When we were putting together our recent podcast episode, Reconciliation and the Nonprofit Sector: Where Are We Now?, we were keen to explore how Canada’s philanthropic sector could do a better job of funding Indigenous-led organizations and communities. As part of the interviews for that episode, we were incredibly pleased to speak with Janine Manning, Executive Team Lead of the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund (IPRF), a relatively new Indigenous-led foundation in Canada. We’re pleased to present a short excerpt of Janine’s comments here. Read on to find out more about the IPRF, why its presence in Canada is so important, and how it is taking a different approach to working with funders and communities.
We kicked off the interview by asking Janine to discuss what she’s seen over her career in terms of the very small percentage of funding that goes to Indigenous-led organizations in Canada.
Janine Manning: So, I will say, my career spans beyond my time with IPRF. I actually got involved with IPRF in the early stages when it was first being developed, as a volunteer in 2020. And, I supported the development of the review committee and the application process. And I even volunteered for a year to review applications.
And I think that IPRF itself is a bit of an anomaly because we created kind of our own way of doing philanthropy. Well, not created, but we’ve insisted that our partners take this journey with us, led by us. And so with IPRF, support has increased quite noticeably year over year. But that isn’t the case for the larger philanthropic or charitable sector.
And prior to coming to IPRF, I was a fundraiser with an Indigenous health center. And I will say that the trends, we watched the reports come through and it is unique. Indigenous organizations will see an increase in funding depending on the news and the environment, but it will spike and then it’ll drop the following year, which is what we’ve seen happen about a few years back when the first residential school graves were found on sites and that year funding went from 1% a year to 3%. The following year it fell to two and then back to one.
It’s so unfortunate that our communities have to make the news tragically for donors, and I’m talking individual donors, not philanthropic partnerships, to take notice of the need with Indigenous communities. I hope that that changes in the future and that folks give from a lens of being neighbourly, and through the lens of reconciliation.
I think that the more public-facing and public-driven philanthropic organizations are very keen to support Indigenous efforts and share that they are invested in reconciliation and relationship-building with Indigenous organizations. But as we know, the majority of philanthropic organizations are not very public-facing or are run by folks on the board. I will say it depends on the philanthropic organization, whether they’ve looked internally and prioritized Indigenous well-being and reconciliation through their investments and granting programs. So I hope that answers your question. There are different factors to determine.
Janine went on to discuss how the IRPF puts an emphasis on reciprocal relationships.
Janine Manning: The seed funders were really rooted in philanthropy. And we find that our landscape of partnerships has grown beyond the philanthropic space. I mean, it’s still philanthropy but grown beyond private family or private/public philanthropic organizations. And we are now seeing support coming in from corporate charitable giving and also unions and individuals. Admittedly, we’re going to be growing our individual giving program in the near future. But we’ve found that without solicitation, folks are coming to us as individuals a little bit more.
I can say with confidence, at least for IPRF, that we’ve seen wider support from the Canadian landscape and not-for-profit sector. And I think it’s really because we stay true to our roots. You know, we’re really grounded in the Declaration of Action and Reconciliation. And I think that we’re pretty keen on educating people about what that means as a partner, and we want to be in reciprocal relationships to kind of offset that power imbalance that comes with transactional philanthropic relationships.
Janine also told us about the $10 million capital transfer IPRF received from the McConnell Foundation.
Janine Manning: You know, that was a huge leap of faith or leap into trust-based philanthropy to have our philanthropic partners trust that we as Indigenous folks working in the philanthropic space were in tune with communities and that they had trusted us to kind of steward this support on their behalf.
And at the early stages of IPRF was a historical transfer of assets from Inspirit Foundation and Laidlaw Foundation. I was not yet chair. And so, and others followed suit. And then with the McConnell Foundation, it’s a huge capital transfer.
And what it’s going to enable us to do is create that long-term bundle program. So we have historically dispersed through our bundle program five to thirty thousand dollars per project. And now we’ll be able to increase that funding upwards to one hundred thousand a year for multiple years for those projects that really have the ability to have long-term impact and sustainability in their community, and really need more than a one-time bundle of five to thirty thousand dollars. So we’re really excited about that, and that’s something we’re looking at in our time of pausing and reflecting so that we can adapt and move forward in new ways or to show up in new ways for our communities.
And so we’re really grateful for McConnell’s support there. It’s a multi-year support. So that means our long-term bundle program will also be multi-year. So for us, it’s a very historical time in that it represents growth, I think, for us as an organization and for the community members that are going to benefit from it.
Finally, we asked Janine to offer her advice to other Canadian foundations who want to deepen their work with Indigenous-led organizations, including the IPRF.
Janine Manning: I guess that IPRF itself, we engaged in this work because of historically having our communities and our community organizations being chronically underfunded by the philanthropic community. So we ourselves are leading a trust-based philanthropy model, based on actioning relations and to transform power and capital to Indigenous communities. And we encourage folks to do the same.
And so, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there were a few of our peers who put out a report a few years ago that Indigenous Peoples, being 4.9 % of the Canadian population, but only receiving just under half of a percent of gifted funds. So one-tenth of the funding they would receive because of population size, even if one ignores the issue of need, which is compounded. So we would get one dollar for every hundred and seventy-eight dollars given to non-Indigenous groups or charities. And so we encourage folks in the work that we do, not just to support our work as an organization, but to support all Indigenous organizations and groups if they can.
The only thing that’s stopping philanthropic organizations is themselves. I know that I’ve met with many folks in the sector who are afraid of getting it wrong. And I always tell people that there’s nothing, there’s no error so wrong that you can’t undo it. There’s no relationship, I don’t think, that you can’t repair. But just to do this with intention. The best intention, with community at the center, and just commit to actively learning year over year and let the communities lead, let them tell you what they need and ask them how it is they want to be in reciprocal relationships so that you can disrupt that power imbalance and make it less transactional.
Want to hear more from Janine Manning? Listen to her full interview in the video below.
Listen to Janine Manning and Indigenous leaders discuss how the nonprofit sector can better fund, support, and collaborate with Indigenous-led organizations and communities, in our podcast. Click here to listen.