The McConnell Reconciliation Initiative

With the close of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a growing number of individuals and organizations are looking to work with Indigenous communities and accelerate reconciliation. However, they often do not know how or where to start. Collaborative funding models can channel positive intentions in a constructive way, by enabling a variety of stakeholders to coordinate resources to solve complex challenges.

Collaboratives promote diversity by bringing a variety of partners to the table. Through shared administration, they allow for a more efficient use of resources. Partners are able to leverage financial resources, human capital, networks, and each others’ strengths. When done right, collaborative funding models are low risk and high reward.

Some of the collaborative funding models the Foundation has partnered on include: the Northern Manitoba Food, Culture and Community Collaborative, {Re}conciliation and the Arts, NWT On the Land Funding Collaborative, and the Indigenous Innovation Demonstration Fund.

The housing, food security, education, employment and health care systems that were created for Indigenous peoples in Canada are broken. To fix them, we will need to test different ways to solve problems by building on each others’ strengths.

Innovative platforms for change are often composed of a group of individuals with different backgrounds and interests. Members come together to develop a common vision and then find ways to achieve their goals, individually and/or collectively.

Innovative platforms for change also have the ability to tackle challenges and opportunities, from the community level to the national level. Ideally, they influence change at a systemic level.

Some of the innovative platforms for change the Foundation has supported include: the Winnipeg Boldness Project, Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, the Moose Hide Campaign and the Northern Hearing Initiative.

To create a reconciliation economy, the current challenges that we will need to address are so large and complex that that they cannot be solved by one solution or by one sector alone. If we are to address the existing inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, then we will need to engage in “a multidisciplinary exercise that challenges businesses, governments, philanthropists and social enterprises to think holistically about their role and their relation to others—not as competitors fighting over an ever-shrinking pie, but as potential collaborators looking to bake something fresh that serves as many stakeholders as possible” (Eggers, W.D., 2013).

Solutions finance is an integrated approach to deploying financial capital and adapting financial models to catalyze, sustain and scale systems transformation. Solutions finance approaches include responsible investing, granting, impact investing and financial innovation.

One example of a project the Foundation supported by using a solutions finance approach is the First Market Housing Precursor Fund that was created by ABSCAN. In the Huron-Wendat Nation in Quebec, this housing loan fund enables its members living on reserve to become homeowners, thereby decreasing dependence on government subsidies and stimulating economic development in the community.