NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: North Slave Region

Objective(s): To explore the research question: would integration of trust-based philanthropy principles be a feasible way of preventing and alleviating power imbalances between funders and grantees in the Northwest Territories, and if so, how?

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 5528. This project will explore the research question: would integration of trust-based philanthropy principles be a feasible way of preventing and alleviating power imbalances between funders and grantees in the Northwest Territories, and if so, how? In particular, the researchers are interested in how a trust-based philanthropy framework might be used to help strengthen relationships between funders and grantees. This project will look at whether and how non-profit organizations based in the Northwest Territories have experienced and are experiencing power imbalances within their funding arrangements and granting practices. Looking at the funder-grantee relationships within the funding structures in the Northwest Territories will contribute to a greater understanding of whether and how trust-based philanthropy can be applied to Northern communities. There is current research and conceptual work suggesting that such power structured can be rethought using a trust-based lens, but this has not been examined in practice to date. Understanding how this can help Northern organization and their capacity and community impact is crucial future of grant-making. This study will use semi-structured interviews with organization representative(s) who have experience in applying for funding for their respective organization, i.e., project manager, executive director, etc. The sampling method will be purposive, which is a form of non-probability sampling whereby researchers use their understanding of the conceptual framework/literature to select participants who can provide in-depth information and offer knowledgeable responses about the phenomenon of interest. Initial invitations will be sent to a fairly broad cross-section of non-profit organizations (that are not connected with the student researcher's organization; see below) in a variety of different fields but who all have experience in grant-seeking and/or completing funding applications. Those individuals/organizations who are interested in participating will be contacted to arrange an interview, up to the point of theoretical saturation which we anticipate to be about 10-15 organizations in total. Interviews will be audio-recorded for transcription purposes only and are anticipated to be approximately 60 minutes in duration, on average. The interviews may run slightly longer or shorter, depending on the interviewee. Criteria for including participants: -Based in the Northwest Territories -Not-for-profit, non-profit or charitable organization -Organization must be receiving funding (i.e. have received a grant through an application process) -Interviewee must be involved and familiar with the funding application process Criteria for excluding participants: The student researcher (Sophie Kirby) is the Executive Director of the Yellowknife Community Foundation, and is often directly involved with organizations in the Yellowknife area as the funder. Recognizing this, we will ensure that participants are only affiliated with organization the Yellowknife Community Foundation is NOT working with; that is, the researcher will invite/recruit only those organization who are not involved with, dependent on, or affiliated with the Yellowknife Community Foundation. A consent form will be shared with the participants. Online and in-person, the interviewee will be given the option to decline an interview or sign the consent form and proceed with the interview process. It is clear that they can withdraw consent at any time. The methodology will be open-ended questions and conversations with interviewees and participants, i.e. semi-structured interviews. As an initial form of contact and communication for recruitment/invitation purposes, email will be used. No potential identifiers of interviewees will be attached to the interview outcomes, such as transcripts or notes. Each participants will be identified by a unique participant number, separate from their personal information. Following from the exclusion criteria described above, the student researcher will contact the eligible organizations by email with a letter of invitation to create initial contact and inform them about the study. The organizations that indicate their interest/willingness to participate will be contacted by email to arrange interview time/day and location. The collected data, once analyzed, will be presented by the student researcher in various forms associated with completion of her thesis, including written documents and presentations. Only anonymized and/or aggregate information will be presented/written, including themes and patterns, and anonymized quotes that do not contain any identifying information of the participant or their organization. Following completion of the thesis requirements, the researcher(s) will share a summary of the high-level aggregate themes and findings with the participants, as is promised as a benefit of participating. The researcher(s) may have opportunity to disseminate the findings via normal research outlets such as conference papers, manuscripts or parts thereof, or practitioner articles. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: May 09 - December 31, 2023