Conducting a Principles Check

You’ve now explored land as a relationship, the seven STEWARD principles and their Indigenous roots. This lesson turns those ideas into a practical test. You’ll run a Principles Check on your lead opportunity, find where it is strong and where it falls short, and write a short Relationship Statement that sets out how your project will behave.

A Principles Check is not a box-ticking exercise. Its purpose is to catch problems early, while they are still cheap to fix, and to give you a clear, honest way to explain your project’s values to leadership, partners and the community.

Why check principles now

It is far easier to design principles into a project than to add them later. Once a site is chosen, a partner signed and equipment bought, changing course is expensive. A Principles Check at this stage costs a few hours and can save a project from a costly mistake, or from losing the trust of the community it was meant to serve.

How to run the check

Work through the seven principles one at a time. For each, ask the principle’s question about your lead opportunity, and score it from 1 to 5.

• 1: The project works against this principle.
• 2: The project ignores it.
• 3: The project is neutral or partly meets it.
• 4: The project clearly supports it.
• 5: The project is built around it.

For every score, write one sentence of evidence. A score without a reason is just an opinion.

The questions, as a reminder:

• Strengthen Community: does this make our community stronger, or just the project bigger?
• Think in Generations: will our grandchildren thank us for this decision?
• Enable Local Economies: where does the money go, and how much of it stays?
• Work with Purpose: would the people doing this work be proud to explain it?
• Advance Reconciliation: does this put Indigenous people in a position of ownership and decision?
• Regenerate Resources: will this resource be in better or worse condition after we use it?
• Design with Nature: are we working with the land, or forcing it?

Add the scores for a total out of 35. As a guide, a score above 25 suggests a project built on strong principles. Between 18 and 25, the project has real strengths but needs changes. Below 18, rethink the design before going further.

Red flags

Some issues should stop you regardless of the total score. Watch for these.

• The Nation whose territory the project sits on has not been involved, or has said no.
• The project depends on taking more from the land than it can replace.
• Most of the value would leave the community through outside ownership.
• The community most affected doesn’t know about the project, or opposes it.
• Knowledge or stories are being used without permission.

If any red flag applies, deal with it first.

Turning weak scores into design changes

A low score is useful. It tells you exactly where to improve. For each principle that scores 3 or below, ask: what would it take to raise this by one or two points?

Often the changes are practical. To lift Enable Local Economies, you might buy equipment locally, use a local bookkeeper or change the ownership structure. To lift Advance Reconciliation, you might invite the Nation into a partnership or ownership role. To lift Regenerate Resources, you might add soil monitoring or a restoration commitment. To lift Work with Purpose, you might add a training pathway for young people.

Write down each change, who would make it and what it would cost. Some will be easy. Some will need a conversation with partners. A few may change the project significantly, and that is the point of the check.

Your Relationship Statement

The final step is to write a short Relationship Statement: a few sentences that set out how your project will relate to the land, the people and the future. It is a public promise, and a test you can hold the project to later.

A good Relationship Statement covers four things.

• The land. What the project takes, what it gives back and how it will protect the place.
• The people. Who the project serves, who leads it and how benefits are shared.
• The Nation. Whose territory the project is on and what role the Nation holds.
• The future. What the project aims to leave for generations to come.

For example: “Our compost project takes food and yard waste that would otherwise be landfilled and returns it to local soil. It is led by local people and owned in partnership with the Nation on whose territory it operates. Profits are reinvested in training and community food programs. We will measure soil health and community benefit every year, and aim to leave the land and the community stronger than we found them.”

Keep it short, plain and specific. If you can’t keep a promise, don’t make it.

Honest limits

A Principles Check relies on honest scoring, and it’s natural to score your own idea generously. If you can, ask someone outside the project to score it too, ideally someone from the community or the Nation involved. Where your scores differ, you’ll learn the most.