Government of Canada launches Call for Proposals to support LGBTQ Organizations

Deadline: 30 April 2020

The Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development have launched the Government of Canada’s LGBTQ community capacity fund call for proposals.

The Government of Canada is investing to strengthen LGBTQ organizations and support the vital work they do to create a fairer, more equal, and more inclusive Canada.

This Fund’s objective is to build stronger capacity and networks of LGBTQ community organizations to advance LGBTQ equality across Canada.

Projects

This Fund will support projects that will strengthen capacity of LGBTQ community organizations and networks in one or more of the following ways:

• Building managerial capacity (for example, board governance, strategic planning);
• Enhancing technical expertise within organizations;
• Strengthening collaboration among organizations (for example, establishing formalized networks, resource sharing);
• Ensuring long-term sustainability (for example, diversification of funding sources);
• Increasing access to evidence, data, information, and knowledge sources (for example, environmental scans to assess community needs);
• Advancing LGBTQ equality with an intersectional approach, such as race, age, official language (for example, to ensure that barriers are not created within the program, leaders should recognize that activities and discussions will have different meanings for different individuals);
• Improving access to funding opportunities (for example, developing knowledge and expertise in grant writing);
• Amplifying sector capacity at large (for example, enhancing technical expertise).

Funding Information

Funding will be allocated under two streams:

• For organizations that are incorporated or registered:
  • Projects need to focus on building (one or more of the following):
    • The internal capacity of organization;
    • Sector capacity through creation of evidence and knowledge about LGBTQ community needs;
    • Network-building within sectors (for example, sectors such as Two-Spirit Community, Trans, others);
    • Collaborative initiatives between organizations located in different cities or regions.
• Under this stream, organizations can apply for funding for the following maximum amounts:
  • Up to $400,000 for organizations with a pan-Canadian scope for projects that support pan-Canadian collaborations or capacity development.
  • Up to $300,000 for organizations with a regional, provincial/territorial or interprovincial/inter-territorial scope that support regional, provincial/territorial or interprovincial/inter-territorial collaborations or capacity development.
  • Up to $100,000 for organizations with a local scope that support capacity development.
• For organizations that are not yet incorporated or registered:
  • Organizations can apply for up to $25,000 as long as they take the necessary steps to become incorporated or registered. Newly incorporated or registered organizations will then also be able to undertake additional capacity-building activities.

Note: This funding stream is not eligible for the additional 25% for northern or remote areas.

Duration

Projects should aim to start no earlier than october 2020 and must be completed by March 31, 2022.

Activities

• Eligible project activities may include, but are not limited to:
  • Organizational governance
    • Evaluating and improving board effectiveness or creating a board or governing body.
    • Developing the mission and mandate.
    • Establishing bylaws and policies.
  • Organizational financial health
    • Supporting and enhancing long-term financial sustainability.
    • Improving grant writing skills.
    • Diversifying funding sources.
  • Partnership development, collaboration, networking
    • Building and improving partnerships to strengthen the not-for-profit LGBTQ sector.
    • Improving organizational diversity and inclusion through anti-racism and anti-oppression training, initiatives and engagement with diverse LGBTQ communities.
    • Supporting the ability to create opportunities for members of LGBTQ communities to gather, connect, network, share knowledge, and exist safely in a collaborative space.
  • Human resources management
    • Establishing and implementing recruitment, training and retention strategies.
  • Advocacy planning
    • Building organizational capacity to affect change through the development of an advocacy strategy (excludes conducting advocacy activities).
  • Strategic planning
    • Developing and implementing an organizational strategic plan, including regular results evaluation.
    • Developing a strategy to streamline an organization’s resources or to coordinate or share resources with other organizations.
    • Increasing organizational capacity to expand the reach, effectiveness and efficiency of services. Activities cannot include direct service delivery.
  • Skills development
    • Supporting the development or enhancement of skills, such as leadership training for Executive.
    • Directors, technology literacy, project management, financial bookkeeping, or any other technical skill whose improvement is deemed necessary to enhance an organization’s ability to advance LGBTQ equality.
    • Supporting the development, use and dissemination of tools and products for learning and skills development of employees or volunteers of the applicant organization and/or other eligible organizations.
    • Providing mentoring and coaching to enhance the skill base of other organizations to improve their ability to advance LGBTQ equality.
  • Increase of evidence and knowledge of LGBTQ challenges and barriers
    • Engaging with a target audience in an effort to better determine its needs and to align services.
    • Conducting research to identify the needs of the LGBTQ community and to address barriers to LGBTQ equality.
  • Pan-Canadian and/or regional collaborations
    • Building better linkages between organizations (for example, by linking organizations, networks, governments, or services) for the benefit of advancing equality for LGBTQ people in Canada.
• Incorporation or registration
  • Establishing the structure of the corporation and completing the appropriate forms.

Ineligible project activities include, but are not limited to:

• Activities that take place outside of Canada or that address issues relevant to other countries.
• Activities that generate commercial advantage or profit, or are part of day-to-day operations of the organization.
• Ongoing or new services or expansion of existing service and/or programming (for example, direct community services, health and wellness programs, career training services).
• Training or development of individual(s) working within the organization that do not relate to organization needs (to be eligible, training would have to enhance the capacity of the organization, not just the individual).
• Undertaking capital renovations and construction, including procurement, lease or rental of real property.
• Carrying out advocacy activities.
• Religious or politically partisan activities.

Eligibility Criteria

• All applicants under the LGBTQ Community Capacity Fund must be not-for-profit organizations.
• Organizations should work primarily or entirely with LGBTQ communities as stated in their mandate, visions or efforts:
  • Organizations who do not work primarily or entirely with LGBTQ communities must provide a justification as to why they should be funded.
• Eligible organizations may submit only one application for funding in this call for proposals.

For more information, visit https://cfc-swc.gc.ca/fun-fin/lgbtq2/index-en.html