Your organization has taken the first steps towards Reconciliation
- Your staff have taken Indigenous Awareness training
- You have set up a committee to work on establishing a Land Acknowledgement
- You have posted your Land Acknowledgement on your website and included in the signatory line on emails and added to the header for your official communications with funders, supporters & those who engage with your services
- What’s next:
- Conduct a survey of the Indigenous members of your staff
- Check in with staff and see if anyone wishes to talk to you about the effectiveness of your work so far
- If you do not have any Indigenous staff members:
- Time to consider where you are posting your advertisements for new staffing: are Indigenous candidates able to find your postings?
- Time to re-examine your hiring practices and revise your ‘preference will be given’ statement
- Conduct survey of all staff & services
- Are your services accessible to Indigenous People
- What are the tools you are using to determine accessibility
- Are your staff knowledgeable about local Indigenous communities & the history of Colonialism in this area
- What did your staff learn from recent anti-racism training
- Are your policies up to date so that as staff changes over, the lessons you have learned through Indigenous Awareness training live on
- Add a new budget line for annual staff training. Ensure that Indigenous people are being hired to conduct trainings
- Conduct a survey of the Indigenous members of your staff
APPROPRIATE COMPENSATION FOR ELDERS
This is a post that was shared on Facebook to remind us what constitutes appropriate compensation for elders doing a land acknowledgement. It references CARFAC (https://www.carfac.ca/tools/fees/) as a resource which was designed for determining basic artist fees but can be applied to Acknowledgements and Openings:
Arts organizations, academic institutions, publicly-funded service providers, anyone that’s gotten in the habit of bringing in Indigenous knowledge keepers and Elders for land acknowledgements and other reconciliation attempts: If you’re willing to pay CARFAC scale for any visiting artist or presenter, which as of 2022 is a “Flat rate per half day, under 4 hours – $328” – Then STOP paying any Indigenous Elder or knowledge keeper less for a land acknowledgement for your event. I’ve heard all sorts of acrobatics – “oh, well it’s only 5 minutes” “oh, well that’s all the Elder quoted me for”. I still see $25/hr or $200 thrown around for land acknowledgements when other professionals get paid a minimum of $328 for a brief appearance. Bare minimum. If you can quote CARFAC or any other professional compensation standard for any other consultant to your place of work, MATCH OR EXCEED the standard for an Indigenous Elder. Especially when they’re residential school survivors.
By Melody McKiver, June 16.22