Walking Softly, Listening Carefully

The Jackie Bezos Researcher in Residence program was created to bring scholars directly into the Foundation’s work, bridging academic research and philanthropic strategy, while strengthening the pipeline of community-engaged scholarship. At the halfway point of her residency as one of the inaugural Researchers in Residence, Meghan Orman’s focus at the Foundation has crystallized around one urgent question: How can philanthropy better support early-career Native scholars?

Across higher education and research institutions, Native scholars remain significantly underrepresented, and research involving Indigenous communities has often been shaped by outside agendas rather than Indigenous priorities. In recent years, a growing movement across philanthropy and academia has called for more community-driven research and stronger support for Indigenous scholars leading that work.

For Orman, the past six months have been shaped by conversations, listening sessions, conferences, and quiet reflection. This question is being honed as she gains a deeper understanding of the ecosystem she’s stepped into. And if there’s a throughline, it’s humility. One moment in particular has stayed with her.

At the Native Children’s Research Exchange conference in Colorado last November, Orman attended an opening reception and found herself in conversation with one of the conference co-hosts. “She was wonderful and inviting and just warm, welcoming, full of brilliance,” Orman recalls. As a newer scholar in this space, Orman asked the host: What’s one thing I should keep in mind?

The answer has stayed with her: “Walk softly and listen carefully.” Orman first encountered the phrase when the host shared it in reference to a report from the National Congress of American Indians on building research relationships with Native communities. “Those four words were full,” Orman says. “They set the foundation not only for how I approached that entire conference, but how I have approached all of the work since then as well.”

Orman’s “walking softly” looks like setting aside assumptions about solutions, strategy, and even what support should look like. Listening carefully means recognizing the strengths and brilliance Native scholars already bring, and resisting the impulse to arrive with ready-made answers.

“It’s not starting with an idea of, ‘Well, these are the strategies we need,’” she explains. “But really going out into the field and walking softly and listening carefully—not carrying in all of our assumptions and all of our approaches with us, but rather putting those at the door and stepping in from a place of humility.”

One example is questioning standard academic models of support (e.g., one-to-one mentorship or linear career pipelines) and instead listening to how scholars themselves describe support, which often emerges as more collective, community-embedded, and less visible within traditional systems.

Her role within the Foundation has sharpened that commitment. For the first time in her career, Orman is seeing up close how research informs philanthropic decision-making. “I now have a much clearer understanding of how foundations use research and how important research is to the decisions that foundations make,” she says. That visibility has reinforced something she long believed but now sees in practice: research must be accessible and usable if it’s going to shape real-world investments.

A Deeper Understanding of Positionality

“I’ve had to really reexamine my positionality within the research ecosystem,” Orman reflects. “I now carry both positionalities: as a researcher and as someone affiliated with a philanthropic organization. Each carries its own forms of power. Even though I’m not directly making funding decisions, that affiliation can signal access to resources and shape how I’m perceived.” She says her positionality as a researcher also invites critical thinking around “how problems are defined, what counts as evidence, or what ‘support’ should look like, especially in Indigenous research spaces.

“There are a lot of historical traumas and ongoing traumas that continue to exist,” she says. “Learning to sit with discomfort and to navigate power dynamics with more clarity and more responsibility has been one of the most meaningful forms of growth in the residency so far.”

The residency has also prompted a personal reckoning with positionality. As a scholar, she entered research spaces with one set of assumptions and power dynamics. As someone working within a philanthropic organization, even if not directly making funding decisions, she carries a different set.

At the same time, she’s gained a systems-level view of the research ecosystem. From inside the Foundation, she sees scholars across the country working on interconnected strands of inquiry, and the unique role philanthropy plays in supporting innovation across that network.

“Before, when you’re just working on one part of your research agenda, it’s kind of hard to see the bigger picture,” she says. Now, she understands more clearly how philanthropic support strengthens the broader field, and how that frees individual researchers to focus deeply on their own contributions. Looking ahead, Orman is energized by the next phase of her project. The first six months have been heavy on listening. The next six will include synthesis and reciprocity.

“A conversation is a two-way street,” she says. “I’m really looking forward to synthesizing everything that I’ve been hearing and learning into some sort of report or material that those folks can now engage with, so I can offer something back in the conversation.”

Her goal is a product that serves both the Foundation and the field: actionable insights to guide philanthropic strategy, and resources that Native scholars and institutions can use more broadly.

She’s also thinking about what it means to return to academia with a clearer understanding of how foundations operate. “I’m excited about thinking about how I can take my experiences here back into the field,” she says, “and help people better understand how foundations work and how to navigate foundation relations—so they can better support their own research agendas and strengthen the research ecosystem overall.”

Learn more about Meghan and the Researcher in Residence Program.