Winnipeg, Manitoba — Serving Central Canada: Manitoba, Saskatchewan & Northwestern Ontario
Mines, pipelines and power lines get built when the Nation and the company both trust the deal. We help build deals that hold.
Willow-ICS works with First Nations, and with the companies that come to their land. Nations hire us to move deals forward, win funding and keep the money at home. Mining, pipeline, energy and forestry companies hire us to build partnerships with Nations that last. Thirty years in the field. Chief-and-Council relationships. Both sides of the table. One standard.
Senior help, on your terms.
We help you move deals forward, keep money in the community, win funding, and get big decisions ready for Council. You set the direction. We work at your pace. Your team keeps what we build.
Start HerePartnerships that hold up.
Help with consultation, benefit agreements, joint ventures, and the records that prove you did it right — from a liaison the Nations already know. No project gets built without a partnership that lasts, and none is built from a template.
See How We Work With IndustryWe sit in the middle — on purpose.
"Nations decide who they work with. Our job is to give them the facts, the plan, and the bargaining power to make that choice — and to make sure the money and benefits from any deal stay in the community."
— Darrel W. Olson, PresidentMost go-betweens stay neutral. They set up the meeting and step back. We don't. We work for whoever hired us, and we hold one rule no matter who pays: the deal has to be one both sides would still sign ten years from now. Companies hire us because that rule is what buys them a partnership that lasts. The same Nations will be at the table on the next project, and the one after that.
We have walked away from deals, and the fees that came with them, when they failed that ten-year test. That is how you know the rule is real. It is also why the relationships behind this work are still intact after thirty years.
The rules have changed. Nations are now owners.
Canada has set aside more than $13 billion to help Nations buy into resource projects, through the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program and Ontario's own fund. Ottawa is fast-tracking critical-minerals projects. Nations are no longer just consulted. They are owners, lenders and long-term partners. The hardest thing to find on any project now is the person who can build a deal that holds.
For companies
A project without a solid Nation partnership carries a risk you have not priced. Engagement done late, thin or wrong costs years. And word travels between Nations faster than any company expects.
For Nations
The money now exists for real ownership. But only well-built deals qualify for it, and only well-built deals keep the value at home. The structure is where you win or lose.
For both
You will meet again. The same Nations, companies and advisors sit down on the next project. We build every agreement to hold the day it is signed and ten years later.
One main practice. Five things behind it.
Mining and resource liaison leads the firm. Behind it is everything needed to make a deal stick.
Industry & Resource Liaison
Consultation, benefit agreements, Nation–company partnerships, and records that stand up to review — in mining, pipelines, energy and forestry, plus planning help for projects still in development.
How we work with industry →Deals & Business Structures
Joint ventures, limited partnerships, contracts, business cases and funding — pushed to the finish line, not just to paper.
Learn More →Keeping Money in the Community
Buying power, community-owned businesses, and Nations purchasing together, so the money earned at home stays at home.
Learn More →Council Decision Packages & Plans
Briefing packages for Chief and Council, strategic plans and governance documents. Professional work, ready when you need it.
Learn More →Funding & Capital
Finding the right programs, writing the applications, and planning capital projects. Federal, provincial, industry and private sources.
Learn More →Websites, Contact Systems & Engagement Tools
Websites, contact systems, surveys, newsletters and consultation records. The tools of a bigger organization, without hiring a tech team.
Learn More →Thirty years. Several sectors. Real results.
Years running regulated, capital-heavy work for industry and government, now turned toward Nations
In community funding arranged or applied for on behalf of Nations and partners
Year Willow-ICS was founded. Serving Nations and their partners ever since
Provinces and territories worked in, from the Prairies to Baffin Island
Work that moves things forward.
A Northwestern Ontario Nation’s development corporation had two gold projects, a new all-season road and a tree nursery coming, and wanted one partner to help run it all. Willow mapped the work ahead, designed a shared regional office and wrote the decision paper.
Outcome: Yes in principle from the partner’s CEO within four days.
Read the case →A website, a contact system, surveys answered by seven Nations, 97 industry contacts, seven ready-to-use business models and a federal facilities application. Built in nine months and handed to a new full-time lead.
Outcome: 13 live opportunities and two Councils saying yes in one quarter.
Read the case →Board governance, a band-recognition file with national counsel, more than nine million dollars in applications, a member register, and a hiring channel into a 400-person mine camp. For a community that is not yet a band.
Outcome: A working board, a file before Canada, and a seat at a regional table within two years.
Read the case →We do not name clients. Regions and scale are kept so you can judge the work. See all five cases →
A first conversation costs nothing.
Whether you are a company planning your next project or a Nation weighing an offer already on the table, a thirty-minute call is the right place to start.
Request a Conversation