Background: A case study of an undergraduate scholars program in New York and our long-term partnership with four Indigenous Shuar communities living in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador. Purpose: To introduce principled strategies for building an ethical experiential learning framework based on a decolonization process, Indigenous community work models and integrated perspectives from the multiple stakeholders involved. Method/Approach: A synthesis of academic literature, reflexivity as a team contending with our own decolonization processes, participant observation, and the in-depth interviews with key community members, drawn from semistructured interviews conducted from 2017 to 2018. Findings/Conclusion: The outcome of this synthesis were four distinct principles for a more holistic, ethical, and effective framework: shared investment, shared sense of accountability, pacts of reciprocity, and social bonds. The principles offered emphasize the critical dynamics of ensuring mutual benefit between university programs and Indigenous community partners within an experiential education context. Implications: These principles can be used by institutions to both evaluate the substance of their ethical relations and also develop socially just standards for community engagement and student mentorship when working with Indigenous communities.