International Indigenous Youth Council

Background

The International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC) is a left-of-center indigenous youth activist organization that focuses on issues relating to indigenous communities. It was founded in 2016 during protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. ^{1 2}

According to its page on LinkedIn, IIYC has local chapters in Chicago, Denver, Texas, New Mexico, and South Dakota. ¹

As of March 2024, the organization appears defunct. Its most recent post on social media was on February 18, 2024, although before that the organization’s last social media post was on January 13, 2023. Its website domain has also expired. ^{3 4}

Political Activities

The International Indigenous Youth Council was founded during the protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline started by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The tribe protested the pipeline claiming it violated Article II of the Fort Laramie Treaty, which promised the tribe “undisturbed use and occupation” of the indigenous reservations surrounding the planned area of the pipeline. The tribe, acting as a sovereign nation, passed a resolution in 2015 that stated the pipeline posed “a serious risk to the very survival” of the tribe and its resources. ²

IIYC was one of the many indigenous organizations that protested alongside the tribe. Other organizations included Honor the Earth, which has supported other environmentalist protests against oil pipelines and promoted divestment campaigns against conventional fuel interests, and the Indigenous Environmental Network, a collection of environmentalist groups, primarily in North America, that opposes zero-carbon nuclear energy. ^{5 6 7}

Affiliated Organizations

The International Indigenous Youth Council is partnered with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center), a left-of-center advocacy and litigation organization run by Kerry Kennedy, one of the seven children of the late U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) and his wife Ethel. ^{8 9}

The RFK Center partnered with IIYC for its John Lewis Young Leaders program, a fellowship program that aims to give “students with the necessary skills to become effective social justice and civic leaders.” The specific partnership was focused on the inaugural Titan Generator summit at Google’s headquarters. The summit was hosted by both the RFK Center and Generation Titans, a now-defunct crowdfunding platform that exclusively served businesses owned by ethnic minorities. It solicited investors to donate to the businesses without receiving equity, presenting the fundraising as contributing to “social impact. ^{9 10 11}

Financials

The International Indigenous Youth Council received all its funding, from 2020 until 2022, from contributions, gifts, and grants. ¹²

The organization had a total revenue of $271,313 in 2020, which fell to $131,375 in 2021, all of which, for both years, came from contributions, gifts, and grants. IIYC’s support dwindled in 2022 as it received $1,386, again all from contributions and grants. ¹²

The organization’s expenses were $120,086 in 2020, $61,854 in 2021, and $2,391 in 2022. The International Indigenous Youth Council’s net assets also dwindled year to year with the organization having $147,113 in net assets for 2020, and $216,634 in 2021. IIYC’s net assets dropped to $0 in 2022. ¹²