Winnipeg, Manitoba — Serving Central Canada: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Treaty 3 territory & Northwestern Ontario
On every resource project, consultation and consent are now the critical path — and the foundation of the ones that succeed.
Willow-ICS is a First Nations engagement and economic development firm. Nations and First Nation-owned companies trust us to move opportunities forward and keep value in the community — and resource proponents in mining, pipelines and energy, and forestry retain us to build partnerships that hold. A thirty-year career in the field. Chief-and-Council-level relationships. Both sides of the table. One standard.
Senior capacity, on your terms.
Help moving deals forward, keeping money in the community, winning funding, and getting big decisions ready for Council — for Nations and First Nation-owned companies. You set the direction. We work at your pace. Your team keeps what we build.
Start HerePartnerships that survive contact with reality.
Consultation strategy, Impact Benefit Agreement support, joint-venture structuring, and engagement records that stand up — delivered by a liaison the Nations already know. No resource project succeeds without a partnership that holds — and none is built by template.
Explore the PracticeWe 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 intermediaries are neutral conduits: they connect parties, facilitate meetings, and step aside. Willow-ICS is not neutral — we are openly loyal to whichever client holds our mandate, under one standard that never changes with the payer: a deal both sides would sign again in ten years. Industry retains us because that standard is not charity to anyone — it is the mechanism that delivers the thing industry is actually buying: durable social license in a market where the same Nations recur across projects, regions, and decades.
We have declined engagements — and the fees that came with them — when the deal on the table failed our test: a partnership both sides would sign again in ten years. That willingness is the guarantee the service is real, and it is why the relationships that make this work possible are still intact after thirty years.
Consent and partnership have become the critical path.
Critical-minerals policy, the federal Major Projects Office, and more than $13 billion in dedicated Indigenous-equity financing — the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program and Ontario's Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program among them — have changed what it takes to build a resource project in Canada. Nations are no longer stakeholders to be consulted. They are owners, lenders, and long-term partners. The scarcest input on any project is now the person who can build a deal that holds.
For proponents
A project without a durable Nation partnership is a project with an unpriced risk on its critical path. Engagement done late, thin, or wrong costs years — and reputations travel between Nations faster than any proponent expects.
For Nations
The financing now exists for real equity participation — but only well-structured deals qualify — and capture the value. Structure is where partnerships are won or lost.
For both
This is a repeated game. The same Nations, companies, and advisors will meet again on the next project. Willow builds every agreement to be defensible the day it is signed and the decade after.
One flagship practice. Five supporting pillars.
The mining and resource liaison practice leads the firm. Behind it sits the full advisory and operational capability that makes every engagement stick.
Industry & Resource Liaison
Consultation and accommodation navigation, IBA negotiation support, Nation–industry partnership facilitation, and consultation records that stand up to scrutiny — across mining, pipelines and energy, and forestry, with project development services for development-stage assets.
The Liaison Practice →Economic Development & Opportunity Structuring
Joint ventures, limited partnerships, procurement strategy, business cases, and funding pathways — moved to closure, not just to paper.
Learn More →Value Retention & Economic Migration Mitigation
Strategies that capture, circulate, and keep economic value in the community — procurement leverage, shared-services LPs, purchasing consortiums.
Learn More →Strategic Advisory & Document Production
Decision packages for Chief and Council, strategic plans, governance documents, and executive-level deliverables that move decisions forward.
Learn More →Capital & Funding Strategy
Proposal development, grant strategy, and capital project advisory across federal, provincial, industry, and private-sector sources.
Learn More →Engagement Systems & Digital Operations
Community engagement platforms, CRM and communications infrastructure, and the consultation-record systems that make engagement auditable.
Learn More →Three decades. Multiple sectors. Measurable results.
Years of senior delivery experience across mining-sector services, environmental remediation, infrastructure, and Indigenous economic development
In cumulative project and capital funding secured for clients and partners
Year Willow-ICS was founded — serving Nations and their partners ever since
Provinces and territories of project geography — from the Prairies to Baffin Island and the eastern Arctic
Work that moves things forward.
Worked with a Northern Manitoba First Nation to develop a multi-year strategic direction, structure a joint venture with a regional industry partner, and stand up the operational infrastructure to manage engagement, reporting, and partner communication.
Outcome: The Nation now operates as an active partner in a sector previously closed to them, with systems that make the engagement sustainable rather than dependent on individual capacity.
Supported an Indigenous-owned organization in scoping a multi-million-dollar capital project, identifying the funding pathway across federal and provincial programs, and producing the proposal package required to move the project to the funding stage.
Outcome: The project secured the funding alignment required to advance, with documentation and reporting infrastructure in place through delivery.
Delivered a strategic and operational build for an Indigenous-owned enterprise — positioning, communications strategy, CRM and engagement infrastructure, and ongoing managed-service support.
Outcome: The enterprise now operates with the strategic and operational systems of a much larger organization.
Engagements described in general terms to protect client confidentiality. Willow-ICS does not name clients publicly without explicit permission.
A first conversation costs nothing.
Whether you are a proponent planning engagement on your next project or a Nation weighing an opportunity already on the table — a thirty-minute discovery call is the right place to start.
Request a Conversation