Working with Aboriginal Communities

British Columbia’s Aboriginal communities offer a rich thread of culture and history to the fabric of our province. We’re proud to work with Aboriginal people and First Nations to provide funding programs for individuals and organizations, hold endowment funds and planned gifts, and to host First Nations’ settlement funds.

We manage two funds endowed by the Government of B.C. that provide awards and bursaries for Aboriginal students through the Irving K. Barber B.C. Scholarship Society’s Aboriginal Student Award. Two additional funds were established by the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development to support adoption and permanency and people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and many of the grants from these have gone to organizations that serve Aboriginal people.We also regularly provide grants to many Aboriginal organizations through our Community Grants program, supporting projects such as Aboriginal language preservation, learning programs for Métis and First Nations middle school youth, and a preschool program at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre.

As well, the Victoria Foundation was selected as the trustee for two significant settlements between B.C. Hydro, the Province of B.C. and each of the Kwadacha and Tsay Keh Dene Nations. These settlements were for damage done as a result of construction of the Williston Dam in the 1960s.The funds are improving the social and economic well-being of the members of these Nations, for example by funding health workers, school upgrades and supplies, a safe house for children, community greenhouses, a society for elders, and equipment for managing reservoir lands.