Supporting the Learning of

Our Non-Indigenous Peers

In our recent Four-Year Reflection Report, SGF looked back on the work we’ve done and the impact we’ve had within the Indigenous community in the years since the COVID-19 crisis took hold. As others pulled back, we did our best to reach out. Our grantmaking grew, our Fellowships expanded, our Affiliates thrived, and when it was safe to gather together again, we did. Below is an excerpt regarding our work with Gourds of Wisdom.

For over 500 years, Indigenous Peoples have attempted to share our experiences and model cooperative relations in our work and agreements with our non-Indigenous peers. We’ve understood the lack of perspective that contributes to the misalignment in their perspectives around vital topics like water, the environment, sacred sites, individualism, and natural law. We can not do good work with each other, and we can not be supported by non-Indigenous allies in a reciprocal and respectful manner unless we truly see and understand each other.

While the pandemic brought many challenges, it also broadened the perspectives of our philanthropic donors, funders, and advisors who saw an opportunity to engage and work differently and become better allies to Indigenous Peoples. From this critical moment, the Gourds of Wisdom donor education pilot project was born. 

The Gourds of Wisdom is a cohort of philanthropic donors, funders and advisors engaged in an educational and cultural orientation to Indigenous Peoples, communities, and the Indigenous Peoples’ movement. Designed by our leadership, in engagement with and from community, as one of our change strategies, the Gourds of Wisdom component is a proactive, forward-thinking formula that brings together the strengths of like-minded colleagues in movement-building, academia, and philanthropy with allies in social transformation and justice endeavors.

SGF’s Gourds of Wisdom provided an educational ecosystem and opportunity to 25 philanthropic and social movement leaders to connect, learn, and be grounded in Indigenous Peoples’ principles and values. We were successful in initiating the first cohort of donors, leaders, and philanthropic partners in a two-year process of rigorous personal and professional reflection to better serve as advocates and allies of Indigenous Peoples. 

The cohort was accompanied by a faculty of exceptional Indigenous thought leaders, cultural bearers and practitioners, and community advocates to help better orient and guide the conversations around Indigenous cosmologies, Indigenous values and principles, community justice, resource mobilization, decolonization of philanthropy, and strategies to amplify valued­­-aligned philanthropic advocacy.

The planning framework for the next cohort is underway, and we are pleased and honored at the opportunity to build on the success and learnings of our pilot program to continue to inform the collective consciousness of philanthropy and donors.

If you’re interested in learning more about our work over the last four years, you can read the full Four-Year Reflection Report which goes into greater detail on the work we’ve been able to achieve.