Sonja Swift co-directs Windrose Fund of Common Counsel Foundation, is board chair of the Community Agroecology Network and also serves on the boards of the Colorado Plateau Foundation, Pine Ridge Girls School and Swift Foundation. In traversing between the halls of economic influence and the courageous work of communities protecting lifeways and territory, Sonja has consistently advocated for more accountability and coherency within the field of philanthropy. She brings over 15 years of international experience to this work and an unwavering commitment to support the lived knowledge of communities on the ground.
Sonja hails from coastal foothills in the homelands of the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash, California while together with her family she also calls home in the unceded territory of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, in the Black Hills, South Dakota. She has a BA in Cultural Ecology from the University of California Santa Cruz, an individualized MA from Goddard College and a MFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She is committed to caretaking land and maintains an art practice as a published writer and poet. Sonja is the author of Echo Loba, Loba Echo: Of Wisdom, Wolves and Women (Rocky Mountain Books, 2023), which was shortlisted for the Banff Mountain Film & Books environmental literature award.
