Beyond Acknowledgement
Our commitment to Indigenous acknowledgement, action, relationship, liberation, healing, partnership, and reconciliation.
Background
In 2020 the Community Foundation’s first equity team recommended that the board of directors develop a land acknowledgement statement to complement the work of the equity statement and renewed organizational values. The 2021 board and staff began this process along with consulting support from Tulalip Tribal members Chelsea Craig, Patti Gobin and Board Member Dr. Gerry Ebalaroza-Tunnell.
In Snohomish County three tribes have been federally recognized: the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, the Stillaguamish Tribe, and the Tulalip Tribes.
Purpose
A land acknowledgement is one piece of a broader focus of the Community Foundation on building relationships, acknowledging harm and creating new paths for reconciliation and healing with Indigenous communities. A statement without action is meaningless. Action without understanding and acknowledgement can be reckless and performative. This 2022 document details our start toward collective acknowledgement and action by the Community Foundation board and staff. With the start we will hold ourselves accountable and learn together toward increased commitment and action in relationship with the Indigenous community.
Statement
Community Foundations Snohomish County (CFSC) acknowledges that we currently reside on the ancestral homelands and sacred waters of the Coast Salish people, who have called this place home since time immemorial.
CFSC works toward honoring the aboriginal and treaty rights passed down from generation to generation by committing to build and maintain relationships with the Tulalip Tribes and all allied bands signatory to the 1855 Point Elliott Treaty.
We commit to honoring this acknowledgment through our actions by disrupting systems of oppression within ourselves and hence our organizations and offer recognition and respect to the Coast Salish peoples including the Tulalip Tribes, Sauk-Suiattle and the Stillaguamish Tribe by creating new paths for reconciliation and healing with the Indigenous people of these lands.
Current Action
- Post statement and supporting materials on our website.
- Commissioning a piece of digital artwork for the web page by a local artist that would introduce our Indigenous statement and action.
- Integrate actions into current strategic and operating plans. Update actions annually and post on website.
- Contract to record her one-hour workshop for future board and committee orientations.
- Expand tribal relationships. Share our work thus far and collect feedback. This may include paying rent, connections to local artists and consultants, and engagement of potential board and committee members.
- Purchase and read the book: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
- Read and discuss Accomplices not Allies. https://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/
A Work in Progress & Approved by the Board of Directors 6/29/22
(With Input from Tulalip Tribal Members Chelsea Craig & Patti Gobin)