A seasonal steward is an individual or organization who seeks to provide multi year general operating dollars to the Circle for the benefit of systems change within the sector. In order to invite people into this new way of conceptualizing our work and what it means to steward our organization we are working with the rhythms of seasons.
Winter Seasonal Stewards are those who value the importance of building a strong internal infrastructure for our organization. They seek to enable our increased governance and operations aligned with the seasons, as well are excited to witness and learn from the policy and practice developments that will unfold in this space. The specific labour of this season requires a strong operations manager who increases efficiencies, manages internal finance, supports membership management and the systems like our salesforce, communications efforts and logistics coordination for our convening work.
Spring Seasonal Stewards care about the work of emergence, partnership and of being responsive to the new trends, relationships and opportunities for collaboration. Spring is a time for planting many seeds, tending the soil and intentionally creating partnerships for mutual benefit between our members. The labour of this season requires strong relational and communication skills, people who are adept at building connections between likely allies. The learning about what partnerships can look like and feel like when they are Indigenous led is a key part of this seasons offering to the sector.
Summer Seasonal Stewards are ones who care about the face to face interactions that happen on the land, in community, where celebration and ceremony are front and center. Summer is a time for supporting the labour of bringing people together, learning together, developing strong relational and technical content for members. This is a time where the energy, solutions and wisdom of Indigenous led organizations can shine and be amplified. This season requires a membership manager who focuses on member engagement, convening, training and content development in response to member requests.
Fall Seasonal Stewards care about the labour of our harvest. This is a time for coming to make sense of and understand what we know together, what we’re learning and work toward integrating visible shifts in practice and policy. The labour of this season requires a manager in shared learning and knowledge mobilization. We could amplify our research agenda and make visible the good work happening with and between all our members, as well continue to build on increased data sharing for learning about the sector and it’s giving to Indigenous led organizations.
It is our hope to secure multi year seasonal stewardship of $175K in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. This would enable us to scale our boldest vision for true systems level change between Indigenous led charitable organizations and the philanthropic sector. It would enable a fully staffed, truly national team to respond to and amplify the operations, partnerships, engagement and shared learning while being an organization that offers equitable pay, benefits and dedicated program dollars for each season of our work.
None of our work can thrive without the dedication of a strong staff team and regular programmatic dollars in order to scale a vision for change in shared learning, evaluation, research, relationship building and convening.
Seasonal Stewards are offered opportunities to engage in all of our shared learning gatherings, in person and online, as well, we request their active participation in making their learning visible by sharing their voice and reflection to their peers through our seasonal newsletter. We will also seek to engage our seasonal stewards bi annually in line with our All My Relations Gathering to hear from them about the emerging trends, concerns or shifts that we can learn from and pay attention to.
If you or your organization is prepared to be a part of a national community seeking to create change, please be in touch directly with Kris Archie at: kris@circleonphilanthropy.ca
Winter Seasonal Stewards are those who value the importance of building a strong internal infrastructure for our organization. They seek to enable our increased governance and operations aligned with the seasons, as well are excited to witness and learn from the policy and practice developments that will unfold in this space. The specific labour of this season requires a strong operations manager who increases efficiencies, manages internal finance, supports membership management and the systems like our salesforce, communications efforts and logistics coordination for our convening work.
Spring Seasonal Stewards care about the work of emergence, partnership and of being responsive to the new trends, relationships and opportunities for collaboration. Spring is a time for planting many seeds, tending the soil and intentionally creating partnerships for mutual benefit between our members. The labour of this season requires strong relational and communication skills, people who are adept at building connections between likely allies. The learning about what partnerships can look like and feel like when they are Indigenous led is a key part of this seasons offering to the sector.
Summer Seasonal Stewards are ones who care about the face to face interactions that happen on the land, in community, where celebration and ceremony are front and center. Summer is a time for supporting the labour of bringing people together, learning together, developing strong relational and technical content for members. This is a time where the energy, solutions and wisdom of Indigenous led organizations can shine and be amplified. This season requires a membership manager who focuses on member engagement, convening, training and content development in response to member requests.
Fall Seasonal Stewards care about the labour of our harvest. This is a time for coming to make sense of and understand what we know together, what we’re learning and work toward integrating visible shifts in practice and policy. The labour of this season requires a manager in shared learning and knowledge mobilization. We could amplify our research agenda and make visible the good work happening with and between all our members, as well continue to build on increased data sharing for learning about the sector and it’s giving to Indigenous led organizations.
It is our hope to secure multi year seasonal stewardship of $175K in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. This would enable us to scale our boldest vision for true systems level change between Indigenous led charitable organizations and the philanthropic sector. It would enable a fully staffed, truly national team to respond to and amplify the operations, partnerships, engagement and shared learning while being an organization that offers equitable pay, benefits and dedicated program dollars for each season of our work.
None of our work can thrive without the dedication of a strong staff team and regular programmatic dollars in order to scale a vision for change in shared learning, evaluation, research, relationship building and convening.
Seasonal Stewards are offered opportunities to engage in all of our shared learning gatherings, in person and online, as well, we request their active participation in making their learning visible by sharing their voice and reflection to their peers through our seasonal newsletter. We will also seek to engage our seasonal stewards bi annually in line with our All My Relations Gathering to hear from them about the emerging trends, concerns or shifts that we can learn from and pay attention to.
If you or your organization is prepared to be a part of a national community seeking to create change, please be in touch directly with Kris Archie at: kris@circleonphilanthropy.ca
WHY ADD A SEASONAL STEWARD MODEL?
Over the past year we’ve been working to integrate an operational and governance focus aligned to the four seasons - Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Out of necessity, our tiny but mighty team of two needed a way to both conceptualize and action a sustainable, nourishing and meaningful set of activities for our members that was responsive and of high value. Our ability to achieve this has everything to do with our focus on asking and answering the following questions in each of the four seasons:
- What does the land teach us about how to be in relationship to self and others?
- How can we, as humans, use our energy to serve and be served by the land?
- What does this teach us about the type of labour we must undertake in each season to mobilize our efforts for nourishment, innovation and sustainability?
- How can we create an atmosphere of learning, reciprocity and integration in our day to day and governance operations?
We're excited to continue developing and finding alignment between our work and the four seasons alongside bold philanthropic organizations eager to co-develop our vision of Seasonal Stewardship in creative and unique ways.