Lori Lea Pourier

Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota), a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, served as the President of the First Peoples Fund (FPF) between 1993-2024. Currently, Lori is the Founder and Senior Fellow of First Peoples Fund. First Peoples Fund honors and supports the Collective Spirit of Native artists and culture bearers through fellowships, grants and community-based partnerships, FPF’s deeply rooted Indigenous Arts Ecology model and movement building strategies. 

Before joining First Peoples Fund, Lori’s early work began at the First Nations Development Institute and as the Executive Director of the International Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN). 

Lori serves on the Board of Directors of the Jerome Foundation and the Library of Congress American Folklife Center Board of Trustees. She served two terms on the Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) board of directors and Native Americans in Philanthropy. Lori also contributed to the National Endowment for the Arts’ publication, How to Do Creative Placemaking and Future/Present, Arts in A Changing America.

Lori is a Core Partner with Arts in a Changing America, the Cultural New Deal and the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI), a collaboration between First Peoples Fund, Alternate ROOTS, the PA’I Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.

Her most recent awards include an International Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Lifetime Achievement Award for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums in 2023 and the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Sidney Yates Advocacy Award, and the Kennedy Center Next 50 trailblazer leader in 2022.