Our funding priorities outline the causes we support to further our mission and vision. Through our Grant Program you can apply for funds for charitable initiatives in the following three areas.
1. Children, Youth & Families
We believe that all children, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, deserve opportunities to thrive. We support charities that equip children, youth, and families with skills, resources, and opportunities to reach their full potential.
We prioritize:
Programs supporting equity-seeking youth
Efforts to target root causes of problems and not just address the symptoms
Comprehensive, integrated solutions rather than fragmented approaches or isolated interventions
Leadership representative of the people most directly affected by the problems we seek to solve
A commitment and willingness to ongoing evaluation and learning in order to improve and increase impact
Our grants empower organizations that enable economically vulnerable young people and families to overcome barriers to academic success, economic prosperity, and health and wellbeing.
We support organizations that collectively create a ladder of opportunities from early childhood to young adulthood and independence. We look for partners that foster positive youth development through education, post-secondary pathways, work related learning, and routes to employment.
The most promising approaches to social and economic mobility create opportunities for and address the needs of the “whole family”. To that end, we also strive to empower charities that create entrepreneurship and career opportunities for family members and provide the supports to pursue those opportunities. This requires a combination of resources across educational, employment, social, and health programs designed to serve children and their parents together.
We support the provision of clinical and therapeutic mental health interventions to school-age youth and emerging adults, ideally in partnership with their families and/or support systems. We acknowledge the toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on young people’s mental health. The pandemic both illuminated and exacerbated a mental health crisis that is being inadequately addressed, particularly for low-income families who struggle to afford care or find effective providers. This priority is not intended to include generalized positive youth development unless associated with a clinical or therapeutic intervention.
We know that access to healthy and nutritious food is a critical building block of health, wellness, education, and opportunity. We support programs that create and facilitate access to this fundamental basic need as well as related stabilizing supports that address chronic food insecurity. We are also interested in meeting the needs of food insecure families by supporting efforts to improve broader food systems at the point of production or distribution, such as food rescue and food waste reduction efforts. This priority is intended to go beyond provision of emergency food in episodic interventions and does not include support for food banks.
While we very much welcome applications for projects that serve Indigenous youth across the above themes, we also seek to provide core, general operating support to Indigenous-led organizations serving Indigenous youth. Our current focus is on organizations meeting the holistic needs of youth in rural and remote Indigenous communities.
2. Climate Change
We believe that environmental reform is both an absolute necessity and an enormous opportunity for economic growth. We want to help halt and reverse the effects of climate change, build a green economy, and strengthen community resilience.
Our climate change grants support nature-based solutions, renewable and low-emission technologies, green building, and vulnerable communities.
Understanding that greenhouse gas emissions are the driver of climate change, we seek partnerships that focus on Canada’s transition to renewable energy and a net-zero-carbon economy. We believe that technological innovation has always been key to human progress, and so we support projects that are improving energy conservation and developing, implementing, and scaling clean, green, resilient technology.
Natural climate solutions in Canada offer huge potential to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions. We want to support projects that protect and restore priority ecosystems, support Indigenous lands and protected areas, and contribute to sustainable livelihoods amongst local communities.
Construction is a significant part of Canada’s economy, and buildings are a major source of carbon pollution. There’s an opportunity for this sector to reduce emissions, lower energy costs, and create green jobs. We support initiatives that make construction and occupancy environmentally sustainable and affordable. We also look for projects that address the green building skills gap.
Climate change is the greatest economic and health threat in human history. Disadvantaged communities are being disproportionately affected by the consequences. Considering this, we support charities that build community engagement, capacity, and momentum to respond to the challenges of climate change. We value strategies that prioritize people’s health and well-being and build community resilience. Priority areas include clean, affordable energy for vulnerable communities, and Indigenous-led resilience.
3. International Development
In addition to empowering positive impact for ‘Children, Youth & Families’ and ‘Climate Change’ across Canada, we hope to do the same in developing countries. Here we look for partner organizations with a proven track record of demonstrated success in effecting these changes while improving the lives of those they seek to serve.
We prioritize the following themes addressing health and well-being, education and economic opportunities, and climate change.
Every mother and child should have the opportunity to live healthy lives. We want to help reduce maternal mortality and end preventable deaths and diseases in newborns and young children. We look for projects that reduce the burden of diseases, improve nutrition for new and expectant mothers and their babies, strengthen health systems, and promote access to clean water and effective sanitation systems.
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, it’s also a necessary component of a prosperous and sustainable world. Educating and empowering girls has been identified as one of the most effective opportunities to improve the health and well-being of communities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the longer term. We support projects that put women and girls at the centre of economies and, in particular, provide access to opportunity for women engaged in small-scale agriculture.
Types of Support Available
If your work falls within one or more of the priorities above and you’re interested in applying for funding, now’s the time to check out the types of grants available and make note of what we don’t fund.
