HOIHI Grant Program for Native Hawaiian Organizations

This notice of funding opportunity is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, Interior Business Center, Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD) as part of the U.S. Government Interagency Agreement between the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations (ONHR) and AQD. The Office of Native Hawaiian Relations’ (ONHR) Heritage (Tourism) Opportunities in Hawaii (HOIHI) Grant Program serves to implement the Native Hawaiian Organization NATIVE Act Grants under CFDA 15.068 and the provisions of the Native American Tourism and Improving Visitor Experience Act (NATIVE Act), 25 U.S.C. 4351 et seq. The purpose of the NATIVE Act is to establish a more inclusive national travel and tourism strategy that delivers significant benefits for Native Hawaiian organizations (NHO) as distinctly defined in the NATIVE Act, including job creation, elevated living standards, and expanded economic opportunities. Tourism in Hawaii has grown with 9.4 million visitor arrivals in 2022 in a State whose population is less than 1.5 million people. This volume of visitors over a sustained period has led to depletion of natural and cultural resources, including the desecration of sites sacred to the Native Hawaiian Community, and the displacement of its members due to a lack in economic opportunities. The HOIHI Grant Program is an innovative effort to utilize Native Hawaiian traditional knowledge to bolster economic development in the Native Hawaiian Community, advance economic growth in the State of Hawaii, and to equip Native Hawaiian organizations (NHO) with the needed resources to transform tourism involving historical and sacred sites to be regenerative and collaborative. The HOIHI Grant Program seeks to increase economic development within the Native Hawaiian Community by expanding opportunities for entrepreneurship among members, increasing innovation potential on the usage and incorporation of traditional knowledge, and ultimately increasing growth of new businesses within the Community. This, in turn, broadens the ability of Native businesses to flourish and contribute to lowering unemployment and increasing expanding economic growth. HOIHI also furthers the opportunity to promote the incorporation of regenerative tourism models, and in doing so allows for the conservation and preservation of unique natural and cultural resources, and historic sites. The NATIVE Act plays an important role in promoting heritage and cultural tourism opportunities through the self-determining participation of Native American communities, including the Native Hawaiian Community, in the visitor industry. The Hawaiian value of HOIHI (to treat with reverence or respect), as reflected in the olelo noeau (Hawaiian proverb) “E hoihi aku, e hoihi mai,” meaning “show respect, get respect”, represents the core principle of ONHR’s HOIHI Grant Program. Through showing respect, visitors (tourists) can then be welcomed as guests with a shared kuleana (responsibility) in perpetuating the values and importance of Native Hawaiian traditional knowledge and cultural practices. This olelo noeau serves as a foundational guide for ONHR’s HOIHI Grant Program to aide in actions that: Showcase the heritage, places, art, foods, traditions, history and continuing vitality of the Native Hawaiian Community;Identify, enhance, revive, or maintain loea (cultural traditions and practices), wahi kupuna (ancestral spaces) and wahi pana (sacred spaces) that are important to sustain the distinctiveness of the Native Hawaiian Community; andProvide for authentic and respectful visitor experiences in Hawaii.