Letter from SHIFT - October 2024

Dear Readers, 

At the end of September, I had the opportunity to present about SHIFT’s participatory granting model on a panel at Philanthropic Foundations Canada’s national conference. The panel was largely focused on “trust-based philanthropy,” a model in which foundations acknowledge the inherent power imbalance between foundations, nonprofits, and communities and work towards shifting where some of that power lies. Some of the “bold moves” a foundation can take towards this model include multi-year unrestricted grants, less burdensome paperwork, soliciting feedback, and adopting a posture of learning and humility (CFC). Though promising on its face, celebrating this model as radical and revolutionary necessarily implies that trust itself is a radical act. And what’s so radical about trust? 

I was fortunate to attend another presentation at the conference from Annauma Community Foundation, a new community-run foundation - and the first of its kind - in Nunavut. During their presentation, the panelists (two of the co-founders: Udloriak (Udlu) Hanson and Virginia Qulaut Mearns) spoke about how their foundation disburses funds through (to paraphrase) a consensus-based decision-making process in which the applicants themselves meet as a cohort to decide how the pot of grant money will be spread out. 

When asked by an attendee about this process and how they came to their governance structure, the speakers explained that it was simply “the Inuktitut way” of working together and making decisions: they had never “created” a structure, that it would have always been this, and that it emerged organically. Listening to Udlu and Virginia reminded me of Reawakening, not Revitalization, the piece that we’re publishing this month from Autumn Godwin of Buckskin Babes on reviving the traditional practice of moosehide tanning. Like this practice, trust-based decision-making is nothing new. 

When SHIFT’s panel came the next day, I was struck by the dissonance between what I had heard from Udlu and Virginia and the way that my peers from large private and corporate foundations described trust-based philanthropy as something that is not – or hasn’t been – an inherent way of relating to one another. Instead of novel innovations, models like “trust-based philanthropy” or community-driven decision-making should be considered a return: reconnecting with our core humanity and reciprocal relationships. 

This is the theme of the first edition of the SHIFT Journal, October 2024. We looked for pieces that explore the return to relationships of trust, respect, and understanding as foundational to working towards justice. We have the piece from Autumn about moosehide tanning camps, a recap of our recent Pathways to Accountability event on community conflict, a written version of my conference presentation, and the first in a short series from Andrea Clarke on the adaptability of our participatory approach.

I’m so proud of the work that has gone into this Journal so far, and I can’t wait to welcome submissions from our wider community about their transformative work.

Thank you,

Richenda