Ecosystem of Opportunity

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a grassroots youth movement at is building a 34 acre regenerative community that transforms a critical housing and infrastructure crisis into an Ecosystem of Opportunity. Through our Workforce Development and Language Programs, we become agents of change in our community and culture.

Marginalized communities face disproportionate challenges for basic infrastructure planning. In fact, there are no homes for sale on the Pine Ridge Reservation — we are in a housing crisis and need 4,000 homes immediately- broadband is nonexistent or rare.  It doesn’t take long to see a connection between access and equity; if poverty can be demonstrated through statistical information on employment, health, and income, than you could say, as the US Census does, that we inhabit 7 of the 11 poorest communities in the US.  

In the words of our founder Nick Tilsen, “We must envision solutions at least as big as the problems we face.”  At TVCDC we build comprehensive Ecosystems of Opportunity, which are comprised of interdependent programs that support and propel each other.  At the core of this mission we are developing our workforce and building programming to save a language on the verge of extinction.  

In 10 years, Thunder Valley CDC and its partners have designed an extraordinary system of supports that has leveraged over 40 million in investment, and developed programming for Language revitalization and Workforce (among other programs).  These programs collectively mobilize our community to build a 34 acre $60 million regenerative development.

At TVCDC, we design and build culturally relevant systems that empower.  The comprehensive approach to systemic change employs multi-media educational tools, websites hosting essential resources and content, and the ability to telecommute and teleconference with essential partners to access resources that would otherwise be inaccessible given our physical location and economic position.  

“Find a way” is a phrase you will hear every day at TVCDC.  Whether we are vanguards building a new tool, like our second language learners platform, or cobbling together existing resources, we are building a thriving Ecosystem of Opportunity where technologies connect what we love and cherish.  

At TVCDC, we believe those most dispossessed of their equity and agency must be the drivers of socio-economic change.  With colonialism, our subsistence lifeways and language were eradicated and until now, we have lacked the infrastructure and investment needed to address systemic problems.  Our our language is facing extinction, our youth often perceive their futures as devoid of the resources needed to create opportunity, and lack the social-emotional support required to navigate complicated problems in a remote geographic setting.  By providing holistic support for each individual's development, we are building a workforce for the new economy.

At TVCDC, our Listen-Do-Learn-Share process mobilizes our community and staff through cross sector partnerships to create an Ecosystem of Opportunity- a system of programs that propel each other.  Our Workforce Development Through Sustainable Construction Program (WFD) provides a space where young people envision and develop a career path that targets a triple bottom line trajectory for people, planet and prosperity.  Our Language Programs, anchored by the groundbreaking Lakota Immersion Childcare, provide the tools and culturally relevant learning platforms to bridge generations and bring families together.  Our multi-tiered system of tools builds pathways for individual and broad socio economic transformation.  

We are witnessing a cultural renaissance.  Our Lakota Language program is playing an integral role in saving an otherwise dying language.  Language revitalization galvanizes our community and brings families together.  Indigenous nations throughout North America are benefiting from our ground-breaking suite of tools, hosted and deployed on multiple open source platforms.

Our WFD program benefits our immediate region through the building of our Regenerative Community, and by creating a workforce for tomorrow's jobs in sustainable construction, agriculture, energy and more.  This program's work is being formated through a 4 year evaluation into a toolkit that will include an interactive curriculum.

1 and 2 year post graduation tracking and surveys

- Place 90% of WFD Program Participants in jobs or continuing education

Standardized testing in Elementary Program, Outreach and continuing assessment for second language learners

- Produce 40 fluent and dynamic speakers by 2020

Audits for conformity to state standards

- Produce a full range of curriculum materials for Elementary Grades; expand materials for Second Language learners

We are a community rebuilding itself by rebuilding ourselves- we heal through our programs’ multi tiered supports including synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Our WFD Program participants transcend their relative geographic isolation through online counseling, education courses, internships and other mentoring opportunities, which together create a system through which program participants have access to the resources they need to envision a future of opportunity.

Our Lakota Language Learning multimedia tools include videos, books, and web content many of which arel first of their kind tools that help preschoolers learn their culture through the language.  

For WFD participants, the recognition that our program needs to include socio-emotional supports, led us to address the challenges posed by our geography.  Therefore, telecommuting for mental health programs became an essential component of the program.

We must develop the ability to understand circumstances through the lens of our unique culture and language. Our low student-teacher ratio for Immersion Childcare allows for powerful in person relationships to emerge while interacting with technologies that are essential for teaching Lakota such as “My Play Home” and “Bitsboard” which helps us create an expansive, virtual platform for language exploration.

Thunder Valley CDC is currently developing “tool-kits” for each of our programs through a four year evaluation process designed to establish best practices.   We will communicate the lessons we have learned as well as a series of steps and resources to incubate new Ecosystems of Opportunity.  These tool-kits will be deployed through both training videos and through mentoring both in person and through curriculum based programming.

Our program directors participate in shared learning communities where best practices and recognitions are exchanged.  We also use platforms such as the Bitsboard Store where our curriculum materials can be shared.

We plan to ensure financial viability through the continued diversification of our funding sources, including national foundations, individual donor networks, and our social enterprises, which will include at a minimum, a construction company built through our WFD Program, Thunder Valley Farms, a home-owner’s association, and a quilting/arts education project or company.  

Further, we are in the visioning phase for a consulting organization that will provide technical assistance for new Community Development Corporations we have incubated.  We anticipate the consulting organization will use an online learning system to communicate the curriculum we are developing through each program’s took-kit.

Thunder Valley CDC recognized early in its financial strategic planning process, that a diverse funding portfolio would be essential to build a robust ecosystem.  The choices we made specifically regarding debt, reflect our priorities as developers in so far as we believe creating equity for home-buyers is essential to empowerment.  

Workforce Capacity is our biggest challenge.  Because we are a place based model, we are very intentional in how we build our organizational culture, and who we hire.  We could outsource much of our work, and make progress faster, but it is important that we build capacity within our traditionally marginalized community.  The use of technology has huge potential for our organization's operation and capacity growth in administrative and programmatic functions in so far as we can bring new tools to serve our theory of change and cultural values that emphasize trust, spontaneity and responsiveness while limiting rigidity.  

http://billmoyers.com/story/making-change-nick-tilsen/

http://www.oglalalakotaplan.org

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/native-news/thunder-valley-cdc-begins-grassroots-housing-and-community-construction-on-pine-ridge/

In our community, we are experiencing a revolution in learning, who it involves, who it empowers.  We started our engagement process by looking inward- as adults we all too often dictate expectations to our children- we realized we had to meet our youth where they are and ask:  “what do you expect of us [as the adults in you life]”.  

We have built much more through consortiums and partnerships than we can share in this application, which is in large part why we are here- to learn how others are meeting the challenges of communication and collaboration.

To date, our work has been funded through over 50 different federal and philanthropic grants. In addition to short and long term grant commitments, our construction work also includes state and federal loans, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Northwest Area Foundation.

We do not see our project as having competitors that we are aware of.