Nonprofits betting on casinos’ philanthropy

GRAND RONDE, Ore. – When the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde put their charitable contributions on hold last month amid questions over how the grants were being distributed, nonprofits around the state had to scramble.

“You go, ‘Oh no!’ ” said Mitchell Jacover, executive director of Raphael House of Portland, a battered-women’s shelter counting on $50,000 from the tribes. “Oregon’s had a tough economy. It’s got a limited area of philanthropy. When you lose a major player, it’s just huge.”

Once struggling to stay alive after the federal government sold off its reservation and terminated tribal status, the people of the Grand Ronde Reservation now have one of the top 10 charitable foundations in Oregon, handing out $4.6 million last year and nearly $25 million since 1997.

Oregon is the only state where tribal casinos formalize their charitable giving through the state compact that regulates the number of slot machines and blackjack tables, and the Grand Ronde started it with a commitment to share 6 percent of net revenues.

“It was a revolutionary step – it really was – in Indian Country,” said former congressman Les AuCoin, who sponsored legislation restoring tribal status in 1983 and a portion of their reservation – 9,811 acres of timberland – in 1988.

“It’s an amazing thing to me to see what was a dirt-poor tribe now in a position to not only help its own young people and elders, but to make charitable contributions to the non-Indian community of the state as well,” he said.

The people of the Grand Ronde Reservation are from 25 tribes rounded up by soldiers throughout Western Oregon in 1856 and marched on trails of tears to a reservation 60 miles southwest of Portland to clear the way for covered wagons and gold miners pouring into Oregon.

Over the years, the tribes saw their original 69,000 acres sold off by the government. When Congress terminated tribal status in 1954, they were left with the tribal cemetery.