After Liz Medicine Crow (Haida/Tlingit) announced her departure as president of First Alaskans Institute in 2023, the nonprofit began a months-long search for the next leader. She served 15 years in the position.
The nonprofit hired Roy Agloinga (Iñupiaq).
“The opportunity to continue so much of the great work that First Alaskans does, and the tremendous ability that an organization like this has in unifying our community and programming, and this gives me a great opportunity to have that statewide impact.”
Agloinga has a diverse background in nonprofit management with an emphasis on rural health, policy, Inupiat language preservation, and child welfare.
Regarding his most recent experience, he spoke about what he did at the Rasmuson Foundation.
“In the last part of my work at Rasmuson, my focus was on bringing national funders to Alaska with a lot of our nonprofits and bringing a lot of support to the organization and to our communities.”
In his new role as president, he will lead the organization’s day-to-day operations while strategizing ways to continue the company's mission of “progress for the next 10,000 years.”
The stack of to-dos for the new president is long, but one of the larger things on the list is looking over the assessments and surveys from a variety of partners, and using that data to create a new strategic plan for FAI.
Agloinga says that First Alaskans Institute should be a conduit for voices of elders and youth, and is an integral part of the nonprofit’s future.
“I think that there's so much important work to be done across Alaska, and many times our youth and our elders know very intimately what that work is. Because they're the ones who are living in our communities and are seeing some of the challenges that happen.”
He says that the future programming of First Alaskans aids in some of these statewide challenges, whether it be funding or training, and he says that these types of opportunities are priceless for the state-wide Indigenous community.
