Design de Plume carefully created this Indigenous Communications Toolkit, providing you with foundational principles and practical guidance to empower you to build trust, deepen your cultural competency, and communicate more intentionally and respectfully with Indigenous Peoples, Nations, and communities across all your projects.
This toolkit is designed to help staff move beyond simply checking a box and arm you with the principles and practices needed for relational, informed, and reciprocal communication. It’s a starting point to help you ask better questions and ensure your work affirms Indigenous sovereignty and honours specificity.
By using this toolkit, you will be able to:
Take Ownership and Build Confidence: Gain the specific language recommendations, foundational principles, and reflection prompts needed to self-assess your work and lead communications efforts with humility and clarity. This reduces the need to constantly rely on the Indigenous Office for basic guidance.
Lead with Relationship: Shift your focus from "What should we say?" to building sustained, accountable trust and understanding who you're speaking with before crafting a message.
Be Specific, Not Generic: Identify and correct frequent pitfalls like pan-Indigenous generalizations, treating engagement as a one-time event, and using outdated or harmful terminology rooted in colonial violence.
Avoid Common Missteps: Identify and correct frequent pitfalls like pan-Indigenous generalizations, treating engagement as a one-time event, and using outdated or harmful terminology rooted in colonial violence.
Master Respectful Writing: Use the practical guidance, Do's and Don'ts, and real-world rewrite examples to avoid "saviour" language, centre community strengths, and always secure consent before sharing stories or teachings.
Assess Your Work Critically: Utilize reflection prompts and activity exercises, like the "Editing Checklist" and "Message Mapping," to audit your communications for consent, compensation, and accountability before you publish or share.