About Tallgrass Institute
Tallgrass Institute is a Center for Indigenous Economic Stewardship. We bridge Indigenous leadership and knowledge with investor strategies to advance Indigenous Peoples' self-determination and wellbeing. By activating investor and economic ecosystems, we work to redefine the private sector’s role as one that respects Indigenous Peoples’ human rights, lands, and economic priorities.
Through market-based strategies, Tallgrass Institute activates the business case for respect for Indigenous Peoples across sectors and provides information and insights that uplift Indigenous leadership and expertise. At Tallgrass Institute, our north star is the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples.
Programatic Pillars
Corporate Engagement & International Advocacy
We work directly with Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous organizations to design corporate engagement strategies. In addition, we work within the global Indigenous Peoples rights movement to advocate to investors, international mechanisms, and standard-setting bodies to mainstream respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
Training
We provide dynamic training on market-based strategies to Indigenous Peoples in line with their self-determined priorities.
Research
Our research leads with Indigenous Peoples' enterprise visions, advances respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in business operations, and amplifies Indigenous-led solutions to systemic economic exclusion.
Networks
We cultivate collaborative networks to activate investor and economic ecosystems aligned with Indigenous Peoples’ rights and wellbeing.
History
Tallgrass Institute was founded by Kate R. Finn (Osage Nation) and is a project of Earth Island Institute. The organization rebranded and moved out of the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2025, where it was housed at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS) since 2018.
▶ 2024-2025 Impact Report
▶ 2023-2024 Annual Report
▶ 2022-2023 Annual Report
▶ 2021-2022 Annual Report
▶ 2020-2021 Annual Report
Since 1982, Earth Island Institute has been a hub dedicated to conserving, preserving, and restoring the ecosystems on which life depends. Earth Island provides an organizational home in which project leaders can develop campaigns and programs supported by an experienced team of nonprofit professionals. Earth Island projects function with programmatic autonomy while sharing critical services including: governance and compliance, financial management and administration, training and technical assistance, as well as a supportive peer learning network. For more information about Earth Island, please visit www.earthisland.org.
Tallgrass Institute is…
Navigating the complex, interconnected web of economic realities to address challenges and create opportunities.
Collaboration and equity between all stewards in investment ecosystems.
Driving values-based solutions through Indigenous knowledge and rematriation.
Strong, deep roots that enrich a sustaining foundation and allow life to thrive at all levels.
Tallgrass is…
One of the world's largest and most complex ecosystems.
Long root systems (up to 15 ft.) contribute to singularly rich soil health and rare in-ground carbon sequestration.
Fire is integral to the ecosystem's life cycle, via lightning before human history and then by Indigenous-led controlled burning for millennia.
Indigenous Peoples–with plant, animal, water, and fire relatives–were co-creators and co-stewards of the 6,000-10,000 year old ecosystem.
Only 4% remains of North America’s tallgrass prairie–which stretches from Manitoba to Texas and from the Mississippi River to the eastern Rocky Mountains–after colonization and forced displacement allowed conversion of most grasslands into farmland in the 1800s. Despite this, tallgrass soil is still some of the richest soil on the continent nearly 200 years later.