Sherry Salway Black (Oglala Lakota) has worked for more than 40 years in American Indian issues at the American Indian Policy Review Commission; Indian Health Service, First Nations Development Institute, and with the National Congress of American Indians.
She currently serves as Board Vice President of the Johnson Scholarship Foundation, Prosperity Now (formerly CFED), and as chairperson for First Peoples Fund. She serves as a Trustee for the Native American Agriculture Fund. She also serves on the board of trustees for the National Indian Child Welfare Association and advisory committee for the National Congress of American Indians’ Policy Research Center. She has also served on: the board of directors for the Hitachi Foundation; the board of governors for Honoring Excellence in the Governance of Tribal Nations (Honoring Nations) of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development; and the board of directors for the Council on Foundations where she was the treasurer and a member of the Executive, Finance and Investment, Membership, and Governance Committees.
Other past board positions includes First Nations Development Institute and Oweesta Corporation, American Indian Business Leaders, Native Americans in Philanthropy, the Hopi Education Endowment Fund, Trillium Asset Management Corporation, and Women and Philanthropy.
She was appointed by President Obama in 2011 to the President’s Advisory Committee on Financial Capability and in 2013 to the President’s Advisory Committee on Financial Capability for Young Americans.
Ms. Black has a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor Degree from East Stroudsburg University where in 2013 she received the Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2016, Ms. Black received a Special Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Congress of American Indians.
She is Oglala Lakota and is originally from South Dakota. This November, Independent Sector will honor Sherry with the 2019 John W. Gardner Leadership Award in recognition of her precedent-setting work addressing Native causes.
