Native American Museum Returns Church’s $2 Million Donation Due to Strings Attached

The church leadership announced a $2 million donation to the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. Church President Russell M. Nelson stated that “the gift from the church will strengthen Native American and other families by creating within the museum a FamilySearch center.” The church praises itself on this contribution in a newsroom article and at a devotional in Kansas.

The museum, which honors many Native American Indian Tribes, will use the gift to build a FamilySearch center and fill other needs. The center will include digital interactive exhibits for Native American families. Many will be able to learn more at FamilySearch.org. FamilySearch is the Church’s nonprofit genealogy arm.
James Pepper Henry, director of First Americans Museum, said that “Native Americans have been moved around so much from different places that a lot of our families have lost contact with each other. Having a center here is a way for us to connect our families together again.”
“First Americans feel the yearning to find their ancestors, and we feel with our FamilySearch technology we can make this happen,” Elder McKay said. “We are donating our expertise and consultants who can build a center suited to the needs of the museum.”
Later in the afternoon, Church President and Prophet Russell M. Nelson spoke to Latter-day Saints in Kansas and Oklahoma in a virtual devotional that originated from a broadcast studio in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Kansas is home to 38,000 Latter-day Saints and 75 congregations. Another 49,000 members live in Oklahoma, worshiping in 93 congregations. Oklahoma also has one temple.
President Nelson said the new FamilySearch center in Oklahoma “will make it possible for visitors to the museum to receive help in preserving personal histories, searching for ancestors and building their own family trees.” He also said the First Americans Museum “should remind each of us of our own ancestors and of our deep gratitude for those who have come here from many different countries and traditions.”
The Church Donates US$2 Million to First Americans Museum in Oklahoma
President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf, along with their wives Wendy and Harriet, speak in a devotional for Saints in Kansas and Oklahoma, October 17, 2021.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211017233112/newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/first-americans-museum-donation

Native American Museum Rejects $2 Million From Mormon Church

Just a few weeks later the First Americans Museum announced that they were discontinuing the project and refusing the funds from the church. They had received complaints and concerns about what strings the church had attached to these funds, and felt that this relationship wasn’t worth the $2 Million.

Elder Kyle S. McKay presents a $2M "gift" to build a FamilySearch Resource Center at the First American Museum. After considering concerns and due to strings attached to the grant, FAM rejects the Church Sponsored Family History Center and returned the funds. “The agreement between the First Americans Museum and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to a grant in the amount of $2 million for the creation of a Family History Resource Center will be discontinued. FAM will return the grant funds and will suspend plans to develop the center until further notice... FAM values the perspectives of our Native constituencies. Thank you to those who voiced concerns in a respectful manner about the project.” “Concerns: Were there strings attached? Might the center be staffed by missionaries proselytizing to patrons? Would their deceased ancestors would be baptized vicariously?” | wasmormon.org/fam-rejects-2-million-from-mormons — Elder Kyle S. McKay presents a $2M “gift” to build a FamilySearch Resource Center at the First American Museum. After considering concerns and due to strings attached to the grant, FAM rejects the Church Sponsored Family History Center and returned the funds. – “The agreement between the First Americans Museum and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to a grant in the amount of $2 million for the creation of a Family History Resource Center will be discontinued. FAM will return the grant funds and will suspend plans to develop the center until further notice… FAM values the perspectives of our Native constituencies. Thank you to those who voiced concerns in a respectful manner about the project.” – “Concerns: Were there strings attached? Might the center be staffed by missionaries proselytizing to patrons? Would their deceased ancestors would be baptized vicariously?”

The agreement between the First Americans Museum and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to a grant in the amount of $2 million for the creation of a Family History Resource Center will be discontinued. FAM will return the grant funds and will suspend plans to develop the center until further notice. We thank the Church for their understanding and generosity.
FAM values the perspectives of our Native constituencies. Thank you to those who voiced concerns in a respectful manner about the project.
UPDATE: FAM Family History Resource Center on hold until further notice. November 4, 2021
http://web.archive.org/web/20231216133456/https://famok.org/famfamilyhistorycenter/

The money was to build a Family Search Center within the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma. But there was distrust by the directors of the museum, which was echoed by community members who voiced concerns. The museum decided to return the money and cancel working with the church on this family history section of the museum. It seems they felt the church had ulterior motives, and can this be debated?

The church seems miffed by this rejection. The church then removed the Press Release from the church website and refrained from making a statement about the rejection. Why would a museum reject a gift from the church? Perhaps they didn’t feel the church could be trusted or that they were not honoring the agreement. The Salt Lake Tribute published an article that presses the Museum for any reason, and got plenty:

Henry said at the time that he hoped to have the center up and running by summer 2022. Within weeks of the announcement, however, the museum returned the gift…
Kennedy Sepulvado, the institution’s communication specialist, said Tuesday that “the project didn’t align with the museum mission at the time.”…
The episode was a “mess of misunderstanding,” explained Farina King, a Latter-day Saint and associate professor of Native American studies at the University of Oklahoma.
Family history “is big in Indian Country,” King said, but establishing a center at the museum “would need to be done in the right way so everyone will benefit.”
A FamilySearch center, she said, “was supposed to be a celebration of coming together, where everyone cares about families.” But there was not enough discussion between the parties, King said, before the announcement of the contribution.
Locals wondered “if they could trust the LDS Church, where the money was coming from,” King said. “Were there strings attached?”
Some worried the center might be staffed by Latter-day Saint missionaries, possibly proselytizing to patrons. Others were concerned that their deceased ancestors would be baptized vicariously. (Latter-day Saints research the names of departed ancestors, and living volunteers then perform baptisms on behalf of these souls in the faith’s temples.)
It “takes work to earn Native Americans’ trust,” King said, “especially on sensitive issues.”
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/12/16/thanks-no-thanks-native-american/

It’s not much of a grant or gift to say “We’re going to build one of our LDS-branded FamilySearch Centers in your museum and staff it with missionaries. You’re welcome, Lamanites!” It is impressive to see First Americans Museum reject this grant from the church. Thankfully, they considered the concerns from their community which suspected that the church FamilySearch center would not come without strings attached. They are likely correct in worries that the Family History Center would be staffed by missionaries who would be happy to proselytize. The church was likely eager to build the center so they could collect the genealogy data from the tribes and visitors and also receive positive PR from investing in the museum.

The church never fails to show that rather than just doing good in the world, they are more looking to see what’s in it for them. They will donate to charities (sometimes), and then make a big PR announcement about how much they donate, for example. They seem to have been caught in an attempt to get a foothold into this First Americans Museum and proseletyze the church. This is not a proper setting for this type of work and it seems the church can never think of natives outside of the colonizing lense and see Native Americans as no more than Lamanites needing the church (and maybe even the gospel).

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