strategically think if we moved up or down in our efforts.' And of course we need to do the research again to survey to have some sort of comparison data and also ask similar questions that might be asked in the national survey but I think that it's really...it's changed our data, changed our data that we're used to accepting from the census. For instance, the census said, when we started this project in 2012 that we had around 6,109 people that live on our reservation within the two counties that encompass our reservation and we did...our Voices research came with 10,527 people living on our reservation. So we changed our population number and it was tribally driven data. This data was driven and...driven...collected by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe on behalf of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, it's their data, tribally collected, the questions we wanted to ask, the kind of things that we wanted to know about our own community with our own nuances and we're so grateful to the 800 and some families that participated in the Voices research. We're so grateful. And so we've been taking that back out to the communities and sharing with them what we found out and people so appreciate that. They're like, "˜Wow, you really were listening to us.' And so we haven't even...we still have so much work to do but that just kind of gives you an overview of the Voices research and the work that we've done to really try to capture the story and be able to tell the experience of our families."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned how the Voice project permitted the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to exercise sovereignty in data collection and arguably will be able to exercise that same measure of sovereignty in data interpretation. With that in mind, how do you think the data that has been collected can impact or influence tribal governance systems, whether it's happening currently or however far into the future?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think we can do a number of things that this sort of data collection, that we're capable of doing that, that we have...not just capable but we have the willingness and the strategic forethought to do that and I think governance systems can be responsive to those sorts of notions and that that sort of becomes to be expected. Well, we're supposed to do that, Cheyenne River is known for that, we've don't that. And I think when you talk about governance systems, systems that often obviously in high poverty, high areas of struggle and reactivity, it is very...the governmental system is only reflective of that life and experience of its people. And so I think it can only be and I think that these opportunities that we have with the Voices data, with the work of many partners in this effort has really...has a chance to influence the governmental systems. We can think through these processes, we come to expect that we should have some sort of baseline information, something to compare it to. We can help educate each other about what are the realities and then design and frankly evaluate our efforts more effectively. I think that we oftentimes are just...we're just trying to work grant to grant. That's no different than paycheck to paycheck. So we're working grant to grant and we're trying to say, "˜Well, what does this...how does this grant fit within our strategic effort? What do we want...what do we want for this population that we're trying to serve or for our future? And I think we have some sense of that but I think this data can help us pinpoint that a little bit more. I think that this data can change the governmental governance systems in a way that looks at our policies, that looks at our human capacity, human capital so to speak and see our families in a new way and figure out how do we move our families forward so that our government can move forward."

Verónica Hirsch:

"With that in mind, how can the Tribal Ventures Project excuse me, the Voices Project, really promote those in tribal government as well as tribal citizens to get onboard with this idea of data collection, of realizing its significance, its importance and its relevance to the tribal community?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think they see themselves in the Voices data. They see, "˜This is reflective, this is data that we're interested in that will impact.' I think that a lot of times our people haven't been asked, not asked relevant questions that are relevant to their life, to their own culture, to our own way of life in the middle of the prairie, wherever we live and these sorts of efforts...oftentimes data collection is often done by people from outside and that data gets collected and then carried away and we don't ever see the results of that and I think this kind of effort we're keeping at some level inside the camp and we made a lot of work to make sure that when this data was released that our own people held onto it, sat with it, looked around it themselves and there's so much more. But we know that other tribes, other organizations are interested in what we've done. We are sharing it to the best of our ability but the focus is inside the camp. And our focus is to make sure that we actually see this data being utilized to impact the changes and I think that's what will engage people because data does... Decisions are made every day that affect our people based on data and if we aren't deciding and getting that data ourselves, somebody else is going to do it and we may have nothing to do with it and I think that we are showing here that we need to be involved, we need to create, we need to drive the bus as I say. We're driving...we need helpers. I don't have statisticians on every street...every corner at home but we have helpers who can come and help make those things a reality and a partnership that can help get us what we need. But, we have to know and stop and figure out what our intention is around data. What do we need to know? What are the kind of questions that we need to be asking ourselves so we can move forward?"

Verónica Hirsch:

"Can Lakota values be employed to educate the tribal citizenry about what data is, what it is, what it does and why we care about it?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Yes, I think Lakota values and our way of life...I think we've always been data collectors as people. I think that we have over time...obviously we've survived...survival and problem solving in a survival mode is always analyzing data, looking at information. We don't call it data. We talk about stories. We know the stories and we make decisions based on the stories that we know of our families and the experiences they're having and we feel like that's reflective of the situations that we need to impact. And so we've been doing that. I think that Lakota values are really...it's not so much values but knowing who we are as Lakota and keeping...or knowing who we are and living those...that experience of historically. But this isn't necessarily new. It's a new way of doing things, a sort of a more modern way of understanding that yes, we've been collecting data a lot of times for federal programs and federal requirements for compliance primarily but not for strategic direction and I think we are in a position right now in Indian Country to get a hold of that and to take a more of a proactive and I think strategic approach to collecting that data, looking at that data ourselves. Either the data we've already been sending to wherever and understanding it and analyzing it better so we can make better programmatic and evaluative decisions but also collecting additional data. But that's a process. Data isn't a priority for everyone. They think, "˜Well, that's just the way we've done it all these years.' But that's because of the generational experience with the federal government compliance and data requirements. It's not something that we have been...that hasn't been invested in. Tribal govern...federal government has given tribal government any experience and expertise and technical assistance to develop our own data collection systems. We now are seeing where that needs to...we are wanting to make that happen and trying to go in those directions and I think that's the effort, that's the opportunity that we see that are our cultural values. We need to make decisions based on information that came from us not on information someone else is deciding about us and that's...data is power and data and power money, they all go together and we need to be sovereign of that. We need to be understanding our own data. We need to be able to design mechanisms and ways to collect that data so that we are the ones determining our future."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. That's all the time we have today on today's episode of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations please visit NNI's Indigenous Governance Database website which can be found at igovdatabase.com. Thank you for joining us."