Seattle's First Peoples Climate Fund awards $5.5M from city payroll tax

Efforts led by tribal nations and Indigenous-led organizations to help the region adapt to climate change are getting $5.5 million from the city of Seattle's payroll tax on employers.

The announcement of the first allocations from the First Peoples Climate Fund comes as Washington moves out of its third-warmest winter on record and as state officials declare an unprecedented fourth drought emergency in a row. The region is headed for such a dry summer that it's already drawing comparisons with 2015, which was so hot and parched that hundreds of thousands of salmon died, farmers struggled and wildfires spread prolifically.

The grant awards will support efforts by the Suquamish and Snoqualmie tribes and five Indigenous-led organizations in the Puget Sound region. Funding will help grow programs to support Native food producers, reduce emissions, restore habitat and educate tribal youth.

The Seattle City Council in 2023 allocated about $5.5 million in revenue from the payroll tax on the city's largest businesses to the office of sustainability and environment, which selected the Seattle Foundation to help develop and administer the grant program.

These commitments stemmed from a community-led campaign to make climate action a priority in the city, said Matt Remle, who is Hunkpapa Lakota and a member of the city's Green New Deal Oversight Board. The board, with representatives from labor unions, tribes and pollution-burdened neighborhoods, advises the city on climate policies.

The traditional knowledge tribes have from living with these lands for thousands of years, Remle said, continues to benefit everyone, including with results such as young salmon growing in rivers at the former sites of dams and flood plains restored to reduce flood risks.

This really puts that wisdom and brilliance front and center, and really gives the opportunity to show our ability to lead," said Seattle Foundation chief impact officer Lindsay Goes Behind, an enrolled member of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas who was raised on the Lummi Nation reservation. "The work that we all do will have benefits through generations for everyone.

Feed Seven Generations, a nonprofit working to restore Indigenous food systems, expand nutrition education and improve access to healthy, climate-resilient foods, will receive $1 million from the fund.

The funding comes in like a "well-meaning Band-Aid over a bullet hole" after the Trump administration slashed federal funding last year that supported the growth of the Native food industry, said Valerie Segrest, Native foods educator, Muckleshoot tribal member and executive director of Feed Seven Generations.

The organization will use the funding to continue supporting Native food producers who are starting or expanding their businesses, and building relationships to distribute the foods in hospitals, schools and local restaurants.

Segrest said Native businesses her organization works with are grounded in a legacy of thoughtful stewardship and climate resilience. Take Suquamish Seafoods for example, Segrest said.

"When you're buying a crab, or an oyster, or a salmon from them, your dollar is not just going towards a tasty, delicious local food," Segrest said, "it's supporting a culture, a way of life, and all of the efforts that tribe puts into maintaining and saving a species."

Feed Seven Generations will also develop the next iteration of its curriculum for K-12 students focusing on native plants and foods, weaving themes of traditional ecological knowledge, co-management of resources and adapting to climate impacts.

Cattail Rising (ƛ̓ɑlsək swiči)will collaborate with nine tribes this year, offering youth programs focused on traditional food gathering and preparation amid a changing climate, and wilderness first aid integrating both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, said co-founder and CEO Erika Warren, a citizen of the Quinault Nation. The organization hopes to bring tribal youth together at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Discovery Park next year to practice and share the skills they've learned.

Warren said the $500,000 in funding from the grant program will help continue work to grow the next generation of Native climate justice leaders.

"This is really about survival," Warren said in an interview. "Ensuring that our communities are climate resilient," ensuring that cultural teachings are practiced, Native people continue to tend to the lands, waters and relatives of nature and pass on these teachings to future generations.

The Snoqualmie Tribe was awarded $1 million from the fund for work to reconnect flood plains to reduce flood impacts on people and fish, and restore prairie habitat to support increased availability and access to camas, a critical First Food, said Snoqualmie Chair Robert de los Angeles. This will include planning at recently acquired properties near the confluence of the Snoqualmie River and Griffin Creek.

Since the 1800s, settler colonialism, industrial development and human-caused climate change have had vast and cumulative impacts on cultural resources and traditional practices of the Snoqualmie people, de los Angeles said.

The First Peoples Climate Fund recognizes the impacts and advances actions to reverse them, de los Angeles said.

yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective was awarded $500,000.

The group is "rematriating" its 1.5-acre Rainier Beach site, planting native plants, removing invasive species, and creating space for both community activities and the ecosystem to coexist, said Mikaela Shafer, storytelling lead at yəhaw̓.

The group is working with women-owned architecture firm Artisans Group to design a community arts center and serve as a hub for climate resilience.

Chief Seattle Club, Seattle's only Native-led housing and human services agency, was awarded nearly $750,000. It will renovate its Day Center shelter and offices, including energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling. This includes updating staff workspaces and expanding capacity to serve members experiencing homelessness.

The Seattle Indian Services Commission received about $830,000 to support work to boost economic opportunities for the urban Native community.

The Suquamish Tribe just finished installing heat pumps in over 55 elders' homes and is planning to use the $1 million it received to expand decarbonization efforts. Workforce development - training tribal members interested in clean energy jobs - will be central to the effort.

"This is just part of something that we've been doing for decades and for centuries, trying to manage our economies and our relationship with the Earth in a way that's sustainable," Suquamish Chair Leonard Forsman said.

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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 6:39 AM.