Concerned Friends have bequeathed money to the Indian Committee during its 200 years of work and this is held in trust by Yearly Meeting for our use. Our yearly budget is the interest from the investment of these contributions. We try to use the money towards areas of most concern to those who have entrusted it to our use.

 We favor projects that are initiated by Native Americans themselves and that are of a “one-time” nature—providing seed money to help Indian initiatives get off the ground. We favor projects that will benefit a community, and we consider requests with national impact as well as a local focus. While we have a general budget prepared each year to guide us, we have no automatically budgeted projects from year to year. Every time we spend money entrusted to the Indian Committee we must be mindful that it is not our money, but that of Yearly Meeting and all its members.  

We examine each funding decision as it comes before us, and the fact that we have supported something or some particular tribe or organization in the past does not mean we will find spiritual clearness to support it in the future. This allows us to adapt to changing needs and concerns brought to us by Native Americans. The requests of Indian tribes for assistance from the Indian Committee made in the 19^th century are very different from the needs that come before us today.