Deadline: 20-Aug-2025
The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) is accepting applications for its Seed Grant Program. This funding aims to support organizations, municipalities, and First Nations in enhancing how they deliver programs and services that directly benefit community members.
Eligible applicants can request funding to implement projects focused on organizational planning, piloting new programs, or building capacity for future services and programs. The goal is to strengthen organizations’ ability to serve their communities more effectively.
OTF funds initiatives that help build healthy and vibrant communities. Applicants must align their projects with one of the Foundation’s funding priorities. These include promoting physically active lifestyles, fostering community belonging, enriching lives through arts, culture, and heritage, empowering youth with social and leadership skills, supporting environmental conservation, or helping economically vulnerable people meet basic needs and achieve financial stability.
Projects must also align with a specific objective. These include creating or adapting organizational strategies, enhancing digital capacity, improving staff or volunteer skills, or designing and piloting innovative programs that address a clear community need.
Applicants can request between $10,000 and $100,000, and projects may last either 6 or 12 months. Funding is available to eligible non-profit organizations delivering direct, community-based services in Ontario.
Applicants must operate in one of four sectors: sports and recreation, arts and culture, environment, or human and social services. They must have a strong community presence and the capacity to manage funds responsibly and deliver the proposed project.
Eligible organizations include registered charities, incorporated non-profits, Métis and Inuit organizations, and Chartered Community Councils. All First Nations are eligible and can apply on behalf of their libraries. Municipalities with a population of 20,000 or less may apply but only in two priority areas: physically active lifestyles or arts, culture, and heritage. Municipalities over this population threshold are not eligible.
Religious or faith-based groups can apply if they are registered charities or not-for-profit corporations, provided they offer programs and services to the broader community that are non-religious and inclusive to all.
For more information, visit Ontario Trillium Foundation.
