Blog

Caption: Photo of Dr. Stephany RunningHawk Johnson at the Creative Commons Workshop held in Lisbon in May 2024

It’s July, and I’ve now been leading Local Contexts for about six months. What an incredible half year! With this milestone, it feels like a good opportunity to both reflect back on the first half of 2024 as well as look at what’s coming up between now and the new year.

We’ve been thinking, talking, and planning around the theme of sustainability — how do we make Local Contexts sustainable for the multi-generational work needed to achieve our mission of Indigenous data sovereignty? What does sustainability mean in different ways and in different areas? We are focusing in on four aspects: Governance, Adoption, Team, and Funding.

Governance

Our governance is based on strong engagement with and by Indigenous communities who participate in and lead our Council as Members of Local Contexts. In the past six months we have amended our bylaws to ensure that our Notices and Labels will always be used in the service of Local Contexts’ charitable purposes. In addition we have adopted accounting and fiscal policies to ensure our financial resources are managed responsibly.

In the next six months, we have the goal of recruiting three new Councilors. We are hoping to find members of Indigenous communities who can guide our practices and protocols, and/or those who can provide advice on growing our organization. If you are interested in participating in our governance, please email us at info@localcontexts.org. We are launching our Members program in August and are working toward welcoming eight Indigenous communities as Members by the end of 2024 and many more in 2025 and the years beyond.

Adoption

The adoption aspect of sustainability is one that we have been heavily concentrating on over the last six months. This includes training for Local Contexts Hub users, continuous improvement of Hub capability including new mapping functionality, support for the use of Notices and Labels, organizing network and working groups, and launching the Early Adopter Service Provider Program.

We have made huge strides toward this goal since January:

• Conversations with approximately 40 communities, 160 institutions, 15 researchers, and 15 other organizations 
• 100 new Hub accounts 
• 17 new Notices applied
• 3 new Labels publicly applied and 70 new Labels customized
• 6 virtual presentations, 13 support sessions, 5 working group meetings, and 9 network meetings
• 6 subscriptions
• 1 service provider
• 3 founding supporters

To support these activities, we have implemented an internal relationship management system. I have presented in person at the Botany of Nations kickoff at the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance Summit, Museums Advancing Racial Justice Convening, and Canadian Polar Data Workshop V, as well as participated in the Creative Commons “Toward a Recommendation on Open Culture” convening.

That’s a lot of work, but we aren’t done yet! We are planning on the following before we wrap up 2024:

• Launch Hub Member, Subscriber, and Service Provider functionality in October 
• Attend and present at the Maine Archives and Museums annual conference, ATALM, and more
• Welcome 50 new Subscribers, with a focus on Museums
• Certify up to 4 Service Providers
• Support the University of Arizona’s Data Science Academy in training their high school teachers and interns to work with their own Indigenous communities to create Hub projects and apply Labels

Team

Our current team includes 10 people, across Outreach, Technology, and Operations functions. The values that our team bases all our work around include sovereignty, transparency, trustworthiness, accountability, utility, authority, and generational sustainability. We are in the midst of targeted team training and team building activities, which has been wonderful. We have grown so much over the last year and need to continue to coalesce and work more efficiently together — and have some fun along the way!

As we move into the second half of the year, we are looking to grow the team. We have just posted two new positions, a Marketing and Communications Lead and a Help Desk Lead. We are looking forward to adding to our team! We also have more training opportunities coming up, and we’ve begun planning for an in person all team training and retreat in May 2025.

Funding

The final sustainability aspect is funding, including grants and subscriptions. We reported to the Mellon Foundation on our progress with highly positive feedback and encouragement to continue the funding relationship. We launched our Subscription program in January and have been building our systems and Hub functionality to support this program. We are nearing our first 10 Subscribers with a goal of reaching 50 Subscribers by the end of the year. We are writing grant proposals for interim funding support as we grow our Subscriber base.

Thank you!

It’s amazing to look back and see all the good work that has gone on with our Local Contexts team. They truly are an incredible group of people who know their work matters for Indigenous Peoples. Thank you to our Council for your guidance, and to all of our Subscribers and early adopter Service Providers for joining our journey. None of this would be possible without you!

At Local Contexts we keep in mind each day that we have a purpose and are working toward a goal of supporting Indigenous data sovereignty. I am so grateful for the last six months as the Executive Director of Local Contexts and am excited for all we have planned in the next six months and beyond!