Our Team of experts

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Jennifer Wolf, MPH, (Ponca/Ojibwe/Santee), Owner and Founder of Project Mosaic LLC, has worked with dozens of nonprofit organizations

to define their needs and next steps. Her clients include, First Nations

Development Institute, Johnson Scholarship Foundation, Denver American Indian Commission,

American Indian Science and Engineering Society, National Native American Boarding School

Healing Coalition, and tribal and educational entities. She has led or co-facilitated projects

for Denver Indian Health and Family Services, CSU's LEAD Conference, Rocky Mountain Indian

Chamber of Commerce, Project Voyce, North American Indigenous Games, Colorado

Department of Public Health and Environment, and National Native American Aids Prevention

Center, and Illuminatives.org. She has also served as the Director of

Partnership and Business Development for Joining Vision and Action, a consulting firm serving

nonprofit organizations.

A member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, Richard B. Williams holds the distinction of being the first American Indian student to earn a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska.  He earned master's in education administration from UW.  In May 2007, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. From 1997-2012, he served as president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund, a national nonprofit organization that raises private support for all 32 tribal colleges and universities in the United States.  Throughout his career, he has lectured and presented for various organizations, including the Central Intelligence Agency, National Indian Education Association, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and the National Council of Educational Opportunity Associations. In 1993 and 1994, he served as a consulting editor for the Discovery Channel series How the West Was Lost. From 1993 to 1997, Williams served as an instructor for the Indian Studies graduate program at the University of Denver. 

Ida Nelson, Oglala/Santee/Ojibwe graduated from Gonzaga University with my MBA in American Indian Entrepreneurship and has worked at the Native American Bank, evaluating business plans and critically analyzing financial statements, auditor reports, and personal and business tax returns.  She was also responsible for reviewing and adhering to loan polices and regulatory compliance issues.

Nelson also worked for CRAFT3 with their Indian Country Initiatives program.  At CRAFT3, she provided technical assistance to Native CDFI’s and potential loan clients to foster future pipeline activity.  She helped her clients identify, profile, contact and manage potential partners, funders, and program supporters to support the ongoing success of the Indian Country Initiative. Nelson also assisted in grant research and the application process to encourage giving and community support, including assisting with grant compliance and objective completion to ensure future funding. 

 Savannah Smith, MPH, Navajo, will co-facilitate the process as a member of the Project Mosaic team.  A respected Native of Denver, Savannah has grown up in Colorado and has professional and personal connections throughout the state.  She has worked for DIHFS as an intern, where she was responsible for surveying and recruiting community members to participate in diabetes management classes.  While with DIHFS, she helped coordinate a successful community event to promote wellness and disease prevention which received a Local Impact Award from the National Indian Health Board.   Savannah also was a practicum intern with the prestigious John Snow, Inc., a public health consulting firm. While finishing her MPH degree, she worked with the North Dakota Department of Public Health as a COVID-19 contact investigator. With a strong background in research, Savannah has spent over three years with the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health.   

Robin Carufel (Ojibwe), has expertise in tribal clinics, Indian Health Service, IHS, healthcare systems, and tribal self-governance.  He has managed tribal health clinics, Peter Christensen Health Center -Lac du Flambeau, WI,  
Mille Lacs Ojibwe Nay Ah Shing Health Center- Onamia, MN, Little River Band of Odawa Indians Tribal Health Center-Manistee, MI, and was the Senior Advisor for the Gerald L.Ignace Health Center-Milwaukee, WI.  He was the lead Self-Governance consultant for the Spirit Lake Nation of North Dakota, guiding them to become the first P.L. 93-638 Title V-Self-Governance Compact tribe in the Great Plains Area of the Indian Health Service.  As part of this process, Carufel assisted the tribe in assuming total control over the IHS Service Unit located at Fort Totten, ND.  He also provided guidance to the Gun Lake Tribe of Potawatomi Indians in Michigan in converting to Title V-Self Governance Compact.  Carufel was the IHS National Budget Formulation Co-Chair during the George H. Bush Administration, representing the Bemidji Area. Carufel has also provided consultation services for the Great Lakes EPI Center, working with tribal clinics to teach them how to apply EPI Center data to tribal clinical settings and translate the information to make organizational decisions.  Having managed four tribal clinics, Carufel has experience using EPI center data in conjunction with community health profiles to expand or redesign health services.  He is also adept at forming partnerships between tribal clinics, between sister agencies of IHS, and with the Centers for Disease Control, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Health and Human Services, state level partners, referral networks and healthcare institutions, and other national organizations that work in the healthcare arena in Indian Country.  

Eric is both Lakota and Dakota of the Oglala and Wakpa Ipaksan nations. Eric is a proud forth Generation Advocate

for his people. Eric has his Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, with a focus in

Tribal Management and Emergency Services.  Eric helped to design and develop the program and its curriculum. Eric Has worked with Tribes, FEMA, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to establish best practices for the tribes in requesting

emergency and disaster declarations.

Eric also worked with American Indian Tribes, Alaskan Native Corporations, and Native Hawaiian Organizations developing their economies. As the Director of Legislative Affairs for the Native American Contractors Association, Eric was a strong policy expert and advocate for the development of Native economies on Capital Hill. He regularly visited Congressional offices and held informational briefings for the Senate

Committee on Indian Affairs and the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business. Eric pairs his passion to serve Native peoples with his knowledge of federal regulations and laws as they

relate to Native populations, his desire is for Native voices to be heard and for action that leads to greater autonomy for indigenous people, globally.

Marissa Jaross is an experienced researcher and evaluator focused on reducing health disparities and social inequities. She received her MPH from The George Washington University in 2013, specializing in global health communication. Marissa has spent her career supporting nonprofit and governmental entities with program improvement and funding requirements through skilled project management, research, and facilitation. Notably, she has successfully managed six county-wide homeless point-in-time counts that provide county governments substantial federal funding to address homelessness in their Northern California communities. Additionally, Marissa implemented a county-wide substance use assessment for Santa Clara County to help the county understand how to address harmful substance use within their population. She currently serves as a staff researcher for Veterans Affairs (VA), managing the Palo Alto, CA site of the federally sponsored Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Model Systems to further understand how TBI affects social and medical outcomes, in addition to cross-departmental studies of gender and race outcomes in veterans with spinal cord injury. Throughout her career, Marissa has made it her mission to continually learn about and address social justice inequalities and inequities through her work and personal life.

Sally Carufel-Williams, Santee/Ojibwe, has decades of experience organizing and coordinating national conferences, board meetings, and summer youth programs.  She has also helped organizations get off the ground with strategic planning processes.  As an elder advisor, she brings a wealth of knowledge earned from working with national Native American nonprofit organizations including Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, Native American Rights Fund, and Colorado Indian Upward Bound.  She brings considerable life wisdom and insights, and is well respected and known throughout Indian Country.   

Sally co-facilitates the Project Mosaic process by connecting the obstacles your organization is facing to solutions she has seen work.  She also presents the 7-Rs curriculum to ground your team with the principles of:

• Respect
• Relations
• Responsibility
• Reason
• Reciprocity
• Resiliency
• Revolution

Darius Lee Smith, Navajo/Black, is the Director of the Denver Anti-Discrimination Office where he investigates, conducts administrative hearings and mediates civil rights discrimination complaints.  Darius’ high resolution and satisfaction rate is a result of his ability to apply Indigenous “peacemaking” principles based in respect for all parties, inclusion of culturally responsive perspectives, and the belief that all parties have the potential to reach common ground in a non-adversarial manner.  Darius begins his mediation process by telling his story of self-determination through his Navajo and African-American experience and how he facilitates resolution of civil rights discrimination complaints by utilizing the Indigenous form of "Peacemaking".  

Darius also serves as the American Indian Liaison to the Denver American Indian Commission that promotes communications between the Denver American Indian Community and the City and County of Denver advocating for social and cultural awareness to promote economic and political equality. 

Buster Isennock, Lakota, is an entrepreneur, tribal economic development specialist, AASBC small business consultant and trainer. He possesses over 12 years of management and relationship building experience, with a diverse background in tribal, corporate, start-ups and non-profit organizations. Buster is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and most recently selected as Native Nations Rebuilder with the Native Governance Center.

Buster has received numerous awards and honors for specific areas of growth that are foundational to an organization’s success. He has been recognized as an effective leader in various roles with Fortune 500 companies and multiple Tribal Economic Development Corporations. Buster has a degree in business administration from Oglala Lakota College.

Buster also has expertise in a building social media presence for your organization, including marketing strategies to increase your impact and reach.