Dates: June 11, 18 & 25, 1-2:30 PM ET (Zoom Meetings)
Cost: $40 per seat / $60 for two staff from the same ENGO / $80 for teams of three from the same ENGO. Multiple registrants from the the same organization are encouraged.
*All registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following each session. The recording will be available for 60 days.
This series will take on selected and specific real-world ENGO Government Relations (GR) challenges raised by the participants who will be asked to define their scenarios through a brief survey upon registration.
These real-world ENGO GR challenges will then be workshopped by Aaron in the sessions. Each session will include an outline of principles, context on the political landscape, and an exercise where selected challenges will be addressed. All participants will benefit by seeing how to work through GR challenges. Sessions will be 90 minutes each, including a highly interactive mix of training, a drill-down on specific participant case studies, and discussion.
Registrants will be asked to lay out their specific ENGO GR challenges via responses to a few questions they will see upon registration. Based on the responses, a brief summary of their GR challenge will be shared in advance with the other participants. If you have multiple registrants from your organization you can submit multiple scenarios or concentrate on one for the team. This information needs to be submitted 1-2 weeks before the series begins so we can organize the material for the session.
This series is for those who have at least some experience with GR, and who have had challenges navigating an issue through government. The format will be highly interactive, with opportunities for discussion of specific examples. The main focus will be on the federal government, although there will be the opportunity to raise issues participants are dealing with at provincial or municipal level.
This online workshop series will take place on Zoom Meeting with cameras and audio enabled.
Our Presenter
Aaron Freeman is a Managing Partner and Founder of Pivot Strategic Consulting, which provides government relations and policy advice to companies, NGOs, and Indigenous organizations. He is also the Founder of GreenPAC, Canada’s organization to build environmental leadership in politics. Between 2009 and 2012, Aaron served as a Senior Advisor to the Premier of Ontario. Prior to joining the government, Aaron coordinated several national advocacy campaigns on environment, democratic reform, and human rights issues. He also served as Policy Director for Environmental Defence.
The Hill Times has named Aaron one of the Top 100 Federal Lobbyists in Canada. He has received a King Charles III Coronation Medal, and a Canada Clean50 Award for his work as a Sustainability Champion.
Aaron has taught public governance law at the University of Ottawa and is co-author of The Laws of Government: The Legal Foundations of Canadian Democracy, a book the Ontario Bar Association lists as one of “The Top 15 Books Every Lawyer Should Read.”
Aaron’s new Energy Neighbour initiative provides homeowners with no-cost, one-on-one expert guidance and qualified contractor referrals to make clean energy retrofits easier.
The DEFNP workshop series will offer tailored programming designed to match ENGOs on their decolonial (un)learning journeys. In Spring 2026 members of the ENGO sector will be able to choose one of three workshop tracks: Introduction to Decolonization in the ENGO Sector, Advanced Decolonial Theory and Application or For Indigenous Ears Only - A Space for Reflection and Action. Each series consists of four three-hour sessions.
Collectively, Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships fosters:
Awareness of settler colonialism and the ways it potentially harnesses civil society;
Understanding about how Canadian law such as the Indian Act and the Income Tax Act has suppressed Indigenous governance systems;
Awareness that Indigenous peoples have unique inherent political and legal systems, with which ENGOs may want to form partnerships;
A better understanding about how to navigate partnerships with Indigenous communities that promote decolonial environmentalism;
A stronger sense about how to identify and explain individual and organization social locations (i.e. positionalities) as part of ethical partnership development;
Promoting the resurgence of Indigenous self-determination in the Canadian ENGO sector.
Cost: $100 (Register 2 spots, get the 3rd free)
70 participants max.
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
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 (Register 2 spots, get the 3rd 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: Free
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
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