This article was originally published by Future of Good on March 10th, 2022 and was written by Gabe Oatley.
Last summer, Nuskmata (Jacinda Mack), talked on a headset as she walked around her property just north of Williams Lake, B.C.. It was mid July and hot. The aim of the call was to decide how she and few other Indigenous women would distribute about half a million dollars amongst several Indigenous organizations — their own and a couple of others. It was a call unlike any she’d ever had.
“There was money coming in to support [our] organizations without us even having to apply. That was pretty awesome,” she says, laughing. “That was a new experience for me.”
Nuskmata is a Secwepemc and Nuxalk community organizer, the executive director of the Moccasin Footprint Society, a grassroots Indigenous charity — and, most recently, one of three members of a council of aunties for the recently established Right Relations Collaborative. In this role, she and two others govern an initiative that flips the power relationship in philanthropy and grantmaking — by putting Indigenous women in control of how money flows to support their work.
In this role, they decide which organizations they will allow to fund them. They also decide how to distribute a pool of money those funders provide — which organizations will get funded, how much money will flow to each, and on what timeline.
To participate in the Collaborative, funders must submit an application — not unlike a thoughtful grant application — which is reviewed by Nuskmata and the two other aunties.
In it, funders have to share their “money story”: how they earned the wealth, what harms were created through that wealth accumulation, and how they’re working to redress those harms. They also have to share what relationships they have, if any, with the Indigenous nations whose territories they work on, how they understand the concepts of Land Back and Cash Back, and how they are engaging with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action.
It’s a powerful document, one that demands a level of introspection and vulnerability not often required of most Canadian funders. And yet despite this flip, the Collaborative’s co-leads say that the initiative has been received with enthusiasm by a growing group of funders. So far, three grantmakers have applied and been welcomed into the Collaborative as funder partners and two additional funders are part-way through the “engagement” process.
If accepted, this pair will join their trio of colleagues in committing to provide the Collaborative with multi-year funding to be divided up by the aunties; to participating in several educational programs, such as an optional, monthly, “ask-an-aunty” session; and to engaging in an ongoing relationship of accountability, including providing the aunties with an annual progress report on their work to build relationships with Indigenous communities.
It’s a bold experiment to decolonize Canadian philanthropy and it’s built on the strength of the relationships of a group of powerful Indigenous and settler women.
