Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 6, 1 Iune 2015 — Aloha mai kākou, [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Aloha mai kākou,

You've heard a lot in recent months about many contentious issues that have eome before the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and its Board of Trustees - everything from efforts toward nationhood to the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. B ut in our offices, our staff has never wavered from our mission - to improve the lives of Native Hawaiians. In the past month, we have met two major milestones. Our staff reviewed 108 grant proposals asking for $33 million over the next two years. These grants have a direct impact in changing the lives of Native Hawaiians in the areas of heahh, education, culture, land and ineome. It has been my charge that we try to maximize the amount of funding we are able to get out to the community to achieve the kind of change that we want. Our funds are far too limited to be able to fund all requests, so we have to be picky. In the end we selected 27 grants worth $7.4 million over the next two years. The grants were adopted by the Board of Trustees in May. (See article on page 14.) I would have liked to have found more money for grants, because there is a lot of pent-up demand for them. But we must remain fiscally prudent. Our overall budget is based in part on the returns of our investment portfolio for the past five years, so we're still recovering from a dip in the stock market a few years ago.

The grantees we selected have the greatest potential to impact our communities. We estimate 4,400 people will be directly impacted by our grants and tens of thousands more will see the benefit from cultural programs, such as an Edith Kanaka'ole Foundation programto restore a hula heiau along with its full traditions. Meanwhile, our Puhlie Policy program saw great success in the state Legislature. Five of seven bills in OHA's legislative package were

approved by the lawmakers. (See article on page 5.) For me, success is being consistent with purpose. Grants and advocacy make up our two-prong approach toward systemic change. We're getting better at both. There are more checks and balances in grants to ensure the money is used in the way intended. i

Our success in the Legislature continues to improve. You may hear of more extravagant things but sometimes seemingly esoteric things are a better barometer of our success. 'O au iho nō me ke aloha a me ka 'oia'i'o, Kamana'opono M. Crabbe, Ph.D. Ka Pouhana/Chief Executive 0fficer

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MEASURES 0 F SUCCESS