Jim Enote

Jim Enote is a Zuni tribal member and CEO of the Colorado Plateau Foundation. He serves on the boards of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Grand Canyon Trust, and formally with Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. He is a National Geographic Society Explorer, a New Mexico Community Luminaria, and an E.F. Schumacher Society Fellow.

Jim’s service the past forty years includes natural resource, cultural resource, philanthropic, and arts assignments for many organizations including UNESCO, UNDP, International Secretariat for Water, Nordic Council of Ministers, Tibet Child Nutrition Project, the Mountain Institute, National Geographic Society, US Bureau of Indian Affairs, US National Park Service, Zuni Tribe, and several major charitable foundations, museums, and universities. He has written in Heritage In the Context of Globalization; Science, Technology, and Human Values; Sacredness as a Means to Conservation; Mapping Our Places; Indigenous People and Sustainable Development; A:shiwi A:wan Ulohnanne, and Redrock Stories, to name a few. Recent short pieces include; We Cannot Live by Sentiments Alone, The Museum Collaboration Manifesto, Buyer Beware, What I Tell Boys, and Please Don’t Call Me a Warrior.

In 2010 while serving as the director of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum Jim was awarded the first Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology during the American Anthropological Association’s annual conference. In 2013 he received the Guardian of Culture and Lifeways Award from the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, and in 2016 received the Hewett Award for leadership and service to the New Mexico museum community and for achievements in the museum field.

In his role as CEO of Colorado Plateau Foundation, Jim plans, directs, and evaluates the foundation’s program of grantmaking, fundraising, development, and fund investment in addition to managing staff, overseeing operations, and working with the CPF board of directors. As a fundraiser and educator to the philanthropic community, Jim connects, engages and leverages funding to support regional issues on the Colorado Plateau.

Jim lives in his hometown Zuni, New Mexico.