December 13, 1:00-2:00 PM ET
Free Webinar
*All registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the session. The recording will be available for 60 days.
In an era of evolving environmental and social challenges, how do visionary organizations like Finance Engage Sustain (FES), a youth-led and youth-serving organization, emerge as powerful leaders? And what can they teach both aspiring and established environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs)?
This panel dives into the story behind FES—not just what they do but how they got here—providing insights into their journey from a grassroots initiative engaging 500 schools, 400 towns, and 100,000 youth in Indigenous, rural, and remote areas from 2016 to 2020, to its new era as a youth-led support structure that has provided $1.5M to support the scaling and implementation of over 151 youth-led projects, leveraging an additional $4.5M through training and wrap-around support. Throughout its years, FES has maintained its youth-led nature and community roots.
Hear from FES youth leaders as they reflect on key milestones, share strategies for establishing trust with the communities they serve, and discuss the delicate balance of scaling impact without losing sight of grassroots values. Attendees will gain practical insights on founding and sustaining a mission-driven organization, from recruiting allies and board members to developing robust feedback mechanisms. Whether you're starting out, scaling up, or reimagining your organization’s impact, this session offers a roadmap to redefining environmental leadership and fostering meaningful change.
The Climate Solutions Innovation Forum is a multi-year program that highlights newer innovative environmental nonprofits who share the story to inspire emerging leaders and/or to expose seasoned leaders to new ways of affecting change and reaching new audiences. CSIF shines a light on less traditional policy-oriented NGOs, youth led organizations as well as recently emerged culturally-focused ENGOs mostly at the fringes of the mainstream.
We thank the Ivey Foundation for their funding support of this series.
Our Presenters:
Kat Cadungog (she/her) is Executive Director of FES.
Kat has been acting as the Executive Director for FES since late 2020 and officially came into the position in mid-2021. Kat has had her hand in everything FES. She has collaborated with youth across Canada in over 50 Action Projects in remote, rural, and Indigenous communities when she was Sustainability Project Consultant for FES’ 3% Project. She has also worked in FES’ SDGs portfolio, managing the SDGs Launch Program. Despite the hardships brought by COVID-19, she successfully expanded the SDGs Launch program not only in Canada, but to higher education institutions in the USA and now the UK.
Alyssa Obrand (she/her) is Managing Director of FES.
Alyssa supports the team with financial management and administration tasks, and is in charge of everything from payroll, to invoices, and receipts. Alyssa joined FES in 2021, after finishing her Bachelor of Commerce at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. Now, upon finishing a Masters of Science in Environment, Politics and Society at the University College London in the United Kingdom, she is fulfilling her passion for environmental activism and reimagining the philanthropic sector for youth with FES.
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
Cost: Free
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