This spotlight is part of the “PLACE Builders fellows” series. More information about the PLACE (Pava LaPere Award for Cultivating Ecosystems) Builders fellowship can be found here.
Marion Hicks
Southwest Region
Southwest fellow, Marion Hicks, is a project manager taking a multi-faceted, ecosystems-level approach to supporting Indigenous femme entrepreneurs.
"I am driven to do this work of changing power dynamics and access to wealth for Indigenous communities because I have experienced firsthand the ways in which Indigenous women in particular ensure our communities can thrive."
Marion Hicks
She plans to blend proven programs into a codified ecosystem to provide multiple avenues to shift wealth and provide equitable access to capital and other resources for Indigenous femme entrepreneurs. Marion looks to build and expand the ecosystem for the RCLLC’s three projects (REA, CENTER Native, and IFFF) to live and thrive in. “Each piece of the emerging ecosystem has already made an incredible difference and I am confident that with an ecosystems approach and the intense skill-building I will gain from participating in the PLACE Builders fellowship, the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts.”
Meet the other PLACE Builders fellows:
Inspired by the legacy of Pava LaPere, forever Chief Ecosystem Officer and Co-Founder of EcoMap Technologies, as a tribute to her legacy of fighting for equal access to opportunity, the PLACE (Pava LaPere Award for Cultivating Ecosystems) Builders fellowship aims to catalyze more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems by providing intensive training, peer support, and community pilots to eight selected fellows.
We invite you to support the inaugural PLACE Builders fellowship fund.