Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition

Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition (MIWSAC), a Native American-owned nonprofit organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, serves as a statewide tribal coalition and national training and technical assistance provider specializing in addressing sexual violence, domestic violence, and sex trafficking affecting American Indian and Alaska Native women. As a designated tribal coalition under the Violence Against Women Act of 2022, MIWSAC provides the federal government with culturally-based training, technical assistance, resources, and strategic guidance through federal grant awards designed to strengthen tribal and non-tribal responses to violence against Indigenous populations. The organization works with all 11 federally recognized tribes in Minnesota as well as Native communities in rural, suburban, and urban areas throughout the state, serving as a critical infrastructure for disseminating evidence-based practices and supporting capacity building across tribal jurisdictions and victim service providers.

MIWSAC's federal grant work encompasses multiple specialized programs funded primarily by the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), with additional support from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC), the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, and the Office for Victims of Crime. The organization operates the National Tribal Clearinghouse on Sexual Assault (NTCSA), a $980,100 cooperative agreement (October 2025 to September 2027) that establishes and expands a comprehensive repository providing resources, training materials, online tools, and technical assistance on sexual assault of American Indian and Alaska Native women while improving tribal medical, advocacy, and criminal justice responses. MIWSAC also manages a $600,000 cooperative agreement (2024-2026) to provide training and technical assistance to Tribal Sexual Assault Services Program (TSASP) grantees, covering all six types of direct intervention services through both in-person and virtual trainings. The organization received a $980,100 cooperative agreement to conduct nationwide assessment and analysis of response models for missing or murdered Indigenous people cases, establish three pilot sites, and develop an HRT (Healing and Response Teams) toolkit addressing domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, and sex trafficking. MIWSAC manages multiple tribal coalition formula grants totaling approximately $335,755 to $341,347 annually (2021-2026) to increase awareness, enhance federal and tribal responses, provide technical assistance to coalition membership and tribal communities, and assist in developing tribal legislation and policies. Additionally, the organization holds a $199,000 cooperative agreement (2023-2025) to expand and maintain the NTCSA online presence, website management, learning management systems, and national sexual violence event calendaring. A four-year Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) project grant ($2024-2028) from the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control focuses on enhancing MIWSAC's capacity for primary sexual violence prevention through community and societal-level approaches addressing Indigenous determinants of health, with school-based prevention programming as a pilot focus area. MIWSAC also received a $300,000 cooperative agreement (2021-2022) for national training and technical assistance on sex trafficking in Indian Country and Alaska, and holds contracts as a subgrantee under the Minnesota Department of Public Safety for direct services to crime victims. The organization serves as a technical assistance partner under subaward agreements with lead agencies including Aequitas (cybercrime resources) and the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, positioning MIWSAC as a key tribal infrastructure partner delivering nationwide expertise on Indigenous-specific responses to sexual violence and supporting cross-sector coordination among federal, state, tribal, and community-based victim service providers.