Rebecca Adamson

Rebecca Adamson (born 1950) is an American businessperson and advocate. She is former director, former president, and founder of First Nations Development Institute and the founder of First Peoples Worldwide.

Personal life Rebecca L. Adamson was born in Akron, Ohio. Her Learning to Give biography states, "Though her mother was Cherokee, her father was of Swedish descent." Adamson grew up in Akron and spent summers with her relatives in Lumberton, North Carolina, where she learned about the history and culture of Native Americans. The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia, stated that she is a "member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians" in 2004. Tayna H. Lee described Adamson as being of the Cherokee Nation in 2016.

She holds a master of science in economic development from the Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire, where she teaches a graduate course on Indigenous economics. Adamson left college in 1970 to work on western reservations to help end the practice of removing Native American children from their homes and placing them in government or missionary-ran boarding schools in the hope of destroying their connections to their native languages and cultures.

From 1972 to 1976, she was a member of the board of directors of Denver, Colorado's Coalition of Indian-Controlled School Boards, where she worked toward synthesizing and facilitating policy reform at the national level. The Coalition worked to "wrest control of Indian schools from the U.S. government and Christian religious groups that had been running them for more than 100 years."

Adamson serves on the board of directors for the Calvert Social Investment Fund and the Calvert Small Cap Fund which are known for socially-responsible investing and co-founded a fund there. She is on the board and trustee for Tom's of Maine, Inc. She is on the boards of Corporation for Enterprise Development, The Bay Foundation, Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, The Bridgespan Group, and First Voice International. She is a founding member of Native Americans in Philanthropy, Funders Who Fund Native Americans, and International Funders for Indigenous Peoples. She was able to secure statements from ESG investors with over $1.7 trillion in invested assets requesting that the banks funding the pipeline support the tribe's request to reroute the pipeline.

She writes a monthly column for Indian Country Today newspaper. When asked about her accomplishments in 2015, she said, "I come from a matrilineal society and having women be a source of power was there in my DNA."

Publications "Adapting the Evaluation Process to the Organizational Culture," a chapter in Evaluation with Power, 1997 "The Native American Credit Market: Opportunity Knocks, but Relationships Stay," RMA's Journal of Lending & Credit Risk Management, Fall 1997 "Can't Give It Away Fast Enough? Try This," Foundation News & Commentary, January/February 1998 The Color of Wealth – The Story behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide, June 2006