American Indian Community House (AICH) is a left-of-center Native American activist organization that aims to promote the well-being of Native Americans in urban settings and bring visibility to Native American culture in New York City. ¹

AICH received $750,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ² and $100,000 from Peter Buffett’s NoVo Foundation in 2023. ³ In 2022, AICH received $250,000 from the JPB Foundation and $100,000 from the NoVo Foundation. ⁴

AICH manages the Manna-hatta Fund, a donation portal organized by “non-Natives in New York City” ⁵ to support AICH programs. ⁶

History

Founded as a community-based organization in 1969, the American Indian Community House aims to promote the well-being of Native Americans in urban settings and bring visibility to Native American culture. ¹

In 2018, then-AICH board chair Rich Chavolla criticized the first Trump administration for AICH’s loss of federal funding by saying, “It’s no secret that there’s a federal movement under this President and Congress to defund Native initiatives that support our people, and ignore Native sovereignty. We may just be a victim of this latest trend against Native services and communities.” ⁷

AICH is headquartered in Manhattan and has a seasonal location on Governors Island. ⁸

Leadership

Patricia Tarrant is the executive director of the American Indian Community House. Tarrant first joined AICH as a member of its Youth Council in 2005. ^{8 9} She is a member of Landback Action Circle, an effort to procure a permanent building for AICH and other Native American organizations in New York City. ¹⁰ The Biden administration appointed Tarrant to its critical race theory-influenced Environmental Protection Agency Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program. ¹¹

Lance Richmond is the board chair of AICH. ^{12 13} Richmond works at Columbia University and has previously worked as the director of operations for the American Indian College Fund. ¹⁴ AICH’s board of directors includes representatives of the Delaware Lenape First Nation, the Shinnecock Nation, the Mohawk of Akwesasne, the Cherokee Nation, and Onondaga Nation. ⁸

Activities and Programs

American Indian Community House is a left-of-center organization that advocates for Native American groups, with a particular focus on those living in New York City. As of December 2024, AICH membership consists of 72 Native American tribes. ⁸

AICH also operates on Governor’s Island, New York City, where it is dedicated to raising awareness of Native American culture and bringing together dozens of tribes across the country. This location has been the base of AICH’s operations since 2019. ¹⁵

AICH runs the Landback Action Circle in partnership with several New York-area organizations to build a new Native American Community Center in New York City. The organization also partners with the Indigenous Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY), Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), and New York University to develop what it considers to be a “culturally appropriate curriculum.” ¹⁶ AICH also has a separate partnership with the New York Women’s Foundation. ¹⁷

In 2023, AICH spent $548,938 to hold an “Indigenous Peoples Day” symposium in Brooklyn, New York. ¹² The organization hosts and participates in Native American cultural events and exhibits across New York City. Its events have included teaching Native American history and culture, ¹⁸ collaboration with the Language Conservancy and New York University’s Center for Latin and American Studies for a Lakota Language Weekend, ¹⁹ sessions on how to make Native American artwork. ²⁰

In 2020, New York City provided a $50,000 grant to AICH for the purpose of community-based U.S. Census outreach. AICH implemented an outreach element in conjunction with various cultural events to encourage Native American attendees to complete the U.S. Census. ²⁰

With earlier funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agency, the Indian Health Service (IHS), AICH offered compensation for medical, dental, or optical expenses to Native Americans in New York City who are enrolled in a federally recognized tribe. IHS funding also provided mental health services in the form of virtual tele-behavioral health sessions. ⁷

Manna-hatta Fund

The Manna-hatta Fund is a donation portal organized by “non-Natives in New York City” ⁵ maintained by the American Indian Community House that is used to fund AICH’s programs across New York. ²¹ AICH has complete authority over the use of donations to the Manna-hatta Fund and is volunteer-led by individuals who believe they “have settler privilege and benefit from colonization of [North America]. ^{22 23} The Manna-hatta Fund has been operating in partnership with AICH since at least 2018. ²⁴

The fund supports the critical race theory-influenced concept of social justice ²⁵ and claims that “Native [American] land literally underpins everything about our lives in the [United States].” It asserts that homes, schools, places of worship, culture, recreation, agriculture, businesses, and friendships are all made possible because Native Americans were “displaced from their ancestral lands.” ²⁶

While the fund refrains from using the term “land tax” to define these contributions, ²³ Philanthropy New York has said the Manna-hatta Fund is organized to encourage individuals to “gift money as a kind of land tax” to AICH. ²⁷ The Manna-hatta Fund also identifies itself as “inspired” ²⁸ by the Shuumi Land Tax in the San Francisco, California, Bay Area ²⁹ and the Real Rent Duwamish ³⁰ in Seattle, Washington. ²³

The Manna-hatta Fund has argued that European settlers in the New World profited at the expense of Native people and that modern white Americans continue to benefit from these harms to this day. ²³ The Fund has claimed that New York City would not exist without “original theft from Native peoples” and the “stolen labor of Black people who literally built the city for Dutch and British colonists.” ²³ The Manna-hatta Fund asserts that Dutch settlers did not purchase Manhattan Island, and that their interaction with Native Americans was merely an exchange of gifts. ²³

The Manna-hatta Fund has affirmed that “white supremacy has its roots in the violence of European Christianity,” under which the fund says that “the Crusades, Holocaust, and colonial conquest was carried out.” It also says that non-Europeans are not excluded from honoring Native Americans through gifts such as those to the Manna-hatta Fund. ²³

The Manna-hatta Fund works closely with far-left Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and Resource Generation ³¹ and has received support from the Northlight Foundation ²⁷ and the Third Wave Fund. ³²

U.S. Government Funding

Prior to 2017, American Indian Community House received approximately $1,000,000 of annual funding from the Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services focused on Native American-related health issues. ³³ In 2017, IHS gave AICH three weeks’ notice that its annual funding would not be renewed. Additionally, IHS denied AICH’s request for six months of intermediary funding, leaving the organization without a primary source of revenue. ⁷

After losing funding, AICH officials acknowledged that it “had some troublesome times in the past concerning the program’s finances and mistakes by management,” and that the organization made changes to the management team and board members accordingly. ⁷ AICH has also received grants from the U.S. Department of Labor. ³⁴

Prior to the loss of government funding in 2017, AICH reported no revenue in 2017 and expenses exceeding $129,000, leaving a fund balance deficit of more than $349,000. The organization reported a diminishing amount of revenue in earlier tax returns, reporting slightly more than $1.6 million in 2014, just over $1 million in 2015, and about $724,000 in 2016. ³⁵

Non-Government Funding

American Indian Community House receives its funding from individual contributions and grants. In 2022, the organization reported revenue of $1,020,964 and expenses of $639,420. In 2022, AICH reported revenue of $921,497 and expenses of $278,051. ³⁶

In 2024, AICH received $75,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation ¹⁶ and $60,000 from the Park Foundation for the Landback Action Circle. ³⁷ In 2023, AICH received $750,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ² and $100,000 from the left-of-center NoVo Foundation. ³ AICH received $250,000 from the JPB Foundation and $100,000 from the NoVo Foundation in 2022. ⁴

AICH receives additional support from the New York Community Trust ⁸ and has received other grants of $50,000 or less from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, ³⁸ the Tides Foundation, ³⁹ the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, the Urban Indian Health Institute Community Grants Program, ⁴⁰ and the New York Women’s Foundation since 2020. ⁴¹

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