Named one of Canada’s Top employers in 2025, the First Nations Market Housing Fund (the Fund) has a range of employees supporting their mandate of increasing on-reserve homeownership. Jennifer Martin, an employee whose skills and experience make her a natural fit for linking First Nations clients to ongoing support in meeting their goals, is one such team member.
Jennifer began her relationship with the Fund while serving her community in administration at Membertou First Nation on Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island). After four years working at the Nation, she advanced to the role of Policy Coordinator. In 2017, she attended the Leading People and Investing to Build Sustainable Communities program at Harvard Business School and received her Certified Aboriginal Professional Administrator (CAPA) certification with AFOA Canada.
Jennifer was a driving force in making Membertou the first First Nation in the country to achieve the Financial Management System (FMS) certification, and implementing Membertou’s on-reserve homeownership programs. She benefited doubly from the project’s success— building her own home while laying the groundwork for other band members to build theirs.
This professional experience with the Fund, combined with her education, drive, and personal homebuilding experience, made her a natural choice for a Senior Program Officer (SPO) role with FNMHF. In 2022, she learned about the position at a housing conference. Winning the position inspired Jennifer to finish her First Nations Housing Professional (FNHP) certification from the First Nations Housing Professionals Association in 2023.
At her band, she served her community members. “Working for the First Nation, I was supporting my family. Working for the Fund is like supporting my extended family,” she says of her role. She walks with administrators and housing managers from start to finish, supporting them through the review process for Capacity Development, planning their steps to achieving Credit Enhancement (CE) certification, and implementing the Credit Enhancement product that guarantees members’ on-reserve housing loans through their Nations’ housing markets.
An SPO’s business and strategic planning skills are put to good use, guiding the creation of business processes and policies to ensure each housing program supports the community’s vision. Although she meets with Chief and Council, her primary contact is often in the same role she used to hold at Membertou. Jennifer’s daily tasks vary greatly, but she routinely communicates with her clients for hours each day.
She coordinates other Fund employees to work with her clients on their capacity-building initiatives. Like their SPO peers inside the Fund, Capacity Development (CD) consultants bring unique personalities and skill sets to their work. “Part of my job is matching each Nation with a CD Provider. The fit has to be right and I don’t always get it right the first time.” “It would be really boring if we were all the same,” Jennifer responds when questioned about common traits among the Fund’s four SPOs.
The SPOs regularly interact with other teams, like Finance and Human Resources. On the road, she may visit First Nations with another SPO, an Associate Program Director, or Anthony Eneas, the Fund’s only Homeownership Navigator.
She travels by car or plane, as SPO clients are not divided by region. She explains how this aligns with the Fund’s role in forging paths to homeownership. “Each Nation is so different, and learning from each helps me better support my other clients.” Interacting with clients at all stages of engagement helps her be a better guide in setting up an on-reserve housing market so that people can build homes.
For Jennifer and the other SPOs, their work with Nations keeps them busy and doesn’t have an end date. Jennifer has developed several new client relationships with First Nations since she started at the Fund in January 2023 and will likely maintain her clients as long as she’s there. Jennifer also shares her colleague’s excitement about being governed by an all-First Nations board. Within the staff, she says, it “feels like I’m working for an Indigenous organization”.
Her joyful, calm energy and earnest honesty likely make working with the Fund pleasant for her clients. Jennifer has been on the receiving end of the Fund’s support since she built her home, taking out a mortgage-rate loan to do roof repairs. Building her home “was a lot of work. A lot of work,” she emphasizes. She has always lived on the reserve, except for a couple of years in Ottawa after graduation. Working for the Fund has supported Jennifer to continue living in the community she loves.
Jennifer’s motivation to help First Nations reach their goals is electric. “Building capacity in the areas we support creates capacity in a lot of other areas they’re working on.” Since starting, she’s led two clients to the Credit Enhancement phase.
Listening is the skill she uses the most every day, says Jennifer. She agrees it takes a lot of energy–so how does she relax?
Hockey season is Jennifer’s other passion. She likes to travel to games and cheer on her favourite team, the Boston Bruins. She loves the fall season and the long weekends; she enjoys watching hockey with family and friends. Drinking coffee or Red Rose Tea, she’s also often on the road visiting her clients and in community as President of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association.
Interested in working with the team at FNMHF? Learn more about open positions like Service Program Officer here.