Community Foundations of Canada

Published purpose

The Project is based on the principle of mobilizing new funds and partnerships to support and engage Canada’s community foundations in an effort to accelerate gender equality at the local level. This project will advance gender equality in Canada in two main ways: by providing contribution funding to community foundations to fund projects in their communities, and by weaving in gender equality best practices within community foundations. As such, the Project will directly support action to advance gender equality across Canada by leveraging the broad reach of community foundations. The Project will foster gender equality in Canada and will contribute to removing long-standing barriers to gender equality by catalyzing new investments and partnerships. The Project will provide funding to local women’s organizations through the community foundations for projects to advance gender equality. Community foundations will be encouraged to provide matched funding dollars to the investment already made by WAGE and activate fund development approaches that lean into feminist frameworks and principles. The Project will also address gender equality at the institutional level. Community foundations will be encouraged to make a public commitment to gender equality, create programming that involves gender equality (e.g. hosting a Vital Conversation on Gender Equality) and review their internal policies and procedures (e.g. hiring practices) to prioritize gender equality. Key outcomes of the Project will include increased funding to women’s organizations, increased capacity for equality-seeking organizations, and increased action to advance equality between women and men in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada. The first and second supplemental funding will be used to expand the reach of the project to distribute additional funding to eligible organizations and to further support project activities.