Tallgrass Institute: Connecting Investors to Indigenous Insights and Expertise

Tallgrass Institute amplifies Indigenous insights from around the world and encourages creative capital approaches that value the fullness of economic, social and cultural wellbeing. 

Tallgrass Institute launched on January 14, 2025 to connect Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives, solutions, and leadership with investors and the private sector. Our work advances Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and is guided by Indigenous Peoples’ enduring values, stories, and cultures.

“Indigenous definitions of economic wellness and thriving are informed by a depth of story, of persistence and resistance, and the complexity of language and cosmovision,” said Founder & Executive Director Kate R. Finn. “Our work as a Center for Indigenous Economic Stewardship is to steward – to care for with intentionality, time, and foresight – those visions to be part of building strong and healthy communities.”

Tallgrass Institute works with Indigenous Peoples and organizations, a range of global investor groups, sustainability professionals, and standard-setting bodies to redefine the private sector’s role as one that respects Indigenous Peoples’ rights, lands, and economic priorities. We achieve this through training for Indigenous leaders and the private sector, targeted research, investor networks, and corporate and international advocacy.

Training

Tallgrass Institute meets increasing demand to provide Indigenous leaders, investors, and corporate decision-makers with training that aligns business practice with the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Through public convenings and private meetings, formal instruction, and webinars, our training develops knowledge, skills, and readiness. 

Among resources for investors our Free, Prior and Informed Consent Due Diligence Questionnaire provides a framework for performing due diligence that optimizes partnerships and engagement with Indigenous Peoples. The guide was updated in 2024 to reflect advancements in best practices to integrate Indigenous Peoples’ self-defined free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) protocols, and to require heightened due diligence for Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Indigenous Peoples in Initial Contact.

2024 also saw the release of our second Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Participation in AGM Proposals report. This annual report examines shareholder proposals to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, documenting best practices for investors to work with Indigenous Peoples within those strategies. It also serves as a call to action for corporate accountability, with the most recent report reflecting a call from Indigenous leadership that action above policy is needed to ensure respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

Unfortunately, the overarching view of Indigenous Peoples from companies is framed largely in the negative, as shareholders and C-suites are often only aware of impacts to Indigenous Peoples when there is a grievance filed or conflict creates operational risk. This pattern reinforces negative tropes rather than creating space for active, beneficial engagement and partnership, even when development doesn’t proceed. Tallgrass Institute seeks to disrupt this pattern in favor of one that recognizes the strength of Indigenous economic visions.

Research

Our research leads with Indigenous Peoples’ enterprise visions, advances respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in business operations, and centers and amplifies Indigenous solutions to systemic economic exclusion. Publications highlight the voices of Indigenous leaders and provide actionable insights and recommendations rooted in Indigenous expertise.

At Tallgrass Institute, we continue to engage with investors, funders, and Native enterprise leaders around critical findings from the Indigenizing Catalytic Capital report, released in 2023. Detailing eleven themes in the current capital landscape in Indian Country, the paper concludes with five recommendations to “center on redistributing power in investing and finance to address structural racism, forward Native self-determination, and support flourishing Indigenous economies which create both wealth and social wellbeing.” The recommendations are: 

• Enact data justice,
• Center Indigenous-led intermediaries,
• Increase investor literacy in foundational understanding of Native nations, Promote integrated capital strategies, and
• Invest in right relationship. 

[Read more about the Indigenizing Catalytic Capital report on GreenMoney Journal.]

Networks

Tallgrass Institute cultivates collaborative networks to interact with and activate investor and economic ecosystems aligned with Indigenous Peoples’ rights and wellbeing. We serve as Secretariat of the Investors & Indigenous Peoples Working Group (IIPWG), as well as provide a leadership role in the Securing Indigenous Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy SIRGE) Coalition.

IIPWG comprises a broad coalition of investors and finance leaders who have worked since the early 2000s to address challenges facing Indigenous Peoples globally and to mainstream Indigenous Peoples’ rights in responsible investment. The group also supports and uplifts Indigenous leaders’ participation in investment and shareholder spaces.

The group’s monthly strategy call for investors and finance leaders provides a clearinghouse for information, news, and joint action to bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities on issues related to sustainable and responsible investing and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Resources include a monthly newsletter, webinars, and more. In 2024, IIPWG launched an FPIC Working Group and recently welcomed the launch of IIPWG Canada in partnership with the Reconciliation and Responsible Investment Initiative.

Advocacy

Tallgrass Institute works with Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous organizations to design and support corporate engagement. This includes engagement with the finance and business sectors as well as standard-setting bodies to provide context for a wide range of corporate decision-makers regarding the business case for respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights. 

In parallel, we work to mainstream the business case for Indigenous Peoples’ rights to investors, international mechanisms, and standard-setting bodies. We advocate for corporations to identify the gap they must address and be responsive to their responsibility to respect human rights under the UNGPs as per the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. By centering Indigenous Peoples’ power, participation, and self-determination in due diligence and operational practices, private sector actors can integrate Indigenous priorities and perspectives to solve today’s most pressing global challenges.

Some examples of recent advocacy include ongoing partnership with the Gwich’in Steering Committee to protect sacred land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from from oil and gas development, support to track impacts to Indigenous Peoples in clean car supply chains, and multilateral engagements at the annual UN Forum on Indigenous Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 

Conclusion: Values-Aligned Partnership towards Systems Change

This is a critical moment to create systems change. Considerable market and political shifts are occurring in real time; the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are impacting people the world over, and while there is an increase of Indigenous economic power in some parts of the world, there is decline in safety for Indigenous human rights defenders in others.

Some investors have been active for decades on these issues, and some are just now stepping into work that prioritizes Indigenous Peoples rights in SRI frameworks, such as the “I in ESG”. At Tallgrass Institute we work to ensure that no matter when and how people activate, they can proceed in right relationship with values-aligned and rights-centered partnership.

Now is the time to embed new and creative approaches rooted firmly in the Indigenous worldview so the necessary change supports sustainable ecosystems for generations to come.

More about Tallgrass Institute at www.tallgrassinstitute.org. 

 

Article by Kate Finn and team, Tallgrass Institute 

Kate R. Finn is Founder and Executive Director of Tallgrass Institute, a Center for Indigenous Economic Stewardship. She leads the organization to build and implement strategies that forward Indigenous Peoples’ priorities at the intersection of business, law, and finance. Ms. Finn’s areas of focus and research expertise include Indigenous Peoples law and policy, preventing violence against women, sustainable finance, and business and human rights. Ms. Finn holds a J.D. and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Colorado, and a B.A. from Princeton University. Ms. Finn is Chair of the Executive Committee of the Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition, and she serves on the boards of Cedar Growth, Cultural Survival, and on the Stewardship Circle of Adasina Social Capital. Ms. Finn is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation.