Warrior Women Project

What Warrior Women Project does

Warrior Women Project is a private nonprofit organization founded in 2006 by Dr. Beth Castle, Madonna Thunder Hawk, and Marcella Gilbert to document and share Indigenous women's histories from the Red Power movement (1960s-1980s). The organization produces oral history archives, a Peabody Award-nominated documentary film, and traveling educational exhibits, with core operation split between Rapid City / Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation and New York. It serves Indigenous communities at the grassroots, educational institutions ranging from K-12 to research universities, and the general public interested in social justice and Indigenous rights.

The core products are the 'Warrior Women' documentary film (premiered 2018, distributed via Vimeo VOD and GOOD DOCS for institutional licensing), the 'Honoring the Women of Wounded Knee' 50th Anniversary Traveling Exhibit (16 retractable banners plus media tablets, launched February 2023), the Warrior Women Archive of oral histories, and the Water Protectors Community Oral History Project. An underlying technical platform is the Community-Cloud-Storage system co-developed with SHIFT Collective and funded by Filecoin Foundation, built on IPFS Cluster and Tailscale as Docker containers to provide community-controlled distributed storage for archival digital assets. Supporting educational tools include a Viewer Discussion Guide and a Survival School Toolkit developed with UC Berkeley.

The organization operates as a fiscally sponsored project of The Accomplis Collective, with diversified revenue from tax-deductible donations, e-commerce merchandise sales (soaps, apparel, accessories priced $8-$75), film licensing through GOOD DOCS and Vimeo VOD, and multi-year rental contracts for the traveling exhibit. Go-to-market is community-led and event-driven, distributed through film festival screenings (50+ festivals globally), educational partnerships with universities and schools, direct community engagement events, and digital channels including Instagram, email newsletter, and blog content.

Name

Warrior Women Project

Legal name

Warrior Women Project

Website

https://warriorwomen.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2006

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Warrior Women Project is a 2006-founded nonprofit that documents Indigenous women's Red Power movement histories through oral history archives, a Peabody-nominated documentary, and a 50th-anniversary traveling exhibit, serving Indigenous communities, educational institutions, and the general public.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Indigenous documentary media and cultural preservation

NAICS

Libraries and Archives (51921), Museums (712110), Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions (712)

SIC

Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Indigenous, Ethnic & Folk Arts/Heritage Organizations (BPAGAHAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Libraries, Archives & Special Collections (BPAGAHAF), Indigenous & Community Cultural Institutions (THAJADAK), Community Arts, Culture & Creative Placemaking Enterprises (BPAGALAO)

Keywords

• Documentary film production
• Oral history archiving
• Traveling museum exhibits
• Indigenous education resources
• Cultural preservation media

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations: Tax-deductible donations through fiscal sponsor The Accomplis Collective. Donations directly support oral history documentation, community events, and organizational operations.
2. E-commerce/Store: Sale of merchandise including apparel (t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts), accessories (mugs, water bottles), handmade soaps, and embroidered patches. All proceeds support community organizing.
3. Film Licensing: Institutional/educational licensing through GOOD DOCS distributor. Personal rentals and purchases available through Vimeo VOD platform.
4. Exhibit Rentals: Rental of the 'Honoring the Women of Wounded Knee' traveling exhibit (16 retractable banners with media tablets) to schools, universities, and organizations for educational display.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Warrior Women Project recovers and shares the stories of Indigenous women who fought for self-determination and cultural survival during the Red Power movement through oral history documentation, archival media production, and educational exhibits. The organization produces a documentary film, operates a digital oral history archive, rents a traveling exhibit to schools and universities, and sells branded merchandise to support community organizing work.

Product overview

The Warrior Women Project operates as an archival and media organization offering a portfolio of interconnected products centered on documenting and sharing Indigenous women's activism. The core offerings include the 'Warrior Women' documentary film and the 'Honoring the Women of Wounded Knee' traveling exhibit, supported by educational tools (Viewer Discussion Guide, Survival School Toolkit) and the digital Warrior Women Archive of oral histories. A related initiative, the Water Protectors Community Oral History Project, extends this work to contemporary environmental justice movements. The organization also operates a merchandise store (Warrior Women Store) to generate operational funding.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Warrior Women Film: Peabody Award-nominated documentary film about Madonna Thunder Hawk and the Red Power movement
• Honoring the Women of Wounded Knee Exhibit
• Warrior Women Archive

Products and services

• Warrior Women Documentary Film A Peabody Award-nominated documentary film chronicling the life and activism of Madonna Thunder Hawk and her daughter Marcy Gilbert within the American Indian Movement. The film explores intergenerational resistance, the We Will Remember Survival School, and contemporary fights against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Available through Vimeo VOD for personal rental and GOOD DOCS for institutional licensing.
• Honoring the Women of Wounded Knee Traveling Exhibit A 16-banner traveling exhibit featuring oral history interviews with women who led and participated in the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation. Includes media tablets with video clips, QR codes linking to oral history archives, and optional 8x12 ft cloth banner displays. Rented to schools, universities, and organizations for educational display.
• Warrior Women Archive Digital archive containing oral history interviews, video clips, photographs, and documents documenting Indigenous women's activism during the Red Power movement (1960s-1980s). Accessible at warriorwomenarchive.org as an open resource for educators, researchers, and community members.
• Warrior Women Store Merchandise storefront selling branded items including handmade soaps ($8), apparel such as t-shirts ($26-$32), hoodies/sweatshirts ($38), tank tops ($28), accessories including mugs ($18), water bottles ($32), and embroidered patches ($20), plus gift cards ($25, $50, $100). All proceeds support community organizing.
• Water Protectors Community Oral History Project Related community-based oral history project documenting the experiences of Water Protectors who participated in resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline (2016-2017) at Standing Rock. Operates as a separate sub-brand at waterprotectorscommunity.org, extending Warrior Women Project's oral history methodology to contemporary environmental justice movements.

Quantifiable outcome

• 200+ hours of oral history interviews collected over 20+ years
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• GOOD DOCScoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorGOOD DOCS is the educational distributor for Warrior Women documentary, handling institutional licensing and DVD sales to schools, universities, and organizations.
• Vision Maker MediamajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerVision Maker Media partnered with Warrior Women Project for the South Dakota Homelands premiere and created the Viewer Discussion Guide curriculum resource.
• SHIFT CollectivecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLed the multi-year Community-Cloud-Storage project in collaboration with Warrior Women Project and other community-based archives to develop distributed storage infrastructure.
• Denison UniversityminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated with Denison University students to create the Water Protectors Community Oral History Project in 2017. Beth Castle taught at Denison where this project originated.
• Wasagiya Najin (Grandmothers' Group)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing collaboration with Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's Grandmothers' Group on direct action support, community organizing, and cultural preservation work.
• Nažó SocietycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with women's organizing group co-founded by Marcella Gilbert to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) and environmental violence.
• Dakota AIMcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-hosted 2024 weekend event in Rapid City dedicated to American Indian Movement history, with storytelling circles and roundtable discussions.
• Working FilmsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnered for Solar Cinema evening screenings at CRST Labor Day Celebration 2022.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• NDN Collective: Indigenous-led organization funding organizing, storytelling, and cultural preservation - comparable mission and similar reliance on grant and donor capital to scale programming.
• GOOD DOCS: Educational documentary distributor handling institutional licensing for socially-engaged films - directly comparable channel partner/peer to Warrior Women's institutional film distribution through GOOD DOCS.
• Vision Maker Media: A Native-led public media organization that funds, produces, and distributes Indigenous films and educational resources - directly comparable in mission, audience, and distribution model to Warrior Women Project's film and curriculum work.
• Firelight Films: Stanley Nelson's documentary lab supporting Indigenous and African diaspora filmmakers with fellowships and production support - directly comparable lab/funding peer.
• IllumiNative: Indigenous-led nonprofit using research, narrative, and media to shift representation of Native peoples - comparable in combining narrative/media work with movement building.
• The Lakota People's Law Project: Indigenous-led advocacy organization with embedded media storytelling capacity - directly comparable in combining Lakota community accountability work with documentary/narrative production.
• Indigenous People's Movement: Indigenous-led direct-action organization producing video and media - operates in the same Lakota/Indigenous ecosystem with overlapping media-and-organizing model.

Others

• Sundance Institute Documentary Fund: Funding body and lab that has supported Warrior Women's film - acts as enabler/funder rather than peer competitor but functions as a market-defining institution in the same ecosystem.

Broad incumbents

• Cultural Survival: Long-established Indigenous rights organization incorporating media, advocacy, and grantmaking - broader portfolio but overlapping mission on Indigenous cultural preservation and media.
• Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian: Federal museum institution dedicated to Native American life, arts, and histories - much larger incumbent, but serves the same educational audience and overlapping curricular use case.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Instagraminstagram.com/warriorwomenproject
• Facebookfacebook.com/WarriorWomenFilm
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/warriorwomenproject

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Warrior Women Project