About Christine Diindiisi McCleave
Overview
For over 11 years, Christine Diindiisi (Deen ‘DEE zee) McCleave has been working in Indian Country at the national level. Most recently as the CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and prior to that as the Communications Officer at the Indian Land Tenure Foundation.
With a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies and a Master’s degree in Leadership, Christine is now also a doctoral student pursuing her Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her latest research will be focused on healing historical trauma with traditional plant medicines in an Indigenous context.
Prior to working in the nonprofit sector, she spent 10 years as an Operations Manager at Aon Hewitt, an HR consulting firm in Minneapolis. She has lived in Mni Sota Makoce (Minnesota), the traditional homelands of the Dakota peoples, for nearly 40 years and is a proud mother of two.
Executive Success
As the CEO of the Boarding School Healing Coalition, Christine accomplished the following in six years:
- Raised over $13Million in total revenue
- Grew the annual budget from $150k to $2.2M
- As the first person hired, increased the team to a staff of 7
- Facilitated an MOU with the U.S. Department of the Interior
- Helped write and introduce legislation for a nat'l truth commission
- Presented and testified at the United Nations in NY and Geneva
- Started the only nat'l boarding school healing conf. in the U.S.
- Managed and pioneered an unprecedented nat'l research scope
- Created the first-ever Boarding School Survivor Descendant Scholarship program with the American Indian College Fund
Learn more about Christine's work here.
Indigenous Research and Healing
Christine has dedicated her career to pursuing truth and healing for the Indigenous survivors of historical trauma at the hands of colonialism and settler-states. As a leader and an activist for Indigenous Rights advocating for truth, justice, and healing for the genocidal policy of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools she conducted her master's thesis on the spectrum of spiritual practices between traditional Native American spirituality and Christianity and the legacy of the boarding schools on spiritual activities and Indian Activism today.
She is one of the primary investigators for the “Child Removal in Native Communities: An Anonymous Survey” currently being conducted with the University of Minnesota, and has published several scholarly articles, including one titled, “The Catholic Church and U.S. Indian Boarding Schools: What Colonial Empire Has to do With God” in the Journal of the West.