The collection consists of documents from LaDonna Harris' personal life as an activist and from AIO's four decades of operation as a non-profit organization involved in advocacy and development projects related to the needs and rights of Native Americans. As Ms. Harris' personal life has been inextricably intertwined with AIO's pursuits, there is some unavoidable overlap in the organization of the papers. The contents of this collection range from Ms. Harris' early years as an activist and wife of U.S. Senator Fred Harris in the 1960s, to her founding of AIO in 1970, and running AIO through the 1990s, to AIO's continued operation under the direction of her daughter, Laura Harris, in the early 2000s. The collection documents AIO's principal activities, including organizing conferences, seminars, workshops, and other programs for Native American tribes and governmental agencies. Major initiatives include: the formation of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, American Indian Telecommunications Consortium, Tribal Association of Solid Waste and Emergency Response; Partnerships for the Protection of Tribal Environments; Governance project; Family Systems project; Tribal Issues Management System; Toward an Understanding of Rural Economies; IndianNet; and the Ambassadors Program. The collection contains correspondence, proposals, seminar materials, and publications related to these and other AIO projects. The collection also features material from governments (federal, state, municipal, and tribal) and civil society organizations with which AIO worked. As such, the collection offers a record of the activist groups and governmental agencies that operated in the same milieu as AIO. The collection is a useful repository of material on politics and policies in Indian country and beyond. The collection contains the following: correspondence of a personal and professional nature; AIO reports, proposals, and publications (and support material that contributed to their creation); minutes and attendant material from AIO board of director meetings; AIO budgets, audits, and fundraising activities; documents from contemporaneous civil society organizations and government agencies (federal, state, local and tribal) with whom AIO had relations and of which AIO kept records for reference; news clippings; audio and video recordings; photographs. The collection is divided into seven series: LaDonna Harris Personal includes biographical information on LaDonna Harris, personal communication, photographs, news clippings, and other material from her personal, professional and political life that did not fall directly under AIO auspices. Noteworthy files in the personal series are Ms. Harris' resumes and biographical summaries, her writings and speeches, and material from Senator Fred Harris' electoral campaigns. This series also includes correspondence from organizations for which Ms. Harris served as a board member. The majority of the photographs housed in the collection are in this series. The AIO series consists of material related to AIO's programs and initiatives and its internal organizational governance. This series is subdivided into two subseries: Administrative and Projects & Publications. Administrative covers AIO's organizational governance. It includes material related to the board of directors, its members and meetings, as well as to the smaller executive committee, which met more frequently. It also includes material related to AIO's personnel, consultants and interns. Financial documents include budgets, audits, ledgers, payroll and fundraising activity. This subseries also includes promotional documents that provide general overviews of AIO and its accomplishments. Projects & Publications, the heart of the collection, documents the substantive programs, proposals and publications that AIO developed over the course of its history. Examples of these projects include Ambassadors, Brownfields, Family System, Governance, IndianNet, Tribal Issue Management System, and Tribal Economic Flows. Reflecting the research and development process involved in AIO's initiatives, the type of materials found here are grant proposals and white papers, budgets and expense reports, outside correspondence and internal memoranda, preparation and planning documents, seminar paraphernalia and transcripts, and drafts of reports and final publications linked to AIO's major and minor endeavors. The series Organizations & Governments includes communication between AIO and civil society and governmental entities, not directly relating to formal projects that AIO carried out. Generally this consists of brief correspondence on limited issues or responses to specific inquiries. This material represents the extensive relationships that AIO maintained through the course of its operations. This documentation is useful for researching types of entities that operated in the same contemporaneous milieu as AIO. This series also contains material put out by non-governmental groups and governmental agencies, providing a glimpse into their character, activities and programs. Although much of this documentation does not relate directly to AIO, it was kept by AIO as reference material, and thus, provides a useful cross-section of the types of contemporaneous organizations and governmental entities that AIO interacted with and allied with, and looked to for assistance for Native Americans. Examples of the material in this series include non-profit newsletters, government publications on topics important to Native Americans, memos from executive agencies, collaborations with universities, and communication with individual tribes. This broad range of material demonstrates that the collection will be useful for researchers whose scopes of inquiry go beyond AIO specifically into other areas of civil society and government that deal with Native American issues and policies. Organizations is divided into Indian Organizations, Non-Indian Organizations, US Federal Government, States, and International. Significant among the Indian Organizations files are the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, Native American Rights Fund, National Congress of American Indians, Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium and Native American Public Telecommunications. Non-Indian Organizations include the Smithsonian Institution, the Ford Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. US Federal Government files include all executive agencies, the US Congress and the White House. Important files are from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Administration for Native Americans. States includes communication and material from local organizations, individual tribes, state and local government agencies and universities; they are organized by the state in which their offices are located. AIO's master list of its files on state-level organization and tribes appears in this subseries under "master list". Government agencies and tribal organizations from New Mexico are overrepresented in this subseries since AIO operated out of New Mexico for much of its history. Finally, International contains material from foreign or international organizations, organized by organization, country or region. Issues contains reference material that AIO kept on issues important to Native Americans that did not necessarily relate to specific AIO projects. Major subjects include economic development, gaming, land, water, health and education. Issues A-Z consists of news clippings, correspondence, and outside reports and publications. Hobbs Strauss Dean & Wilder files contain reports on legislation and other government action that affected Native Americans. This represents a sustained in-kind contribution that AIO received from Hobbs, Straus, Dean and Wilder, a key beltway ally. Individuals contains material related to specific people that either had important ties to AIO or were prominent figures in their own right. This series includes biographical information, resumes, correspondence, writings, and news clippings. AIO's ongoing relationship with individuals such as Native American rights advocate Ada Deer as well as politicians and writers are represented here. Correspondence consists of both outgoing and incoming letters and faxes. The files maintain AIO's chronological organization of this communication, showing AIO's concurrent projects and relationships in context. Researchers interested in specific AIO initiatives are advised to consult the Projects & Publications subseries of the AIO series. However, those interested in the totality of AIO's work during a certain time period are advised to consult this series, which gives a fascinating glimpse into the multiplicity of activities that AIO juggled and advanced on a day-to-day basis. In cases where AIO sent the same text to many people, only one representative letter was kept in the collection and the redundant copies were excised. Audio and Video consists of recordings of AIO promotional material and conferences. Key items include the Governance and Ambassadors conferences. This series also contains a three-hour oral history interview with LaDonna Harris, conducted in 2010, by Ashley Sherry and Max Fitzpatrick.
