CAMBRIDGE, MASS. – Nine tribal governance programs have been selected by the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development’s Honoring Nations program as 2023 All-Stars from the family of 142 Honoring Nations awardees. Since 1999, the Honoring Nations program identifies, celebrates, and shares excellence in American Indian tribal governance. Applications are evaluated on the basis of a program’s effectiveness, significance to sovereignty, cultural relevance, transferability, and sustainability.
Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development gets $15 million in gifts to expand research, sharing innovation, best practices.
At a 2014 conference, Meagan Hill (AB 2011, MBA 2016), a member of the Mohawk Nation, stood proudly as her uncle received an achievement award for his work as treasurer of the Seneca Nation. Hosted by the Native American Finance Officers Association (NAFOA), the annual conference convenes professionals from member tribes, each of which operate as independent governments with their own political structures and economies. Over the next few days, discussions with member nations echoed many of the cases she was studying in her Harvard Business School (HBS) classes and issues she had encountered in her two years working in investment finance. She returned to the HBS campus with a spark of an idea.