Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund with Bruce Miller, Team Lead, Partnerships

Trust and reconciliation take center stage in this conversation between Douglas Nelson and Bruce Miller as they explore the transformative power of Indigenous people’s resilience. Bruce, a leader with the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund, shares how restoring fractured relationships and addressing chronic underfunding can unlock opportunities for Indigenous communities. Together, they discuss trust-based philanthropy, cultural safety, and the practical steps needed to move from acknowledgment to action. Whether you’re interested in philanthropy or building inclusive relationships, this episode offers inspiring insights and actionable ideas.

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Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund with Bruce Miller, Team Lead, Partnerships

Welcome to the Discovery Pod, conversations with social profit leaders. I’m your host Douglas Nelson. In today’s episode, we have a wonderful guest, Bruce Miller. He’s the team lead for partnerships for the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund. In our conversation, Bruce talks about how restorative philanthropy and what it means for the future of philanthropy all across the social profit sector in Canada and beyond.

He talks about the development of the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund, how that started in 2015, the progress that they’ve made since the pandemic, and what they are looking forward to. If your organization is wondering about what working in collaboration and what working in reconciliation looks like, you’re going to want to tune in to this amazing conversation with Bruce Miller. Thank you for tuning in.

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Welcome to the show, Bruce.

Thank you.

I’m looking forward to our conversation today. As we were getting ready for this, so many organizations across the social profit sector wanted to better understand indigenous cultural safety practices and new ways of doing this important relational work across our sector. I don’t think there are many better examples and probably no better example than the work of you and your colleagues at the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund. Let’s start there. Bruce, tell us about the IPRF.

The Genesis Of The Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund

I’ll tell you briefly where we started. Our fund is rooted in healing, resiliency, and decision-making. We were born out of a response to the pandemic. We’re taking a long-term view of resiliency in 2020. It was a group of seed funders who came together and pulled funds together to support the community during the global pandemic. During that time, we developed our vision shortly after the first year, which is about within the relations of all to live well.

That vision is about two things that I described our vision about. That is one. When we speak about within relations of all, it’s about our concept of all my relations, that we’re all related. That concept crosses cultures and it comes with certain principles as well, like social justice principles, the two-legged is equal to four-legged, and we have an interaction with the land. It comes with these social justice principles to treat everyone equally and other aspects as well.

We then imbue those values. This is where our work is important here. That is our work is grounded in the values of the people we serve. We honor the voices of indigenous communities and organizations. We do this in a particular way and it’s what we call our pillars of work. That is community knows what the community needs. We meet communities where communities are at. The decisions are made by indigenous philanthropic knowledge holders at the community level. They decide where that comes and goes.

We were very successful with the initial aspect of both our vision and new ambition to come out of the pandemic and look at what the long-term view of resiliency would look like. In 2022, we received our charitable status. That’s what I got involved in. We want to look at what a long-term resiliency fund would look like and how we fund resiliency in that way.

One of the things that we all agreed on was that our work was rooted in what was called the 2015 Philanthropic Communities Declaration of Action. What we noticed coming out of the pandemic and the fact that our work was rooted in that particular area, our impact is our reconciliatory practices which for us, we seek to foster relationships.

We noticed and recognized that there were historically and present-day fractured relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous people in the philanthropic sector. What we wanted to do was to find the role for reconciliation to play in the necessary healing and reconciliation to be more just and equitable in this country. We advance this notion of collective healing through the power of giving. That’s where our genesis was born.

Here we are at the end of 2024. That declaration is now ten years old. There has been some progress made, but how would you assess your progress as a philanthropic sector over the last decade?

There’s a recognition and acknowledgment of this shared history in this country. The Declaration of Action shared that particular area. Specifically, the community or the Philanthropic Communities Declaration of Action said that we needed to bear witness to the story of the residential school survivors so that we would listen, learn, understand, and acknowledge that shared history. More importantly, we would participate in that necessary healing and reconciliation.

We would do it by three things. One is sharing our resources in their networks. Here’s the kicker like with most things. That is we need to shift our thinking. That’s the challenge in any segment or sector of society. How do we shift our thinking? That was a little ambiguous at the time in 2015, but the intent was there that we needed to shift our thinking. What would that look like? In many ways, we’re not the intended outcome of that.

A very positive unintended outcome, I would say. One of the things that jumped out at me in getting ready for this conversation is the role that your organization plays in the direct funding of indigenous groups. One of the numbers that I know you point to is that indigenous groups get about $1 for every $178 given to non-indigenous groups. That stands out so clearly as a problem that many in our sector simply aren’t aware of. What does that ratio mean for you? How does it direct the work of the Indigenous Peoples Resiliency Fund?

From Symbolism To Economic Redress For Indigenous People

The Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund has moved philanthropy from what we would call symbolism to economic redress. We like to suggest that we transform capital and shift power, resources, and decision-making to communities. What that means is our impact is the acknowledgment of that shared history or the lack of equality. In many ways, present-day endowments continue with that chronic underfunding.

It’s important now more than ever. This is where we need to think about shifting our thinking. When we spend more time acknowledging the shared past, then this acknowledgment turns into redress. This is where we transform capital, and where communities now shift the power of decision-making to the communities and they decide for themselves. We need to move from this recognition aspect of this shared history to practicality.

There has been this continuous challenge for indigenous people. They could have all the recognition in the world, but no practicality. We need to move into that space where there’s practicality, where they can see themselves within something. In this case, we feel in our own corner of our little world as we build our foundation brick by brick that we’ve reunited our forms of indigenous philanthropic practices through living and in doing the shared values I mentioned earlier. In many ways, this type of cultural practice of giving back is something that is going to help us. More importantly, very few times you get to see the power of giving play a role in collective healing in this country.

There’s so much work going on in the adjacent space of trust-based philanthropy, which I know is a big part of the work of you and your colleagues. Some great organizations are making important strides in that. Some companies and corporations are moving and giving towards trust-based philanthropy in some encouraging ways.

One of the things that jump out at me in the work that we’ve done with organizations committed to exploring or enhancing trust-based philanthropy is how new it feels. It’s like a motion that conventional colonial organizations haven’t made before. There’s some creakyness to it. When I look at the work that your organization has done over the last few years, it’s rooted in trust-based philanthropy. It’s not a new muscle. It’s right at the core. Are welcoming people to the party as they’re coming to trust-based philanthropy like, “Come on in, the water’s fine?” How are you viewing other organizations in that trust-based philanthropy space?

Trust-Based Philanthropy And Indigenous People’s Perspectives

There are a couple of things here. There are modes or models or different forms of philanthropy that are involved in different ways, like trust-based philanthropy. When we look at trust-based philanthropy, we welcome it. We share those ideals. It’s critical from an indigenous perspective to how critical trust-based is because there’s a historical lack of trust in our psyche and our sensitivity to institutions like philanthropy or government or other areas.

There has been a history of either chronic underfunding or historical exploitation. That history there is hard to overcome for us. When you build a relationship based on trust and understanding, then we have this shared responsibility where we are moving forward in that trust and understanding. It builds this capacity. It builds a better future. We always say that we’re always better together. It underscores the central responsibility that we all have to enable reconciliation in our communities.

When you build a relationship based on trust and understanding, then we have this shared responsibility where we are moving forward, and it just builds this capacity towards a better future. Click To Tweet

We’re all agents in this change, but there also has to be an acknowledgment of this history as well because there was a special responsibility by all groups in their own ways to support acts or reconciliation between indigenous people and others in communities in general. We need to work on advancing that reconciliation because it requires the strength of their relationship based on trust, and then, of course, developing a deeper understanding of the systems. We’re all including philanthropic systems and how nonprofits work, but more importantly, we acknowledge that we all need to hold within ourselves and change the system.

Funding Indigenous-Led Organizations

One of the things that I find so fascinating about the work of your organization and the movement or the new way of viewing philanthropy that you’re shining a light on is the philosophy that you talk about take what you need, use all of it, and leave enough for those coming behind. What does that look like in a practical way for building an endowment that’s going to fund indigenous-led organizations?

We are early in our discussions on this, as we mentioned the idea of looking at what is long-term resilience and how we fund the community in that way. It looked like a hybrid of a traditional endowment fund. We don’t want to be like that traditional endowment fund because, in many ways, it’s viewed as something that has historically hoarded money and has historically chronically underfunded indigenous groups.

What we want to be able to do is raise that capital, similar to an endowment, but be in a position, coming either out of the pandemic or our community needs to be met. The disbursement rates or spend rates would be different and maybe we would leverage opportunities to do it in that way. The other thing too that we want to do is work in what we call a culture of cross-sector collaboration in our partnerships.

We want to work with thinking of new ways of doing it. What we mean by that, as an example, is like many, we want to take our impact in our reconciliatory type practices by fostering reconciliation through investing and what we consider a reconciliation economy. Take that earned income and reinvest it either through impact investing or through the collective healing of our communities.

That’s probably the exciting part of looking at what we are looking at for our fund in that particular way because it will advance opportunities specifically in our communities. Non-traditional endowment funds will have an impact on the market, both as a leader in that way and likely one of the few if not a mover in the sense that you can possibly impact investing in that way. We’re early in that journey, but in 2025 will have an impact or investment policy statement that is guided by our values of love, responsibility, and right relations, and our principles as mentioned before. Of course, we would invest in culture. Cultural revitalization is the long-term results ultimately.

When you mentioned impact investing, one of my observations in having the opportunity to work with a number of organizations in the process of developing those statements or deploying some of their assets and impact investment. Everyone is looking around the room to see who’s going first or who’s doing it best. Nobody has been doing it for twenty years with stable returns. This is very new for everyone. What advice would you have for all organizations, including your own, who are so early on in this journey around impact investing to have the confidence to continue to step into the unknown, step into the reality of making less than maybe making less than a market return?

I’m resident to say any advice at all, period. Having said that, what I will share is maybe a good approach to remembering that we’re perfect in our imperfections. On a continuum of how you may want to approach things. Your traditional type of endowment would look at maximizing return. You may want to approach the way your money is made on the market to maybe optimize impact. Already, you’re distinguishing yourself on a continuum of the type of investments that you’ll make, or the type of returns you’ll have in that way.

In that type of continuum of investment strategies, then you can look at how you want to specifically look at certain ways of the round. I would probably say, “How do you view your mixed assets? You move beyond maybe ESG. One of the things that we’re challenged by is how you know that you have the right relations with indigenous people in the market you’re investing in.

Our companies are looking at certain things beyond DEI and maybe looking at adopting the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples, for example. Do they have progressive Aboriginal relations? What are those benchmarks in your mix assets in that way? The other thing too is what the board looks like.

Do they have a reconciliation action plan? There is a lot of work to be done in those particular areas, but depending on where you’re looking at and what you’re doing as well. We could never be complacent because there’s a lot of money in the market around endowments. They can influence what that looks like, especially around proxy voting and how you can move certain things.

I see organizations with great intent on moving into impact investing. Everyone is nodding their heads, “Yes, we’re going to do that.” I see traditional or conventional philanthropic boards struggling with the idea of what their fiduciary responsibility is. If we’re going to make less than a market return or if we’re going to risk making less than a market return on an impact investment, are we doing our fiduciary duty? Are we failing to maximize the resources of the organization?

Different organizations balance that conversation out in different ways. What is special in terms of the example that the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund can set is you’re starting from the position of how we are in those relations that you described. It’s not about hitting the maximum market return and then varying from that.

It’s what if we start with the impact investing as our model, and then find ways where we can make a little extra money here and there with companies in the investments that makes sense. It’s coming at the problem from the other end. I’m optimistic and hopeful that there will be some great examples that can come out of that that other organizations can follow.

I’m hopeful as well. It’s exciting. We’re early in our journey, but I have to say that we’ll determine what that is, and it’s exciting. I know there are different types of groups out there in the foundation world and how they have invested their money. We look at Inspirit, for example, I believe they’re the first and only foundation in the country that is 100% impact investing. Other foundations are trending towards moving at least some of their portfolio into impact investing funds. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Restorative Philosophy

These days, cautiously optimistic might be the best we can collectively find. I’ll take it. In the first conversation that we had, you used a phrase that stuck with me. Not only did I google it but I also did a lot of reading about it afterward, which was restorative philanthropy. What I found in doing that and what you shared with me during that initial conversation was it is a way of seeing a typically unrealized reservoir of value and connection that can come through philanthropy. I’m hoping that you can share this with the audience. What does restorative philanthropy mean to you?

Maybe I’ll start with this idea of what I call one time when I explored this world of philanthropy the notion of an exquisite irony. What I mean by that is my initial observation about philosophy in Canada, where it’s three things. One, there was a historical disconnect between indigenous and non-indigenous people. We better understand what that is now because of the TRC.

At the time, the irony was that we had these unrealized opportunities happening. It was because we had fractured relationships. They were unrealized. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, we need to move our reconciliation from listening, learning, understanding, participating, and acting by sharing our resources and networks, but new ways of thinking.

At the time, we need to shift our thinking to looking at these unrealized opportunities as unprecedented. From that way of thinking, that helps us look at these, and then you look at this historically fractured relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous people in the philanthropic sector. We have these common shared values of sharing, caring, and giving, which would bring any group together but yet, we are not together, and so there’s this fractured relationship.

What restorative philanthropy does is it takes those fractured relationships. It looks at them and acknowledges this shared historical relationship that’s fractured. It moves us to a better understanding through trust and understanding and a better way of moving forward. Restorative philanthropy repairs those relationships where we work together. There’s this space where we need to work through hard truths. We need to move through that space where we come out resilient together because it’s not easy work.

We need to work through hard truths and move through that space where we come out resilient together. Click To Tweet

Many of us do not understand why we are who we are today, and yet we have these opportunities to work together and we’re stuck. We have in our own little way created a space where we could get unstuck and move forward together through restorative forms of philanthropy. As a result of reconciliatory type practice, it seeks to foster that reconciliation and repair those fractured relationships. Together, we have collectively done something together.

That type of restorative form of philanthropy is like the whole movement around reparative philanthropy and reparations. It has overcome that history as well, and there needs to be an acknowledgment and economic redress as well. Restorative and reparative type philanthropy modes and models are important to overcome this history and to move together, or we will not have better relationships.

What would be an example of the practical and tactical “This is the example of restorative philanthropy“ in your mind?

I think one of the things is for us, there needs to be a recognition. As I mentioned before with restorative philanthropy, we restore relationships. They’re historically been what I would call exploited in nature. If we look at how, in many respects, philanthropy’s wealth has been made. There has to be an acknowledgment of that. That is just the front end of things. We acknowledge how wealth was made. We understand that there was historical exploitation of people, relationships, land, and resources.

That wasn’t just historical, but there’s current harm continuing, as I mentioned earlier, in the form of these funds, endowments in particular, that have been generationally creating wealth and have continually and historically and chronically underfunded indigenous people. Now, The truth has been revealed. We are now here where there’s an acknowledgment of this.

The practicality part of it is that in my mind, the course of our future is redistributed and invested. As I mentioned earlier, in a reconciliation economy, the values of indigenous people and our rights and which to heal us all. That’s something pretty neat from a practicality standpoint. Those types of restorative philanthropy models or practices are about what we call our regulations. It restores us to regulations by redressing those historical wrongs. By righting these wrongs and then contributing to the healing, in particular, I came from someone where we were talking about history and education, but it helps us overcome our intergenerational problem.

Applying The Double Helix Model To Philanthropy

It is so inspiring to hear, “What do we do now?” That represents so much of the work of you and your colleagues. There’s the recognition and the knowledge. We need to do something. Even in our social profit sector, a lot of organizations and well-intended people are stuck. We should do something. What should we do? I don’t know. I have no idea, but we should do something. Organizations to a greater or lesser extent or demonstrating their willingness to do something. At this point, I would say a handful have been able to step into action around that. There are some great examples of that.

Your description of restorative philanthropy and reparative philanthropy gives a lens and a view on how to take that action. That’s encouraging because I know through our work here at the Discovery Group that so many organizations are like, “Please show us how.” They don’t want to get it wrong and they want to be respectful. They want to be moving in relationship with indigenous communities as they’re doing this. They’re so afraid of getting it wrong that they end up frozen in place. I’m sure you’ve met those folks in place. Let’s not name names. It’s not that podcast. When you meet organizations or individuals who want to be on this journey. They want to be part of this restorative philanthropy and they are stuck, what advice would you have for them to get moving again?

Great question. I’ll come back to what I said. Read at the start of this show. I can’t help myself talking about sports. I’ll turn it this way. Back in 2005, I was working in an engagement group on the Canadian Sport Policy and the Aboriginal participation in Sport Policy 2005 in Canada. We had an elder from BC. He described the indigenous sports system as a double helix, which is like the DNA model. It’s a great description because I use it as well.

The Canadian Sports System is separate and independent from the indigenous sports system, which is also parallel and runs independently. There are some cross-strands that bring these two parallel models together. It strengthens that DNA strand as you can imagine visually. In there. That’s where the shared activities happen, bringing indigenous and non-indigenous people together in sports.

For example, my child attended the indigenous games at Halifax last year. She played in the Canadian Premier League as well. She played in her premier league but then joined this team as well, and both teams got together and shared activities that are called friendlies. They were able to play sports together as two separate sports systems. They came together and shared activities through friendly soccer in preparation for the indigenous games. Both systems benefited each other because these kids got better for not only their Premier League teams but also for representing their nations. They got to play for both their club and their country, and I guess her nation.

A perfect example of how we could apply the double helix model to philanthropic partnerships. Indigenous-focused philanthropy is one parallel strand. The Canadian philanthropic sector is the other parallel strand and the cross strands that bring them together are our common shared values of sharing, caring, giving, and making a difference. Those shared activities can also be restorative in nature. It could be rooted in the Philanthropic Communities Declaration of Action where we listen, we learn, we understand, and we acknowledge this shared history.

More importantly, we participate in the act of necessary healing in this country to be more just, equitable, and inclusive. That governance in shared activities is where we co-create something together. That’s the exciting part of a new way of looking at things. This is a model that brings these separate entities together in a shared activity where we’re better together.

Looking Ahead To An Abundant Future

I love it. As we come to the end of our conversation, I’ll ask you the final question we ask all of our guests. Bruce, what are you looking forward to?

That’s the question I think. We have this expression where we say we move at the speed of trust. It’s very common where us sometimes feel like there’s an urgency in the work that we do and there is. We need to look at how we invest in the reconciliation economy and where we need to create our financial stability to reinvest in the long-term resilience of our communities.

We need to really look at how we invest in the reconciliation economy, to create our financial stability, and to reinvest in the long-term resilience of our communities. Click To Tweet

What will result is what I consider or what we envisioned as that abundant future. We can’t look at it from a scarcity, but where we have widespread cultural revitalization that is the fund we’re investing in. We’re supporting grassroots power building that allows communities to operate from that abundance mindset, rather than from a scarcity mindset. That’s the real shift that we all need to believe in.

Anything we can do to get rid of scarcity in our sector, the stronger our sector will be. Bruce, I couldn’t be more with you for making time to be on the Discovery Pod today. Thank you so much.

You’re quite welcome. Thank you so much.

Important Links

• Bruce WJ Miller – LinkedIn
• Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund – Website