When Native Leadership and Allyship Meet: Lessons from Making Cordage

Photo: Together Bay Area Spring Conference, May 13, 2026 at the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA

I have learned a great deal from making cordage. 

Cordage by itself is a braid of string, but when you wrap it around stalks of tule, it can make a boat. When you tie cordage around sticks of willow, it can make a house.  Cordage, when applied, can be a useful vehicle of change and transformation.  

Cordage can also teach you how to collectively build power. 

As a program manager for Redbud’s Tribal relations and capacity building work, I view Redbud’s approach to Tribal relations the way you approach making cordage, braiding different strands of interested change makers while integrating opportunities for collaboration to create meaningful change. 

One strand of our Tribal relations work is Restoring Right Relations, our Native leadership program that develops emerging Native leaders from across California who are interested in making a difference in their Tribal communities. 

Another strand is Right Relations, a coalition of conservation organizations, non-profits, land trusts and public agencies within the San Francisco Bay Area, who are committed to strengthening allyship with Tribal communities and want to build regional capacity to support Tribal sovereignty.

Let’s add another strand of Tribal relations and call it the TOGETHER Bay Area Spring Conference at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The TOGETHER Bay Area Conference is an annual multi-day regional gathering focused on climate resilience, equity, and conservation.

What do you think happened when we brought all of these three strands together? How strong did this combination of strands hold up in one interaction?

Last month, upstairs, at the Fort Mason Center, participants from Redbud’s Restoring Right Relations Native leadership program joined alumni and partners from the Right Relations Tribal relations program for an experimental, problem solving, interactive conference workshop.

Photo: Saundra Mitrovich, Restoring Right Relations Participant 2026 engaging with Right Relations 2026 participants

We asked participants from both programs to mix up the groups at their tables, which meant each table had at least one Native leader.  Then, every group was given a scenario to solve  with questions such as,  “How do you fulfill  the legal obligations of a cultural easement while remaining non-invasive, creating a framework for the Tribe’s cultural practices and self-determination?”  

None of the participants were given “easy” scenarios with straight-forward solutions, but the underlying question and test of the exercise was how would each group interact with different perspectives to develop a solution and strategy that would uplift Tribal sovereignty collectively?

As a workshop observer, I watched everything unfold and begin to braid before me. 

Photo: Deserea Morsea, Restoring Right Relations Participant 2026  

Every participant in each group was engaged, listened intently to each other, and learned from one another’s perspectives. In each scenario, they discussed the importance of transparent communication, shared responsibility, and ways to ensure Tribes were positioned not simply as stakeholders, but as leaders and decision-makers. I witnessed how they  wove solutions together.

Near the end of the workshop, facilitators invited each group to share their reflections in front of the larger group. Several participants from Restoring Right Relations stood up before anyone called on them and led the conversation.

While another group decided to present together instead of choosing a single spokesperson. 

The group brought forward both a Native leader and a Right Relations’ participant to share their collective process and thinking.

Photo: Right Relations and Restoring Right Relations participants meet in an interactive problem-solving session in Tribal Relations. May 13, 2026, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA.

By the end of the conference workshop, I left feeling re-affirmed, knowing that when we create an opportunity and space for those willing to bridge differences, share power and resources, meet and work collaboratively toward a common vision, we empower each other, we can uplift entire communities and make an unbreakable chord of long-lasting systemic change.  

Through the visionary work of Redbud and like-minded partners, I am looking forward to seeing what more could happen if we choose to meet up and weave our futures together.

Photo: Restoring Right Relations 2026 Participants and Tribal Community Leaders at the Together Bay Area Spring Conference, May 13, 2026 at the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA.

Find more information regarding our Right Relations program here!