EMAIL“All acts of kindness are lights in the war for justice.” — Joy Harjo, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: Poems
In his role as program officer at the Foundation, Carson cultivates partnerships with organizations dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice. He is committed to supporting partners in claiming, reclaiming, and shaping their own narratives.
As an enrolled member of the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina, Carson was drawn in by the Foundation’s longstanding commitments to Indian Country, rural communities, and communities of color. Previously, Carson supported the Native American arts, folk arts, and music education portfolios as a program associate at Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. He began his career working within nonprofit organizations that support writers and artists in rural and underserved communities across the Midwest.
Carson holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Edgewood College in Madison, WI, and earned his master of fine arts in creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he founded and led creative writing workshop programming for the university’s American Indian Summer Camp.
Alongside his career in philanthropy, Carson is an artist whose work has earned fellowships and residencies from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Camargo Foundation. His short fiction appears in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. His debut novel, If the Dead Belong Here, was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize in 2025 and was a finalist for the 2026 Minnesota Book Award in Novel and Short Story.
Carson lives in Minneapolis with his husband.