The Circle’s I4DM Definitional Matrix was meant to serve as a guide to more equitable philanthropic practice, but the framework has also been co-opted as a tool for performative engagement. Researcher Luc Mvono looks at how three funders use the I4DM as a tool for shared reflection and accountability.
This article is based on desk research using publicly available material drawn from organizational websites, reports, funding guidelines, and application and reporting templates. Each featured organization reviewed the article prior to publication and provided feedback to help ensure accuracy.
Calls for change across the global philanthropic sector have increasingly emphasized addressing colonial power dynamics embedded within funding relationships. In Canada, these discussions take on unique significance, amplifying broader efforts toward Indigenous self-determination and decolonization. As “reconciliation” increasingly becomes emblematic of settler performance, the challenge remains: how can justice be meaningfully advanced in philanthropy and beyond?
Since 2008, The Circle on Philanthropy (The Circle) has collaborated with grantmakers to reshape funding relationships through reciprocity, accountability, and shared learning. In 2014, the organization introduced the I4DM Definitional Matrix (revised in 2022) to support settler grantmakers in their efforts to champion Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty through their practice. The I4DM provides a framework for distinguishing justice-rooted, Indigenous-led initiatives from those that benefit Indigenous communities but do not centre Indigenous agency, leadership, and accountability. Since its inception, the I4DM has served as an accessible guide to more equitable philanthropic practice, rooted in a shared understanding that Indigenous self-determination can be collectively achieved by supporting and resourcing Indigenous-led work.
However, the framework has also been co-opted as a tool for performative engagement, detached from the transformation it was designed to advance. Like many concepts that preceded it, the I4DM’s misappropriation challenges its function as a vehicle for restorative and systemic change. Reflecting on its misuse in The Philanthropist Journal, The Circle emphasized: “The I4DM was designed to be used by settler philanthropic organizations in its full form to guide internal reflection on how to shift policies, practices, and power dynamics in service of Indigenous-led work. However, [the matrix] was never intended to serve as a checklist or a ‘policing’ tool for settler philanthropic organizations to use in their granting processes . . . We feared that if misused in this way, it could create more barriers for Indigenous-led groups to access funding, as it would reinforce the power imbalance between funders and grantees . . . while also obscuring the need for deeper learning journeys and internal changes to de-centre white supremacy culture within settler philanthropy.”
Canadian philanthropy’s role is not simply to advance justice-focused initiatives, but to embed justice within its own structures.
More than criteria or a checklist for applicant scrutiny, the I4DM is an invitation for grantmakers themselves to learn and practise its values. Canadian philanthropy’s role is not simply to advance justice-focused initiatives, but to embed justice within its own structures. To enact meaningful change, philanthropy must therefore reflect a commitment to justice that complements its grantmaking practices: grantmakers must shift their operations and integrate those values into their governance.
Many funders across Canada have sought to do this work, each taking different approaches rooted in their positioning and capacity. In British Columbia, Coast Funds, the New Relationship Trust, and the Real Estate Foundation of BC are such examples, each revealing how governance structures can embrace institutional accountability as an internal standard that informs their funding practices:
- Coast Funds is an Indigenous-led grantmaker that integrates First Nations’ authority throughout its operations.
- New Relationship Trust is Indigenous-led and managed but structurally closer to conventional philanthropic structures.
- The Real Estate Foundation of BC, though not Indigenous-led, is informed by Indigenous best practices in both its structure and grantmaking.
Of the three cases, Coast Funds’ governance draws on traditional Indigenous principles within its institutional decision-making structures, emphasizing Nation-based groupings rooted in traditional social order.
Coast Funds
Self-determination as restoration, not recognition
Coast Funds is the umbrella entity representing the Coast Conservation Endowment Fund Foundation and the Coastal Indigenous Prosperity Society. It manages a fund of approximately $450 million raised from private foundations, the Government of British Columbia, and the Government of Canada, with additional own-source funds invested by some First Nations. Established in 2007, the organization supports conservation, stewardship, and economic development in coastal BC by reinforcing First Nations’ autonomy through its governance and granting criteria. As its website clarifies, this institutional design is an intentional reassertion of Indigenous governance authority: “First Nations have stewarded and depended on their traditional territories in this region for their cultural, social, and economic well-being since time immemorial . . . Permanent ecological and cultural protection in this region can only be achieved through First Nations’ re-emerging role, fulfilling their inherent authority to steward their territories, which they have never sold or ceded and which they have cared for across millennia.”
Rather than framing Indigenous governance as a matter of inclusion or participation within existing institutional structures, Coast Funds positions self-determination as a normative response to the ongoing realities of settler dispossession. In doing so, its approach aligns with broader decolonial critiques of recognition-based frameworks, including those of Indigenous scholar Glen Coulthard, who argues in his book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition that“by ignoring or downplaying the injustice of colonial dispossession, critical theory and left political strategy not only risks becoming complicit in the very structures and processes of domination that it ought to oppose, but it also risks overlooking what could prove to be invaluable glimpses into the ethical practices and preconditions required for the construction of a more just and sustainable world order.”
Coast Funds positions self-determination as a normative response to the ongoing realities of settler dispossession.
To effect change and advance Indigenous sovereignty, grantmakers must examine the institutional logics that shape their funding practices. To do so, they must stop viewing themselves as external enablers of social change and acknowledge their own positioning within the system they seek to reform. This exercise is essential to ensure that philanthropy does not reproduce colonial practices that have harmed well-intentioned justice efforts, from which it has not been immune. As The Circle and Environment Funders Canada highlight in The Upwelling Learning Agenda, “Indigenous leaders have expressed concern that some ENGOs and funders only seek partnerships with First Nation leadership elected under the Indian Act, thereby at times sidelining leaders whose authority flows from their own, pre-colonial governance systems and collective rights.”
Coast Funds’ membership consists of 29 First Nations, specifically those whose territories rest within the Great Bear Rainforest and Great Bear Sea, Haida Gwaii, and other coastal areas in British Columbia. Its membership represents the Nations responsible for stewarding the geography it serves. Where justice-focused initiatives have historically flattened Indigenous identities into a monolith, Coast Funds anchors its practices in Nation-specific authority, rather than reinforcing settler–Indigenous binaries. This reflects a broader rejection of oppressive categorization, including traditional “donor–beneficiary” categorizations.
Disrupting donor–recipient hierarchies
Coast Funds prioritizes self-determination by adhering to traditional authority structures. The fund directly engages First Nations not only in funding decisions, but throughout the institution’s governance structure. Through their regional representation, the participating First Nations appoint four out of seven members, while the province appoints two members and funders appoint a non-voting member. First Nations also directly nominate four of the nine directors on the board. The directors on the board are ultimately appointed by the members.
Through their governance participation, First Nations’ prominent role in the oversight, priority-setting, and management of funds managed by Coast Funds points to a reality that challenges modern philanthropy’s traditional binary between decision-makers and funding recipients. By engaging First Nations – the primary recipients of the funding – throughout its grantmaking structure, Coast Funds advances community-rooted decision-making power. Furthermore, Coast Funds’ emphasis on First Nations governance, rather than broader Indigenous representation, reflects an intentional alignment with traditional authority structures.
While Coast Funds grounds self-determination in Nation-based governance and territorial stewardship, the New Relationship Trust offers insight into how Indigenous-led philanthropy can preserve sovereignty within a more hybrid institutional structure.
New Relationship Trust
Like Coast Funds, the New Relationship Trust (NRT) is an Indigenous-led BC-based funding body specifically focused on enabling BC First Nations initiatives. NRT takes a similar values-based approach to grantmaking, operating on the explicit assertion that “closing the socio-economic gap in First Nations communities requires Indigenous-led funding approaches.” Once again, there is an intentional distancing from recognition models that operate from an abstract commitment to inclusion. Rather, NRT establishes First Nation communities as the agents of change and reflects this statement within their governance.
NRT was established following the Transformative Change Accord – an agreement among the First Nations Leadership Council, the Government of British Columbia, and the federal government – through the subsequent New Relationship Trust Act in 2006, with an initial $100-million investment from the provincial government. Despite the provincial and federal governments’ involvement in the establishment of the trust, the New Relationship Trust Act established the Indigenous-led, independent nature of the funding body right from inception: “The New Relationship Trust has the powers and capacity of an individual of full capacity”; “The New Relationship Trust is not an agent of the government, the Organizations, the First Nation Summit Society or the First Nations Leadership Council.”
NRT furthers this commitment to sovereignty through an intentional governance structure designed to amplify Indigenous decision-making while establishing clear boundaries around government influence.
Distributed Indigenous governance
NRT’s board of directors consists of sevenmembers, nominated by the First Nations Leadership Council, the Government of British Columbia, the First Nations Summit, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, and the BC Assembly of First Nations. This configuration achieves two functions:
- Reduces the influence of the provincial government: While the Government of British Columbia retains two appointees on NRT’s board, the distribution of nominating authority intentionally constrains their influence over NRT’s governance, centring Indigenous decision-making in the organization’s management.
- Recognizes the diverse perspectives within BC’s First Nations: The participation of distinct First Nations nominating bodies also reflects Indigenous governance traditions grounded in distributed representation, rather than a singular First Nations political authority. Engaging multiple First Nations in NRT’s governance also helps mitigate tensions that can arise from exclusionary partnership structures. As Vancouver-based activist Harsha Walia points out in Decolonizing Together: “Building intentional alliances should also avoid devolution into tokenization. Non-natives often determine which Indigenous voices to privilege by defaulting to the better known, easier-to-contact or ‘less hostile’ Indigenous activists. This selectivity distorts the diversity present in Indigenous communities and can exacerbate tensions and colonially imposed divisions between Indigenous peoples. In opposing the colonialism of the state and settler society, non-natives must recognize our own role in perpetuating colonialism within our solidarity efforts.”
Self-determination through financial sovereignty
NRT places deliberate emphasis on safeguarding Indigenous autonomy not only through its board of directors, but also through its asset-management strategy. Today, the foundation functions as a self-sustaining entity, relying primarily on investment returns to continuously – and independently – carry out its mission. According to its website, NRT concluded its 2024 to 2025 cycle with a return of more than 11%, bringing its fund to nearly $120 million.
NRT places deliberate emphasis on safeguarding Indigenous autonomy not only through its board of directors, but also through its asset-management strategy.
By operating as a self-sustaining organization, NRT preserves its independence by reducing the influence that external funders might otherwise exert over its priorities and operations. At the core of philanthropy’s donor-centric tendencies – which can directly constrain community-level decision-making – is a power imbalance that inherently privileges those controlling financial resources. Through its investment-based model, NRT not only retains greater control over its operations, but also strengthens the long-term continuity of Indigenous-led decision-making.
While both Coast Funds and NRT are Indigenous-led institutions, the Real Estate Foundation of BC demonstrates how settler grantmakers can also operationalize decolonial values through governance integration and ongoing accountability.
Real Estate Foundation of BC
As a settler institution, the Real Estate Foundation of BC (REFBC) offers insight into how decolonial philanthropy can be practised, even within grantmaking patterns that are not exclusive to Indigenous initiatives. REFBC’s commitment to decolonization is reflected through the integration of Indigenous decision-making across the foundation’s structure, alongside ongoing partnerships focused on accountability and learning.
REFBC’s commitment to decolonization is reflected through the integration of Indigenous decision-making across the foundation’s structure.
REFBC was established in 1988 through interest accrued on real estate trust accounts. The foundation now operates as an independent organization under a board of directors appointed by the provincial government. In recent years, REFBC has increasingly championed Indigenous initiatives and established internal governance practices to match this funding priority.
Integration, not inclusion: Indigenous decision-making across the organization
Though REFBC is not Indigenous-led, the foundation ensures that Indigenous decision-making is present throughout its governance. Four of the seven board members identify as Indigenous, including three from BC First Nations. While Indigenous representation within settler structures is not new, meaningful integration of Indigenous decision-making across institutional governance remains uncommon. REFBC moves beyond symbolic inclusion, embracing power-sharing practices essential to justice-rooted philanthropy.
REFBC’s application of decolonial practices through representation goes beyond its board. The foundation’s Indigenous Community Leaders Circle is directly responsible for distributing the foundation’s Indigenous grants stream. On its own, the Indigenous Community Leaders Circle resembles committees commonly found across Canadian institutional funding bodies that, despite having limited authority and institutional support, are often tasked with bringing Indigenous perspectives into governance structures. However, paired with Indigenous decision-making at the board level, REFBC’s Indigenous Community Leaders Circle functions to reinforce the foundation’s pre-established values by helping to ensure that they are reflected in its grantmaking practices. This structure points to a broader organizational reality: without meaningful representation at the priority-setting level, operations-level input often becomes constrained or symbolic. Participation scholar and practitioner Sherry R. Arnstein warns of this shallow form of engagement in her article “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” contending that “In the name of citizen participation, people are placed on rubber stamp advisory committees or advisory boards for the express purpose of ‘educating’ them or engineering their support. Instead of genuine citizen participation, the bottom rung of the ladder signifies the distortion of participation into a public relations vehicle by powerholders.”
REFBC’s commitment to Indigenous integration goes beyond its internal structure. In September 2024, the foundation publicly released its Transformative Actions for UNDRIP Advancement plan, outlining how REFBC meaningfully and transparently advances the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in its granting, governance, and operations. The Transformative Actions plan was developed through a partnership between REFBC and the inaugural REFBC UNDRIP Fellow, Tara Marsden/Naxginkw.
Since 2020, REFBC has been a member of The Circle, working alongside the organization to ensure that its philanthropy continues to achieve its purposes through grant management and distribution. This partnership reflects an effort to pursue accountability beyond internal governance structures. REFBC does not limit itself to its own structure but actively engages in ongoing, external accountability through its partnerships. This practice operationalizes I4DM’s principles that those who misuse the framework have missed: advancing Indigenous self-determination cannot be shouldered solely by applicants. It must also be an ongoing, internal exercise.
The differences across these grantmakers reflect different institutional approaches to advancing Indigenous self-determination. However, these governance-level practices may not be feasible for all, particularly those operating within broader settler organizations. Rather than a fixed criterion, this exploration seeks to highlight the many ways that Indigenous self-determination can be fostered through power redistribution. Decolonial philanthropy can take many forms, particularly through participation in the broader networks that collectively recognize fund stewardship as political, before funding decisions are made.
Show, don’t tell: I4DM as institutional practice
While some funders looked to the I4DM as a tool for applicant evaluation, these three cases consistently demonstrate that the roots of decolonial philanthropy lie within organizational structure before they are operationalized in granting processes. The decolonial practices highlighted across Coast Funds, NRT, and REFBC can each be directly mapped to the Definitional Matrix’s five categories.
All three integrate Indigenous decision-making power across all levels of their respective structures. Though it may seem self-evident to Indigenous-led bodies, the concentration of community-specific Indigenous agency is by design. Both Coast Funds and NRT, despite being Indigenous-led, were established with the involvement of the Government of British Columbia and receive private funding. Despite settler participation, Indigenous authority is proactively safeguarded. Coast Funds does so through its members, who function as intermediaries between funders and its board of directors.
The roots of decolonial philanthropy lie within organizational structure before they are operationalized in granting processes.
NRT establishes Indigenous organizations as nominating bodies for the appointment of its board. Additionally, NRT ensures financial independence by relying on investment interest to maintain autonomy over most of its funding, explicitly framing external funding as complementary to its existing resources. REFBC’s funding also comes from public sources. In this case, the distribution of Indigenous perspectives is applied across the organizational structure, rather than being limited to a single area.
As a non-Indigenous grantmaking body, REFBC’s commitment to decolonization is most notable in that “decolonizing” forms part of the foundation’s core values and identity, rather than being limited to Indigenous-specific granting and initiatives. Together, the cases demonstrate that Indigenous decision-making within philanthropy should not be limited to any single level of governance. Instead, it must be embedded organizationally and paired with a deliberate positioning of settler participation as supportive rather than prescriptive. In doing so, each case challenges colonial power dynamics by destabilizing the identities of “givers” and “recipients.”
Not only do they anchor their practices in the reality of dispossession; they also position affected communities as leaders in shaping change itself. This reflects an often-missed reality embedded in the I4DM: the framework is designed not to operate in colonial binaries, but rather to serve as a tool for shared reflection and accountability.
It is these foundational practices that ultimately shape the way each case engages with applicants and funding partners.
Funding design
When integrated into institutional identity, decolonial commitments become evident in how funding relationships are structured.
Defining legitimate change agents
Across the examined funders, eligibility criteria structure authority and legitimacy by defining who is positioned to shape community outcomes and how. In doing so, each grantmaker signals its commitment to Indigenous-led development by integrating these values into eligibility requirements. In each case, the eligibility requirements indicate more than who they are willing to fund; they clarify who is recognized as the rightful agent of change within the communities they serve.
In Coast Funds’ case, it’s the First Nations themselves. Aligned with its conservation focus, the grantmaker does not primarily fund individuals or private organizations. Instead, its funding focuses on First Nations – the collectives traditionally responsible for the stewardship of their lands and resources. NRT focuses more broadly on “BC First Nation organizations and community groups.” While broader in scope than Coast Funds, NRT similarly anchors changemaking within Indigenous communities themselves, reflecting an intentional shift away from traditional donor–recipient relationships within philanthropy. While REFBC grants are not limited to Indigenous groups, the fund explicitly prioritizes Indigenous groups. As a result, REFBC advances a comparatively softer model of self-determined development at the community level. Still, its eligibility criteria align with those of the other two cases in the context of intentional diversion from philanthropic norms within Canada.
Operationalizing Indigenous values
All three cases go beyond simply prioritizing Indigenous-led initiatives through eligibility criteria. Across their funding processes, each grantmaker takes a distinct approach to embedding Indigenous values within application design by legitimizing Indigenous ways of knowing and self-determination.
Among the most notable features of Coast Funds’ application form is its deliberate choice to anchor it in Indigenous ways of knowing. The form, which includes a “Traditional Language” section, requires applications to explain how their projects support “the following areas of traditional knowledge that directly relate to project work plan activities: language, access to traditional foods, engaging Elders to transfer knowledge to youth, traditional stewardship practices, protection and restoration of cultural assets, expression of art or history.” This approach not only creates meaningful space for applicants to engage according to their values, but also positions Indigenous knowledge systems as a legitimate and expected part of project design.
All three cases go beyond simply prioritizing Indigenous-led initiatives through eligibility criteria.
NRT advances self-determined development less through prescriptive requirements and more through the breadth of its funding scope. While each stream is broadly grouped according to themes, NRT does not prescribe specific priorities. This shift away from donor-imposed logic models allows the 200 First Nations within its scope to identify their own community needs and appropriate responses. In doing so, NRT defers to local knowledge to support community-owned change. While not exclusively focused on Indigenous initiatives, REFBC intentionally creates space for Indigenous applicants to articulate their projects from their own perspectives: “Indigenous communities each have distinct perspectives on advancing their inherent rights, grounded in their cultures, governance, and land relationships . . . If you’d like to share, we invite you to describe how your community is protecting and upholding inherent rights, including whether and how UNDRIP is informing your approach.”
This feature affirms Indigenous self-determination while also signalling shared values to applicants navigating historically fraught relationships with settler institutions. REFBC’s internal commitments to self-determination are perhaps even more visible in the guidance provided to non-Indigenous applicants: “Please list partner organizations or key individuals that will be directly involved in the project and briefly describe their roles . . . If the project impacts a specific community or communities, partnerships can be a way to honour the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’ – ensuring representation from key voices during project planning and implementation.”
Across both Indigenous and non-Indigenous applications, REFBC embeds self-determination and community agency as organization-wide principles, rather than as values confined to Indigenous-specific funding streams.
Relational accountability in grantmaking
Beyond the values embedded in funding applications, all three grantmakers position themselves as more than evaluators: they are participants in reciprocal relationships. By acknowledging their capacity to produce harm and committing to reciprocal knowledge-sharing, the cases reflect an often-overlooked reality: grantmaking does not simply enable change within the social system; it is itself a part of it.
Coast Funds expresses awareness of its role in creating value-based partnerships through a proactive disclaimer regarding transparency and data protection: “Coast Funds is accountable for reporting aggregated outcomes achieved. Importantly, each Nation’s data is its own . . . Coast Funds will never share Nation-level or project-specific data with funders, partners, or wider public audiences without a Nation’s consent.” Through this statement, the grantmaker communicates that, despite its relative power, it too bears responsibility within funding partnerships.
For both NRT and REFBC, this awareness is reflected in their positioning as facilitators of knowledge-sharing, using their institutional access to support broader community-driven learning. The NRT final report template for funding recipients asks specific questions designed to do more than evaluate the impacts of NRT-funded initiatives, seeking to gather insight into both successes and lessons learned: “What recommendations and challenges would you give or inform other Nations thinking about doing a similar project?” And regarding impact measurement: “Explain the successes of your project. For instance, tell us how a project like this is promoting wellness, culture, economic development, language, knowledge, community participation, nation-building etc.”
REFBC similarly embraces bidirectional knowledge-sharing from the application stage onward. Not only are its decolonial values communicated through its funding application, but the grantmaker also uses the application process to broaden non-Indigenous applicants’ perspectives on its values. Within the application is a section titled “Organizational Relationship to Indigenous Peoples,” which states: “First Nations title, rights, and sovereignty are crucial to the health and sustainability of lands and waters in the unceded and/or treaty territories across what is referred to as British Columbia. As the inherent rightsholders of these lands and waters, who have protected and cared for them for millennia, First Nations in B.C. must have a central role in decision-making and stewardship. To support the learning journey of organizations about their relationship with Indigenous peoples and how organizations may support the self-determination and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, our friends at the Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal People in Canada developed their I4DM Definitional Matrix, with guidance from Indigenous advisors from across Canada.”
This commitment is reflected throughout REFBC’s funding process. By integrating these principles at the outset of funding relationships, REFBC uses its institutional position not only to guide applicants, but to reinforce broader norms around self-determination and community accountability.
Across all three cases, the grantmakers demonstrate explicit recognition of their obligations to advance decolonial philanthropy.
Through these funding practices, the cases reveal additional dimensions of the I4DM by clarifying how each grantmaker approaches accountability and relational responsibility within philanthropy. Across all three cases, the grantmakers demonstrate explicit recognition of their obligations to advance decolonial philanthropy. This commitment extends beyond surface-level positioning and is reflected in ongoing participation in knowledge sharing, accountability, and community-centred partnership.
Conclusion
The Circle on Philanthropy’s efforts, both through the I4DM Definitional Matrix and its ongoing partnerships with grantmakers across Canada, offer a unique opportunity for the Canadian philanthropic landscape to cultivate justice in its practices. The misuse of the I4DM reflects a broader reluctance to reconfigure donor–recipient hierarchies that sustain paternalistic philanthropy. Decolonial philanthropy confronts these relational imbalances and should be engaged first as a framework for institutional reflection, guided by its authors rather than solely as a tool to guide funding decisions.
The cross-cutting practice across the cases is not uniform program design but the redistribution of decision-making authority that results in the redistribution of wealth toward Indigenous-led work and Indigenous self-determination. Whether Indigenous-led or not, grantmaking bodies must embed Indigenous decision-making power within the structures that shape funding priorities, processes, and relationships.
This intentional redistribution is never limited to the grantmakers themselves. In every case, decolonial grantmaking involves a constellation of government and private partners whose participation is structured to amplify community-rooted priority-setting and delivery. By extending this insight beyond individual organizations to the broader partnerships that shape philanthropy, the sector can meaningfully contribute to the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty.
Luc Mvono is the author and principal researcher of this piece, which investigates the impact of Canadian philanthropic institutions on Indigenous self-determination. This piece resulted from a research internship, a reciprocal partnership between The Circle on Philanthropy and Luc’s M.A. in Social Innovation program at Saint Paul University. Given the alignment between Luc’s project and The Circle’s work advancing equitable partnerships with Indigenous communities, The Circle on Philanthropy collaborated with Luc to help ensure that the work contributes meaningfully to strengthening philanthropic relationships grounded in Indigenous leadership and self-determination.
