Case Study: How the Igiugig Village Council Positions Itself for the Future It Wants

“What I’m trying to do is keep us positioned with plans we can actually use, knowing the vision doesn’t change, even if the path to getting there does. The work is about staying ready in a world of uncertainty, using the plans we have to move forward in real time, adjusting as we learn, and keeping our communities ready for the future we want.”
– AlexAnna Salmon, President, Igiugig Village Council

Executive Summary

The Igiugig Cultural Heritage Strategic Plan presents a comprehensive approach to advancing sovereignty, sustainability, and well-being for the Igyararmiut people. Created over 15 months through in-person community engagement and virtual meetings, the plan centers four interconnected strategies: asserting sovereignty, fostering transformative learning, building economic independence, and preparing for climate and other emergencies.

Adopted jointly by the Igiugig Village Council (the federally recognized tribe) and the Igiugig Native Corporation (the local land-holding entity), the plan reflects the lived experience and vision of Igiugig’s leadership, rooted in Yup’ik, Dena’ina, and Aleut knowledge systems and shaped for real-time use.

Client Background

The Sovereign Native Village of Igiugig is a self-sufficient community and Federally recognized Tribe located in southwestern Alaska. The Igiugig Village Council, led by President AlexAnna Salmon, provides resources, programs, and infrastructure that support self-determination and a high quality of life grounded in tradition.

AlexAnna is of Yup’ik and Aleut descent and was raised in Igiugig. Her leadership draws deeply on lived experience and Indigenous knowledge. The Council’s mission emphasizes sustainable social and economic development, life-long education, and strong relationships across sectors and communities.

All quotes below are drawn from a conversation between AlexAnna and PlanPerfect co-founders Sophia Shaw and Adam Wolford.

The Challenge

The Igiugig Village Council sought a plan that could move as fast or as patiently as each issue required. The community had experience with strong planning efforts—yet too often, plans became static or unmanageable in the face of real-world uncertainty.

Challenges included:

• Distinguishing between long-term vision and short-term urgency, especially for time-sensitive land actions.

• Navigating funding gaps and delays without losing momentum on key projects.

• Avoiding “monster plans”—documents too big or costly to actually implement.

• Coordinating multiple initiatives while staying true to cultural values and practical constraints.

• Ensuring the community remained not just visionary—but ready.

“There’s a value in always being ready. In a subsistence way of life, it’s natural, and I think about how you keep an entire tribe positioned and empowered to always be ready. It’s not just about having a plan but being able to implement it, whether you need to move fast or slow depending on what the issue is. Some things in the strategy are nice to have, and we can get there at ten miles an hour, but others—like land back and allotments—get more expensive and harder to achieve the longer we wait, so those need to move fast and hard.

That’s why I need a team and tools that can adjust as the situation evolves. When funding timelines shift or new information surfaces, we have to be able to reassess, redirect existing resources, and keep momentum where it matters most.”

The Solution

The Cultural Heritage Strategic Plan is grounded in four key pillars:

• Advancing Sovereignty Locally, Regionally, Globally
  Affirms self-governance and land rights, strengthens relationships with agencies, and builds alliances with Indigenous communities worldwide.

• Holistic Community Strategizing and Transformative Learning
  Supports intergenerational knowledge exchange, leadership, and qasgiq-style education. This includes exploring educational reforms or the creation of a tribally based charter school.

• Developing Diverse Economic Strategies and Increasing Financial Literacy
  Centers financial solvency through renewable energy projects, local business support, and coordinated funding strategies that reduce dependence on grants.

• Implementing Emergency Protocols
  Prepares the Igyararmiut for climate and existential threats through communications infrastructure, community training, and coordinated response planning.
  
  
  

Planning tools such as PlanPerfect enable flexibility, allowing the team to map evolving priorities and funding realities in real time.

“Implementing projects for tribes means working in uncertainty while holding a vision that never changes, like getting fiber lines to the homes in all our villages. That vision is constant, even if it’s hard to find partners who will walk with you and they have their own timelines. Tools like PlanPerfect and Asana can help because when something like funding doesn’t come through, we can go back, unclick what was attached to that funding, and reposition ourselves for the next opportunity, like going to the State of Alaska to fill the gap. If none of it gets funded, we still need to keep moving on things like cybersecurity and digital literacy, deciding which organization will take that on, and passing off what we’ve built so far before stepping back if needed. That’s the tribal world: it’s dramatic, but we find ways to keep going. If there’s a private funder who can fill a gap, then we get the proposal ready and go for it.”

Results

This strategy process has allowed Igiugig to:

• Remain agile while committed to long-term goals.

• Map multiple paths to a single outcome, depending on timing and funding.

• Keep community planning grounded, realistic, and continually actionable.

• Connect sovereignty with implementation, ensuring that cultural and land-based visions are operationalized—not shelved.

• Support intergenerational collaboration, aligning with how the community works across generations—not administrations.

“If I could go back to school, I would get a PhD in Indigenous planning theory, marrying this concept of always being ready with what we know as Indigenous people, especially in a changing climate. Climate change has disrupted the old way of life, and I’ve seen how people respond with ingenuity. That is the gift our community has to offer the world. We have done amazing planning with the National Renewable Energy Labs, and our community values planing, but I also see how many times people will invest a lot of money into a great plan that is so expensive or so big that no one can touch it. It becomes a monster sitting on a shelf, and while people can say, ‘Well, they have a great plan,’ it doesn’t help if no one can use it.”

Looking Ahead

The Igiugic strategic plans are living documents. The Cultural Heritage Plan will grow alongside the community’s needs. AlexAnna and the Igiugig team continue to work at the intersection of vision and adaptability—leveraging software, funding relationships, and community will to stay ready for whatever comes next.

“The vision doesn’t change, even if the path to getting there does.”

About PlanPerfect

PlanPerfect is a strategic planning platform built by and for mission-driven leaders. Combining human-centered design with AI-assisted tools, PlanPerfect supports nonprofits of all sizes and sectors and Indigenous communities in building and executing strategic plans that are practical, trackable, and rooted in real-time implementation.