New Team Members Uplift Native Artists and Communities

First Peoples Fund (FPF) recently added new staff members who join our mission driven work of honoring culture bearers and being good allies. They bring additional knowledge and perspectives that will contribute to FPF’s work to serve Native artists and culture bearers in substantial ways.

Please join us in welcoming Sonya Paul Gavin, Sandra White Shield, and Hillary Presecan to the FPF family!

Meet Sonya Paul Gavin

Vice President of Advancement and Communication

“It’s so good to work in Indian Country once again.” That’s the feeling Sonya (Diné/Navajo) has as she joins the FPF team from Los Angeles, Calif.

When she was a young girl, Sonya’s mother, who was raised on the Navajo reservation, continually urged Sonya to pursue a good education and build a stable career. That mindset carried Sonya to the University of Colorado Boulder and on to work at the Native American Rights Fund and to the Alaska Public Radio Network. There, she helped empower Alaska Native villagers to operate their own stations.

Sonya and FPF President Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota) met some thirty years ago when Sonya worked at the Native American Rights Fund in Colorado.

Sonya later went to work at UCLA where she spent over 15 years until recently deciding to refocus her career around her passion for non-profits and Native communities.

One of many moments that told Sonya she was in the right place with her new position at FPF came when she attended a reception at the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. during her first week on the job in February 2020. In walked her director from the radio network in Alaska, someone she hadn’t seen since 1994.

““That’s when I knew I was supposed to be here, getting back into Indian Country with new skills and experiences that I can apply and make a difference. It was as if I had come full circle.”

— Sonya Paul Gavin

Her love for arts in her personal life is also reawakening as she explores creative writing and photography. She is already experiencing the immersion in Native arts that comes with the job at FPF. While in D.C., Sonya met Delores Churchill (Haida), a vibrant 90-year-old Alaska Native artist. Delores is an FPF Community Spirit Awards Honoree (2002), Cultural Capital Fellow (2006, 2015), and NEA National Heritage Fellow (2006).

“It was so serendipitous,” Sonya says. “We had a connection because of Alaska, and I became her unofficial escort for the day. Visiting with Delores and everything I experienced during the entire trip made for an outstanding experience in the world of Native arts. I am so happy to be here.”

Sonya will be focusing on diversifying funding sources for FPF and leading the communications efforts. She adds, “I’ve always been a mission-driven person. I truly love working in the Native space, uplifting and helping our communities.”

Meet Sandra White Shield

Executive Assistant/Grants Manager

Sandra (Sicangu Lakota) is a life-long resident of Rapid City, South Dakota where FPF is headquartered. She comes to FPF from the Graduate Studies Department of Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where she served as administrative assistant.

“I chose First Peoples Fund because of the work they do in impacting cultural knowledge transference and in building the ability for both individuals and communities to grow economically,” Sandra says. “I hope the skills I have can be added to the effort First Peoples Fund is doing.”

“I chose First Peoples Fund because of the work they do in impacting cultural knowledge transference and in building the ability for both individuals and communities to grow economically,”

Sandra’s 3-hour daily commute to her previous job at the college did have its rewards, such as the sunrise that inspired one of her star quits. She makes star quilts to give away to family and people who have added to her knowledge base.

“The giving of the star quilt is the best way I have to outwardly show respect and honor for people who mentor me, or who make me understand in a way that I didn’t understand before,” she says.

One thing Sandra does in her role at FPF is uplift the culture bearers who undergird and guide every aspect of our work.

“It’s because of them that there is a resurgence in people reclaiming their culture in an Indigenous way,” she says. “Our young people today need to look at those people and recognize that this is where they came from. When they see someone who is truly of the culture and who truly exemplifies the virtues of the cultures [through FPF Community Spirit Award Honorings], they know it and respect it.”

Meet Hillary Presecan

Program Manager of Community Development

Hillary initially encountered FPF while presenting at the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums Conference in the summer of 2014.

“I was researching some of the partners and participants coming to the conference and noticed there was a representative from First Peoples Fund,” she says. “I loved their mission, vision, and values. I kept them in the back of my mind when I moved down here for a different job.”

Program Manager of Community Development, Hillary focuses on FPF’s Native Artist Professional Development Training (NAPD) by managing trainings, building relationships, and facilitating collaborations with tribal communities and FPF-certified NAPD Trainers.

“I enjoy getting to know tribal communities and learning about their needs and how we can bring technical assistance and other support with our trainings. I want to be a good ally.”

“I want to share resources and opportunities for Native artists anywhere that I can through this job,” she says. “I enjoy getting to know tribal communities and learning about their needs and how we can bring technical assistance and other support with our trainings. I want to be a good ally.”

Born and raised in southwest Michigan, Hillary earned her bachelor’s in art history from Kendall College of Art and Design before serving in the Peace Corps as a youth developer in Morocco. After Hillary completed her Peace Corps service, she was awarded the Peace Corps Coverdell Fellowship at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she earned her master’s degree in Rural Development from the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development. She interned at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage and worked with Indigenous peoples in the arts and Tribal public health before finding her professional home at FPF.

Hillary serves on boards for the annual Rapid City Native art market and cultural celebration, Native POP: People of the Plains, and the Rapid City Arts Council. She sees art as the doorway into different cultures.

“The best way to get to know another culture is through the arts where that connection of understanding and commonality binds us together,” she says. “Indigenous artists express their ways of knowing, their stories, their histories, and who they are through art. I feel art is one way to connect the rest of the world to Indigenous people and their ways of knowing to have a better understanding of who they are and to share that with the rest of the world.”