Five recent engagements, and the program we are building next.
We do not name clients. Regions, sectors and the size of the work are kept so you can judge it. Every statement is true to the record. Each case opens with the short version; the full story is one click below it.
Nations that own the company whose economic development arm Willow built in 2026
In funding applications filed for communities in 2026, from a heritage building to a community hub
Councils that said yes to a Willow-built proposal in one quarter: two Chiefs and Councils, one municipal Council
Years running regulated, capital-heavy work for industry and government, now turned toward Nations
A development corporation about to deploy capital
Northwestern Ontario · 2026 · for the economic development arm of a company owned by 24 Nations
- A Nation’s development corporation had two gold projects, a new road and a tree nursery coming, and more work than people.
- Willow mapped the work ahead, designed a shared regional office, and wrote the decision paper.
- The owner company said yes in principle in four days.
What it shows: Willow can turn a training inquiry into a regional partnership, and write it up so a CEO can decide in a weekend.
Read the full case
The situation
A remote First Nation’s development corporation had just opened a regional office and was heading into the busiest stretch in its history. Two gold projects in its territory, one of them newly approved by Ottawa after a long review. A multi-million-dollar all-season road with dozens of environmental conditions to meet. A tree-seedling nursery partnership with a major grower. An energy program. Every project needed training, project management, monitoring and administration, and the corporation was hiring faster than it could fill seats. It wanted one partner to help run all of it.
What Willow did
The relationship started with a survey reply. Willow carried it from a Councillor to the Chief and the corporation’s leaders, and met them in person at their office. We mapped every project to the work it would create over three stages: the road and nursery crews now, mine construction in one to three years, and two operating mines after that. We designed the partnership: a regional office hosted by the corporation, fair-market rates, two clear channels so each side got credit for the work it brought in, and no exclusivity. We wrote the decision paper for the owner company’s CEO with the first paid job already identified, and managed the partner’s wish to announce before anything was signed.
The result
The owner company said yes in principle within four days. Its leaders attended the corporation’s showcase as invited guests. The model became the template for regional offices with other owner Nations.
Building the business arm of a company owned by 24 Nations
Northwestern Ontario · January to September 2026 · hired as the Economic Development Division
- A company owned by 24 Nations had a strong training record and no way to find or win business.
- In nine months Willow built the website, the contact system, the surveys, the industry outreach and the first funding application.
- Thirteen live opportunities, two Councils saying yes, and a full-time lead hired to run what Willow built.
What it shows: Willow builds the engine and then hands it over. The Nation keeps what was built.
Read the full case
The situation
The company is owned by 24 First Nations and was formed to hold their share of a major power line. It had a strong training record, hundreds of people trained with a 90% completion rate, and no business side: no website of its own, no customer system, no way to hear from the owner Nations at scale, and a pipeline that lived in people’s heads.
What Willow did
- Built the public face: a seven-page website with a verified map of all 24 Nations, mission and vision in syllabics, and material for industry and government readers.
- Built the operating system: a contact system set up from scratch, text-messaging registration, staff training, and a dashboard the leaders actually read.
- Listened at scale: three surveys answered by seven Nations, two of them by their Chiefs, then one wave of emails to more than 30 named people across 20 communities, in a fire season.
- Opened industry: close to 100 company contacts in two rounds, 17 personal approaches, and meetings with lithium, nickel and gold developers and a forest-products company.
- Put product on the shelf: a procurement playbook and opportunity tracker, seven ready-to-use business models a Nation can adopt, an own-and-train model, and a medical travel lodge package.
- Applied for capital: a federal expression of interest for community facilities, in the millions for each Nation, filed on the owner Nations’ behalf.
The result
By the July report there were 13 live opportunities worth about half a million dollars in first-year value, two qualified industry accounts, one Nation’s Chief and Council approving a project in August, and a second saying yes in principle to a regional office. The company then hired a full-time business development lead to run the pipeline. Willow handed over the contact system, a briefing and the source files, not a pile of emails.
A displaced community rebuilding from the ground up
Northern Manitoba · 2024 to present · adviser to the community’s association and its elected leaders
- A community pushed off its home lake by a hydro project, not a recognized band, with a new Council and no staff.
- Willow stood up the administration piece by piece: governance, the recognition file, funding applications, a member register, a jobs channel into a mine camp.
- Within two years: a working board, a file before Canada, more than nine million dollars in applications, and a seat at a regional table.
What it shows: Willow can stand up the administration of a Nation from zero, at the leadership’s pace, without replacing it.
Read the full case
The situation
A community displaced from its home lake by a hydro development, living in a nearby town and run through a non-profit association funded by a settlement. Not a band under the Indian Act, so shut out of most federal programs. A new Headman and Council were elected in late 2023 with a mandate to rebuild, no staff, and a dormant corporation in default with the companies registry.
What Willow did
Everything a Nation’s administration would do, one piece at a time, with the leadership deciding each step.
- Governance: Board briefings and resolutions, an annual meeting package, a partnership agreement with a 70/30 development corporation, honoraria and finance administration, and bringing the corporation back into good standing.
- Recognition: the historical record and the legal package for formal recognition as a band, built with national counsel and an archival researcher.
- Capital: a community hub application to the federal infrastructure fund, fully funded and in the eight figures. A community enterprise plan, in the high six figures, put in front of three provincial Ministers. A federal economic development application. Participant funding for the environmental review of a gold mine next door. A healing-gathering campaign with six funding letters signed in one day.
- Jobs: a hiring channel into a 400-person mine camp, a readiness program with the school division’s adult education arm, and a laundry and linen services proposal to the camp.
- Members: a member register and declaration system, and member communications by email and text.
- Region: a founding seat for the community at a proposed Rocky Cree resource table hosted by a larger neighbouring Nation.
The result
Within two years of the election the community has a working board, a recognition file before Canada, applications in the queue worth more than nine million dollars, its first mine-camp hiring channel, and a seat at a regional table. Every document belongs to the community.
A northern town’s heritage building and the federal grant
Northern Manitoba · July 2025 to present · appointed agent for the town
- A northern town’s century-old heritage building and museum had no fire protection and nobody to carry the federal grant application.
- Willow took the file as the town’s agent, built the funding stack and wrote the full package, at no fee for the application.
- Filed on time and under review. Decision expected spring 2027.
What it shows: Willow does the same work for municipalities as for Nations, and will carry a file at its own risk when the case is good.
Read the full case
The situation
A town’s century-old courthouse, a designated heritage building, houses a museum with tens of thousands of objects in storage, including hundreds of Indigenous items, and thousands of visitors and dozens of school programs a year. It had no fire suppression. A system had been quoted at about $200,000. The town had the will and a federal program existed, but nobody to carry the application.
What Willow did
Willow took the file as the town’s appointed agent, at no fee for the application itself. We worked out the funding stack so the town’s share came from a federal transfer it already received, meeting the program’s two-thirds rule without new local money, and lined up a provincial heritage grant as the backstop. We wrote the full narrative over a dozen drafts, built the budget and the complete package, walked the controller and the museum director through the form, and secured a unanimous Council resolution. We approached the neighbouring Cree Nation’s leadership for a letter of support and a role in the Indigenous collection.
The result
The application was filed on time, and the federal program confirmed the same week that its review had started. A decision is expected in spring 2027. The town pays Willow only for coordination and administration if the project goes ahead.
Mining: both sides of the table
Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario and the Ring of Fire · 2025 to present
- Mining companies need a partnership a Nation would sign. Nations need to know what the company’s plan really means for them.
- Willow has written a company’s development plan and budget, run a junior explorer’s first Nation outreach, and helped a Nation beside a new gold mine get ready to win the camp work.
- Companies get a plan a Nation would sign. Nations get an honest read and a plan to own a share.
What it shows: Willow has written the company’s development plan and sat with the Nation that has to live with it. That is why both sides take the call.
Read the full case
The situation
Mining companies need a partnership a Nation would sign. Nations need to know what the company’s plan really means for them. Willow has worked on both sides of that table, in Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario and the Ring of Fire.
What Willow did
- For an iron project in Treaty 3 still in development, with a build above a billion dollars ahead of it: wrote the confidential project briefing and the development-phase plan and budget for the principals, including the Indigenous partnership structure the project would need to get financed.
- For a junior explorer with claims near several Nations: consultation letters, and the scope and terms of a Nation-relations program ahead of a field season.
- For a Nation beside a 25-year gold mine entering construction: secured federal participant funding for the environmental review. Mapped the camp-services and job opportunities around a 400-person camp. Opened the relationship with the camp operator. Built the member hiring channel.
- For industry at large: a scored list of 14 companies across gold, lithium, nickel, chromite and forest products, from the Ring of Fire to the Manitoba nickel belt; two rounds of outreach; and meetings with developers in each sector, including the Ring of Fire’s lead nickel developer.
The result
Companies get a development plan a Nation would actually sign. Nations get an honest read of what is coming, and a plan to own a share of it.
The Regional Resource Coalition: one table for a mining region.
In development with Nations in northern Manitoba · 2026 · built to be repeated wherever a mine is coming
When a big mine arrives, each Nation in the region usually faces the company alone: its own consultation file, its own benefit talks, its own fight for the contracts. The company deals with one table at a time, and the region’s money leaves one truck at a time. The Coalition changes that.
- One table, hosted by a Chief. The Nations of the region deal with the mine, the utility and the government with one voice, through one consultation office. Every vote belongs to the Nations.
- It pays for itself. Federal consultation funding gets it started. Industry agreements, member dues and a small share of every Coalition business’s sales carry it, with the goal of more than half the budget coming from the Nations’ own sources by year three.
- Businesses come out of it. Camp services, crew transport, workforce housing, labour supply, environmental monitoring: each one a Nation-owned company, 51% or more, with a capital partner repaid first and an exit written on day one.
- Willow runs the office under contract. Manager, secretariat and developer, with no vote and no seat, approved by the Chiefs and stepping out of every decision that touches its own contracts.
- Built to be copied. The agreements, the funding applications, the business templates and the exit terms are written once, then carried to the next region: Ontario’s Ring of Fire, the Manitoba nickel belt, northern Saskatchewan. Same model, new Nations, new mine.
What it shows: the biggest value in a mining region is not any one contract. It is the table where the contracts are decided.
Every table in the chain.
Provincial Ministers and their deputies. Federal program officers at Indigenous Services, Canadian Heritage, PrairiesCan and the impact assessment agency. Chiefs, Headmen and Councils. Band Managers and Economic Development Officers. Mayors, town managers and controllers. Mine developers from junior explorers to producers, camp operators, national law firms, and the archives.
Willow has written the company’s development plan and sat with the Nation that has to live with it. Both sides take the call.