President, 
Lori Pourier

In June 1999, Lori Lea Pourier joined the Fund as the Executive Director. 

Lori Lea Pourier an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation in southwestern South Dakota has served as the President of First Peoples Fund since 1999.  During her tenure at First Peoples Fund, the organization has emerged as national arts fund supporting the advancement of American Indian arts through its three funding areas the Community Spirit Award, the Artists in Business Leadership and Cultural Capital program.

Between, 1994 and 1998, Ms. Pourier served as the as the Executive Director of the Indigenous Women's Network (IWN), a U.S. based nongovernmental organization.  While at IWN she was responsible for fundraising, operations and the political action work of the organization. Her fund development work included the national Honor the Earth Campaign and Tour. The biennial concert tour with the Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt and native musicians raises desperately needed funds for native groups on the frontline of environmental protection.  She represented IWN at numerous international conferences at the United Nations as well as the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. During her tenure at IWN, Ms. Pourier established a leadership program placing young emerging leaders in nonprofit organizations throughout Indian Country and within regional and national Foundations.

Her philanthropy work began at First Nations Development Institute based in Virginia where she served as the Associate Marketing Director.  Following her tenure at First Nations, she operated her own marketing consultant business specializing in developing marketing strategies for nonprofit American Indian organizations, multicultural arts organizations and tribal communities.  Ms. Pourier served on the Board of Directors of the Western States Arts Federation, the Honor the Earth Fund, the Chinook Fund and the National Indian Business Association.  She currently serves as the co-chair of the Indigenous Resource Network of the Grantmakers in the Arts and is a board member of the Native Americans in Philanthropy.  In 1993, she participated in AIO's American Indian Ambassadors Leadership Program funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  She holds a Masters of Science from Southern New Hampshire University, Graduate School of Business. Ms. Pourier was recently selected for the Center for Social Innovation fellowship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a partnership between Stanford University and National Arts Strategies.  The Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders-Arts (EPNL-Arts) honors fifty outstanding arts and culture leaders by selecting them to receive a CSI fellowship for the program.