Charitable status is colonial: This organization is encouraging Canadians to give to Indigenous-led organizations without expecting a tax receipt

“I’ll start by saying I am a proud Anishinabeg Algonquin woman,” began Jenny Buckshot Tenasco, on the eve of Sept. 30 — Canada’s very first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Buckshot Tenasco, a residential and day school Survivor, sat in front of a computer screen alongside her daughter in their Kitigan Zibi home that evening to speak to an invisible audience in attendance at ‘Kìyàbadj Kidandanizimin: We are still here’, hosted over a Zoom call by the Ottawa Public Library. 

“Remember that we were innocent children,” she said.

“Remember that we traveled by the busload, by trains, by planes to experience an incredible amount of loneliness, mistreatment, neglect, abuse, and pain at the residential schools all across Canada,” Buckshot Tenasco implored the audience.  

Buckshot Tenasco is one of at least 80,000 residential school Survivors according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). 

After the buried remains of 215 children were uncovered at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. earlier this year, the Government of Canada created a statutory federal holiday through Bill C-5 in a move to honour “the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities,” like Buckshot Tenasco and her daughter. The holiday is now known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and meets one of 94 calls to action put forth by the TRC in their 2015 report.

Given these recent events, the public spotlight has now fallen upon Canada’s settler-led philanthropic sector and its participation in the move towards reconciliation; as the demand for social services and support for First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities continues to increase. 

The Government of Canada’s website for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation heralds “public commemoration” of “the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools” as “a vital component of the reconciliation process.”

However, reconciliation necessitates more from Canada’s philanthropic sector than just “performative allyship” in public, according to Kris Archie. Archie is a Secwepemc and Seme7 woman from the Ts’qescen First Nation and CEO of The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. 

Under the guidance of and in partnership with Archie’s organization, a settler-led effort is now showing others how to meaningfully participate in and advance reconciliation.

The One Day’s Pay campaign, started by Josh Hensman, has successfully raised $400,000 in donations as of Sept. 30 this year to be directed towards three Indigenous-led organizations, and is continuing to accept donations through the month of October. 

In order to understand why giving cash back to Indigenous-led organizations — through initiatives such as One Day’s Pay — is critical to reconciliation, however, Archie says one must first begin to reflect upon the 94 calls to action put out by the TRC in 2015. 

Reconciliation within Canada’s philanthropic sector

The calls to action put out by the TRC describe tangible work that needs to be done, “in order to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.” 

A huge part of this work is done by charitable, non-charitable and not-for-profit organizations within the Canadian social and philanthropic sectors. Working towards reconciliation takes a variety of forms such as cultural preservation, language revitalization, land and water defense — and financial support for these causes and more.

According to the Philanthropic Foundations Canada (PFC), “Organized philanthropy is in a unique position to support Canada’s efforts towards reconciliation and to shape a future that is inclusive and respectful for everyone.” 

The “unique position” that the philanthropic sector is in, is one of power. Organized philanthropy in Canada being settler-created, settler-led, and focussed on settlers and their needs, breeds a cesspool of capital that remains in settler hands and never reaches marginalized minorities. 

This can be inferred from findings of the Giving Report 2021 published by Canada Helps. The report notes that majority organizations within Canada’s charitable sector saw donations coming to them in “record numbers”, leaving the donees capital-rich. However, only 1 percent of all charitable donations made by Canadians went towards Indigenous causes, according to the report, despite a double-fold increase in giving towards Indigenous causes from previous years. 

As a result, Archie says, “I don’t actually think that reconciliation is possible from a sector that has been built on the land and on the wealth and on the backs of Indigenous peoples in this country”. Within the philanthropic sector in Canada, she notes, “everyone had skipped over the truth part, understanding the reality and the ongoing legacy, not only just of Indian residential schools, but colonialism broadly. And continuing to deny that is a real thing that is happening.”

She explains that the fundamental reason behind reconciliation, therefore not being possible within Canada’s philanthropic sector, is because of the language surrounding reconciliation itself.

“It’s so clearly been co-opted by the government and by institutions and corporations who wanted to be seen to be doing a good thing. The settler philanthropic sector is no different. They made use of the rhetoric of reconciliation to feel good about themselves, to pat themselves on the back and to make demonstrations that nowadays we would recognize as performative allyship,” explains Archie. 

An instance of such performative allyship can be seen clearly through the country-wide mass sale of orange t-shirts in light of Sept. 30 this year. Settlers across Canada donned orange shirts under recommendation of their employers who were not oblivious to the impact of this on their public image, even as Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction announced via an Instagram post that the Native Arts Society had been, “completely unable to source any orange shirts for children for months.” They added: “There are none available to Indigenous designers,” and went on to explain that ‘mega-businesses’ like Walmart and Hudson’s’ Bay had “stockpiled the shirts leading up to this day.” 

An orange-shirt-wearing settler, however, is not necessarily a settler working towards reconciliation.

“Strong allyship or accomplice work requires that folks are ready to give something up. They have to be able and willing to put themselves, their bodies, their resources, their social capital on the line,” explains Archie. 

“It’s important for settler philanthropic organizations to recognize that they actually hold a heck of a lot of power, in terms of the charitable sector writ large, and therefore should be using that power for more good than they are,” she says. “When the majority of philanthropic organizations in this country have more money sitting in their accounts than they grant annually, that’s a problem,” she explains. 

Colonialism, charitable status and cash-back

According to Archie, securing ‘charitable status’ is one of the biggest impediments faced by Indigenous-led organizations seeking capital to participate in philanthropy that advances reconciliation. 

With charitable status, an organization can not only issue donation receipts but also be exempt from having to pay taxes on them. Registered charities are also eligible to receive funds from philanthropic organizations and are exempt from goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST).

While these benefits of charitable status might make life easier for Indigenous-led organizations within the philanthropic sector to advance efforts towards reconciliation, Archie points out that securing charitable status as an Indigenous-led organization in Canada is not so easy.

“The decision about who gets charitable status or not is a decision that’s made by folks who are at the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency). I can almost guarantee you that the people who are making those decisions are not people who have lived or cultural experience with Indigenous communities,” explains Archie. “So, as they’re bringing their analysis to understand the value or the benefit of an organization and whether or not it would satisfy charitable means, they’re not necessarily the best place to make that kind of call,” she says.

“Because of the so-called complexities of Indigenous governance and the ways in which organizations operate, often the decision about whether an Indigenous-led organization who has applied to the CRA for charitable status actually gets it, tends to be much longer for Indigenous organizations than others,” says Archie. 

She points out that many Indigenous-led organizations are often denied charitable status, “such as the Orange Shirt Society,” known for organizing and popularizing the Orange Shirt Day movement. 

“That in and of itself tells us that for whatever reason, when Orange Shirt Society went through the application process, whoever made the decision thought, ‘No, this is an organization who should be denied charitable status,’ likely because their work was considered to be unfounded, or potentially too political,” she explains. 

This colonial vein of discrimination against Indigenous-led organizations, reflected by a history of these organizations being denied charitable status, has ultimately led to the rejection of “the illusion that they require the permission of the government to do whatever good work it is that they are doing on behalf of their communities,” says Archie.

“That, to me, is an act of Indigenous sovereign behaviour,” she adds. “Sorry Canada, I don’t need your permission to go and do my work. We’re just going to do it anyways,” says Archie.

However, the status quo remains that Indigenous-led organizations in Canada’s philanthropic sector are heavily underfunded and unsupported.“What we [Indigenous-led philanthropic organizations] don’t have is charitable status and capital resources,” says Archie.

In order to change the status quo, Archie explains, it is critical to reframe the language surrounding reconciliation. “I think the conversation to be had between settler philanthropy and Indigenous communities is one about redress and reparations. This is a conversation that requires deep relationship and reciprocity,” she says, “Reciprocity gives us a different place to start connection and relationship from. It says, ‘I have something, and you have something and together, we can have something better’.”

Archie explains that this perspective is critical to settlers in Canada thinking creatively about the ways in which they can mobilize land, cash and other resources in the move towards reconciliation — in order to meaningfully participate in redress and reparation. This can be done through giving to and tangibly supporting Indigenous-led projects, movements, organizations and Nations.

Archie says this is why she got involved with One Day’s Pay, a campaign that dedicated itself to giving cash back to Indigenous-led organizations as a means of redress, reparation and reciprocity to support work being done to advance reconciliation. The campaign encourages settlers to give to one day’s pay — in exchange for their day off on Sept. 30 — to Indigenous-led organizations, even if they won’t get a tax receipt. 

Give a day’s pay, give cash back

Hensman, a white settler and liquid waste program coordinator for the City of Vancouver’s sewer design branch, says that he felt conflicted when he first found out about National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. 

“Here’s me, a relatively privileged person in Canada who is going to get a paid day off. And then there’s the people that we’re supposed to be recognizing and honoring. The Indigenous people and Survivors of residential schools and their families, a lot of those people are probably not in a situation where they would be getting a paid day off. It just didn’t seem right. So, I decided at that point that I was going to donate my day’s pay to an Indigenous-led organization,” he explains. But Hensman wanted to do more than just donate a little money.

Through subsequent conversations with The Circle and other Indigenous voices in the philanthropic sector, Hensman says he learnt that, “One of the best ways we can take action is to give cash to Indigenous-led organizations and then let them decide how best to use their cash.” 

“They’re already doing the work, but often they’re working from positions where they’re not funded particularly well,” he explains, “So, it’s about putting cash back in the hands of those people who are fighting to protect their land and water.”

The result of his collaboration with the Circle, is One Day’s Pay: a campaign that encourages settlers to give a day’s worth of pay in commemoration of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, to one of three Indigenous-led organizations— the Indian Residential School Survivors’ Society (IRSSS), the Orange Shirt Society and the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC). One Day’s Pay is encouraging settlers to give to these organizations without expecting a donation receipt.

This is because giving to Indigenous-led organizations is the caveat for otherwise charitable Canadians who hope to claim tax credit from the CRA for their philanthropy. As per the CRA’s regulations, taxpayers can claim a deduction for their charitable donations — only if they can provide an official donation receipt that was issued to them by a qualified donee or registered charity. Giving without expecting a tax receipt, to Indigenous-led organizations that do not have qualified donee or charitable status, is therefore critical in order to support their work towards reconciliation.

The One Day’s Pay campaign has now raised about $400,000 to be directed towards these Indigenous-led organizations as of Sept. 30, but is still accepting donations through October. 

In addition to providing settlers a platform to donate, One Day’s Pay is also providing free in-depth reflection resources to think further about Canada’s past, present and reconciliation.

However, Hensman says that he is aware of the limitations of his initiative where operational sustainability is concerned. “This is a simple way to take action. It’s a step in the right direction, but we’re not changing the issues that we have in Canada with this campaign. Hopefully though, we will bring more awareness to the table and enable settlers to give money to organizations that can be doing the real work that is important today,” he says. Hensman says that he also plans for One Day’s Pay to be continued hereafter as an annual effort.

Archie says she is hopeful for the longer-term impacts of One Day’s Pay’s work to materialize. “Maybe by folks giving a single day’s pay and realizing how okay they are in their day-to-day life by doing that, they might be willing to give more another time,” she says. “Folks who too took advantage of the deeper engagement resources… They spend time doing research and reflection, and so maybe they’ll make different quality of decisions with their philanthropic giving in the future,” she adds, “Maybe they’ll impact and influence their family and friends or their peer group or their faith communities.”

Archies says reconciliation necessitates more than one holiday’s worth of reflection, giving and work, but still, “It’s important to take some time to focus on what you’ve learned before you start setting goals for what comes next.”

“Language revitalization needs to be supported. Indigenous child welfare needs to be supported. Indigenous-led initiatives focussed on justice need to be supported. Those programs and grass-roots organizations who are leading already doing this work — they need to be supported as well,” explains Archie. 

Reflecting on these learnings surrounding Indigenous issues can help support reconciliation efforts beyond the holiday, according to Archie who says that, “If initiatives like One Day’s Pay did more to amplify and build a relationship between individuals and Indigenous issues and organizations where they live, I think we can call it a grand success.”

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