About

Mission

Provide consulting services to nonprofits, Tribes and Tribal organizations, and small businesses to:

• help these organizations grow
• better support our communities
• build organizational and community resilience

Core Values

In choosing clients and providing services, we strive to match our core values of community, autonomy, supporting Indigenous sovereignty, authenticity, integrity, inclusivity, justice, equity, and belonging.

About Dawn Winalski (she/her)

Dawn Winalski is the owner of Winalski Consulting LLC. She is a consultant, speaker, writer and facilitator with over a decade of experience advocating for and on behalf of federally-recognized Tribes, Alaska Native communities, and Alaska Native organizations.

Dawn spent 4 years living in the Alaskan Arctic, advocating for communities across the North Slope of Alaska on matters related to environmental law, subsistence hunting, cultural protection, food security and food sovereignty. She even traveled to Sochi, Russia, to advocate for the rights of Alaska Native hunters. She has analyzed NEPA documents and federal permitting to best advocate for the rights of Alaska Native communities to support community leaders as they must make tough decisions to balance economic development and sustainability.

In various attorney roles, she continued her career working with Tribes and Tribal organizations across the Lower 48 and Alaska on all facets of tribal self-determination and self-governance (including ISDEAA, NAHASDA). She understands federal Indian law, Tribal law, sovereignty, the federal trust responsibility, ANCSA, co-management, and government-to-government consultation. She has participated in federal litigation related to federal permits, endangered species listings and critical habitat designations (including ESA, NEPA, MMPA, NHPA). She has also participated in the national prescription opioid litigation, to bring money into Tribal programs for innovative programs to tackle this crisis.

Dawn began teaching yoga classes at Ilisaġvik College in Utqiaġvik, AK. She currently teaches at Portland Community College. As a person in recovery, she volunteers and runs with Go The Distance, which supports people in recovery through movement.

She loves to travel, run, coach lacrosse and watching college sports. In 2024, she ran the Portland Marathon with Go The Distance. She has also hiked Hang Son Doong, the World’s Largest Cave.

Previous Employment and Leadership Roles

• Winalski Law LLC
• Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Department of Interior Solicitor’s Office
• Assistant Borough Attorney, in Utqiagvik, AK, for the North Slope Borough
• Attorney (“Of Counsel”) at Hobbs, Straus, Dean, and Walker, LLP
• Judicial Clerk, Multnomah County Circuit Court
• Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section, Executive Committee (2022-2026)
• Vice Chair, ABA Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources, Indigenous Law Committee (2018-2022)

Education

• J.D., University of Oregon School of Law, Order of the Coif
• B.S. University of Rhode Island, Environmental Science and Management

Lightning and Kodiak

These two cats love to “help”.

They are also avid sports fans. They like to go after the ball on the screen as they cheer on the UConn Huskies, Oregon Ducks, Rhody Rams and Portland Thorns.

Land Acknowledgement

My office is located in Portland, OR. We acknowledge the Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. Indigenous people have created communities and summer encampments to harvest and enjoy the plentiful natural resources of the area for the last 11,000 years.

We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. Portland, Oregon, has one of the largest Urban Native American populations in the U.S. with over 380 federally recognized tribes represented in the Urban Portland Metropolitan area. We acknowledge the systemic policies of genocide, relocation, and assimilation that still impact many indigenous/Native American families today.