We organize. We lead. We transform.
PLUME is an Indigenous Women-led organization advancing human rights and self-determination through cosmovision, law, and political advocacy — from our homelands to the halls of the United Nations.
L.A.C.E.
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PLUME
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L.A.C.E. - PLUME -
PLUME is an Indigenous women-led nonprofit advancing the human rights and self-determination of Indigenous women and Indigenous Peoples. Rooted in rematriation and spiritual strength, we build power from our homelands to global arenas, ensuring Indigenous women and youth lead the decisions that shape our Nations and futures.
We work at the intersection of spiritual authority, law and policy, and political advocacy, recognizing Indigenous women’s leadership as foundational to governance, law, and collective wellbeing. Through this approach, we strengthen the conditions, relationships, and systems that support the full exercise of self-determination.
Our work strengthens leadership across community-led movements, Tribal Nations, federal systems, and international arenas. We center the full diversity of Indigenous Peoples, including unrepresented and unrecognized Indigenous Peoples, as well as migrants and urban Indigenous women and girls. Grounded in our responsibilities to one another and to future generations, we restore balance, protect sacred knowledge, and advance both individual and collective rights.
WHO WE ARE
We are a multi-Nation, intergenerational collective of Indigenous women, rooted in our ancestral homelands and connected across urban, rural, and migratory spaces. We carry our Nations with us, across territories, borders, and generations, remaining in relationship wherever we are.
We reflect the full diversity of Indigenous Peoples, including those living within our traditional territories, those who have been displaced, those who are unrepresented or unrecognized, and those living in urban and migrant contexts. Our identities, responsibilities, and leadership are not confined to place—they are carried, practiced, and lived.
We are organizers, knowledge holders, advocates, and leaders shaped by our communities. Our leadership is grounded in relationship—to land, to one another, and to future generations—and guided by our responsibility to uphold what is sacred.
Together, we unite across our differences and shared experiences, strengthening our Nations, uplifting Indigenous women and youth in all spaces, and advancing our collective power and vision for the generations to come.
Our Priority Right Now
A Self-Determined Future for Indigenous Women's Rights
In 2022, the UN CEDAW Committee adopted General Recommendation No. 39 (GR39), a landmark international standard affirming the rights of Indigenous women and girls.
While the United States has not ratified CEDAW, Indigenous Nations retain inherent sovereignty. CEDAW General Recommendation No. 39 is critical because it is the first international standard to explicitly affirm the collective and individual rights of Indigenous women and girls, recognizing their rights to land, culture, health, safety, and participation in decision-making.
GR39 offers a powerful framework that Tribal Nations and Indigenous women’s organizations can affirm, adapt, and implement within their own governance, law and policy, and advocacy. It strengthens Indigenous women’s authority and provides a tool to hold systems accountable, even where states have failed to act.
PLUME is advancing a national Indigenous women-led initiative to educate, mobilize, and support the integration of GR39 into leadership, policy, and community-based action, ensuring Indigenous women’s rights are recognized, protected, and realized across all levels.
Advancing Indigenous Women’s Rights Through
Leadership, Advocacy, Culture, and Education.
How We Work
L.A.C.E. Framework
PLUME organizes at the intersection of law, culture, and political power. Our L.A.C.E. framework—Leadership, Advocacy, Culture, and Education—reflects how Indigenous women have always built and sustained power by aligning governance, legal strategy, cultural authority, and knowledge systems as one source. Together, these strands move in relationship, guiding coordinated action that strengthens our Nations, commuinities and advances Indigenous women’s and youth leadership from community to Tribal Nations, federal systems, and the United Nations.
Four Strands, One Collective Power
L - Leadership
We strengthen and support Indigenous women and youth leaders to represent themselves and their communities in local, federal, and international fora where decisions are made. Grounded in responsibility to our Nations, communities, families, and ourselves, we advance both collective and individual rights.
A - Advocacy
Advancing the rights of Indigenous women through coordinated policy, legal advocacy, and movement building, grounded in collective agendas shaped by Indigenous women. We align international standards such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), CEDAW General Recommendation No. 39 (GR39), and ILO Convention 169 with Indigenous governance, law, and lived realities in the United States.
C - Culture
Centering rematriation as governance. Restoring Indigenous women's authority in land stewardship, ceremony, and the decisions that shape collective futures..
E - Education
Building Indigenous women-led knowledge — through research, storytelling, and educational tools that reflect our truths, amplify our solutions, and transform narrative power.
ALLIANCE and INSTITUTE
Two Arms. One Mission.
PLUMEInstitute
Research, education, and knowledge-building rooted in Indigenous women’s leadership.
The Institute develops analysis, training, and policy tools grounded in Indigenous governance and international human rights law.
→ Research
→ Legal Strategy
→ Policy Development
PLUME Alliance
A national network of Indigenous women’s organizations working through collective action and shared advocacy.
The Alliance builds coordinated strategy, cross-Nation collaboration, and collective political power.
→ Collective Action
→ Movement Infrastructure
→ National Network
Latest Voices
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“Investing in PLUME means investing in structural change. Their leadership model builds durable political infrastructure led by Indigenous women.”
—Testimony of philanthropy
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PLUME showed me that leadership is not about visibility—it’s about responsibility to our Nations. I learned how Indigenous law and international frameworks can work together.”
—Testimony of indigenous youth
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"Through the PLUME Alliance, we stopped working in isolation. We built coordinated strategy across Nations. Our collective power is stronger than any single organization alone.."
— PLUME Community
