Lori Lea Pourier, (Oglala Lakota) (elected 2018) served as the President/CEO, First Peoples Fund (FPF) from 1998-2024, and transitioned to her new role as Founder & Senior Fellow in March 2024. Dedicated to a vision of restoring and strengthening cultural assets within tribal communities for nearly 30 years, she focuses her efforts on bringing philanthropic resources to Native artist entrepreneurs and culture bearers. Through its Indigenous Arts Ecology program, FPF partners with Native CDFI's and community-based nonprofits to strengthen the support for arts and culture in tribal communities.
Her early work began at First Nations Development Institute and the executive director of the International Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN). She is a 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize for Creativity in Rural Life, and a 2013 Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Award. Pourier is an alumnus of the American’s for Indian Opportunities (AIO) American Indian Ambassadors Leadership Program where she stands with more than 350 Indigenous leaders.
In 2022, Lori was recognized as one of The Kennedy Center’s “Next 50”— fifty leaders and organizations that are lighting the way forward through sustained excellence of artistic, educational, athletic, or multi-disciplinary work. In 2024, she was named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a recipient of the 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize for Creativity in Rural Life, and a 2013 Native Americans in Philanthropy Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Awardee. As an alumnus of the Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) American Indian Ambassadors Leadership Program, she stands with more than 500 Indigenous leaders worldwide.
Lori serves on the Board of Directors of the Jerome Foundation and is an appointee of Librarian Carla Hayden at Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center Board of Trustees. She served two terms on Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) and Native Americans in Philanthropy boards of directors. Lori also contributed to the National Endowment for the Arts’ publication, How to Do Creative Placemaking. 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 She holds a Master of Science degree from New Hampshire College Graduate School of Business.