Wingbeat 88

WB88 serves the Navajo indigenous community along with missing and murdered indigenous relatives (MMIR), domestic violence and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) survivors, “2SLGBTQIA+” people, and the autistic. ¹

One Arizona

Wingbeat 88’s parent organization One Arizona is a left-of-center voter registration and get-out-the-vote group that operates WB88 as a fiscal project. It has 29 other partners. One Arizona was formed by the amalgamation of four immigrant rights organizations. Its partners include numerous left-of-center identity-based coalitions, including Asian Americans-Native Hawaiians-Pacific Islanders  (AANHPI) for Equity, Arizona Democracy Resource Center, left-of-center Arizona Center for Empowerment, Arizona Coalition for Change, Asian Pacific Community in Action, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Arizona, Black Phoenix Organizing Collective, Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy (CASE), Chispa, Corazon, Fuerte Arts Movement, Instituto Power, Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Inc., Mi Familia Vota, New American Leaders, Mountain Park Health Center, Phoenix Indian Center, PODER in Action, Planned Parenthood, Poder Latinx, Progress Arizona Institute, Promise Arizona (PAZ), Protecting Arizona’s Family Coalition, Puente Human Rights Movement, RAZE, and Voteriders. ^{3 4 5}

Programs

Tsidii Project

Wingbeat 88 began the Tsidii Project in 2022 with left-of-center Field Strategies and claimed to have registered 7,283 Navajo voters and created 13,286 voting plans for voters prior to the midterm elections that year. As of October of 2024, the group claimed 11,549 new voter registrations. ⁶

WB88 Art and Advocacy Mutual Aid Program

Wingbeat 88 operates the WB88 Art and Advocacy Mutual Aid Program and market gallery in Flagstaff, Arizona with buyers choosing which community groups their purchases will aid. ⁷

Love Thru Autism

Wingbeat 88 advocates a restructuring of the behavioral health care system in Arizona to ensure that indigenous people with autism receive health care and financial support for themselves and the families that care for them. ⁸

Funding

Wingbeat 88 is fiscally sponsored by One Arizona. The organization is a recommended in the “Indigenous-Led Civic Engagement, a funder guide for 2024 and beyond” produced by Third Plateau, a consulting group for left-of-center non-profits; Native Americans in Philanthropy, a group that promotes philanthropy for indigenous organizations; and Civic (re)Solve, a program of the James Walton-founded Wend Collective, based on the claim that 66 percent of eligible Native Americans are registered versus 69.1 percent of all eligible voters. ^{9 10 11 12 13}

People

Ora Marek-Martinez is board president of Wingbeat 88 and is associate vice president at the Office of Native American Initiatives, a University of Arizona initiative, and co-principal investigator at the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science, an initiative of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. ^{14 15 16}

Shonri Begay is vice president of the board and is a farmer, former river guide, and youth development and support coordinator for Native Americans for Community Action that provides services of Native Americans in the Flagstaff area. ^{17 18}