Focus Area: Indigenous Partnerships

Since the 1960s, the Donner Canadian Foundation’s granting has included support for Indigenous education, environmental, social service, and health initiatives. In 2015, along with other philanthropic organizations, the foundation signed the Philanthropic Community’s Declaration of Action. We seek to advance this declaration, as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action and the 46 Articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

A major goal of this focus area is to support Indigenous communities in their stewardship visions for their traditional lands, waters, animals, and plants. We take a holistic approach, knowing that place-based environmental issues are inseparable from cultural, social, economic, and spiritual contexts. Our core values include trust, respect, patience, commitment, and flexibility, and we seek to build long-term relationships that are meaningful, reciprocal, and sustainable. We honour and value the autonomy and the rights to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples.

In recent years, more than a third of the foundation’s granting has supported Indigenous-led and Indigenous-informed organizations or Indigenous Partnerships.¹ In this work, we are deeply grateful for the guidance of Indigenous partners and advisors.

¹ We use the I4DM Definitional Matrix, The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (2022), as a guide for tracking the foundation’s granting.