Home    Contact    Members     Français
PFC - Philanthropic Foundations Canada

Great Grant Stories

Foundations in Canada have a long history of contributing to the quality of life in their communities. These communities can be national or local, narrowly defined or broadly based, brand new or of long standing. Whatever the community, the work of Canadian grantmakers is often path breaking.

Click on any of the stories below to learn more about how grantmakers help their grantees bring new ideas and projects to life.

The Toskan Casale Foundation Youth, Philanthropy and Making Change: The Story of YPI

In 2001, Julie Toskan-Casale together with her husband Victor Casale and brother Frank Toskan, started a family foundation dedicated to supporting and strengthening local, community-based social service agencies.  As one of their main strategies, the Toskan Casale Foundation  chose the idea of educating youth to become the philanthropic leaders and community volunteers of tomorrow. To accomplish this, Julie and her colleagues at the Toskan Casale Foundation created the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI), with the aim of teaching philanthropy to high school students. >> read more


Lyle S. Hallman Foundation

Building Financial Skills, Supporting Community

It’s 8:30 p.m. and in an upper-floor classroom in Hagey Hall at the University of Waterloo, about 20 fourth-year accounting students are carefully reviewing a batch of financial statements that show absolutely no profit. The statements are not snapshots of underperforming corporations. They are from non-profits applying to two local foundations for grants and the students are part of a volunteer team brought together to learn about and analyze their financial health. >> read more

Green Shield Canada Foundation

Putting children’s health on the map

Imagine a world where childhood diseases and their potential causes can be “seen” on a map —a world where the range of environmental variables are correlated—from geographic location and population density to access to green space, health care, and education—to take a truly comprehensive approach to childhood disease research and prevention.  >> read more

 

Finding the Path to Education

 The Counselling Foundation of Canada

At the end of the 1990s Regent Park, Canada’s oldest and largest social housing project located in Toronto, was in decline. The nearly 11,000 people that called Regent Park home faced alarmingly high crime rates, chronic unemployment, low family income and poor educational success rates. Despair and hopelessness prevailed in this multi-racial Toronto community. To address the root causes of the community’s ills, the Regent Park Community Health Centre (RPCHC), a facility offering clinical, social and educational services, decided that a key to breaking the cycle of under-achievement and poverty was to support young people to succeed in school and adults to find rewarding employment. >> read more

The Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex

 The Ron Joyce Foundation

Post-secondary education is considered a rite of passage for many young Canadians. For many others, however, it seems an impossible dream. The Ron Joyce Foundation recognizes that access to post-secondary education is a critical factor in helping individuals and communities move from poverty to prosperity. Though Ron Joyce himself beat the odds with no more than a Grade 9 education, he is deeply committed to helping others access education and training to build a solid foundation for future success and independence. >> read more

Giving emerging opera professionals a chance to shine

The RBC Foundation

Many Canadians may not realize it, but seldom does a night at the opera, symphony or play happen without input from a graduate of a program supported by RBC and its Emerging Artists Project.  RBC believes in the power of the arts to enrich lives and enhance communities.  With over 30 projects across Canada, the RBC Emerging Artists Project supports young artists as they bridge the gap from the academic to the professional world in such fields as theatre, music, writing, dance and filmmaking. Through this Project more than $900,000 was invested in apprenticeship and internship programs across Canada in 2009. Over the last five years, the RBC Foundation has donated more than $5 million to support arts programs across Canada. >> read more

Paloma/Youth Shelters Learning Partnership

The Paloma Foundation

The Paloma Foundation works with frontline non-profit organizations that offer intervention and support programs to meet the health and education needs of women and children, and the needs of the homeless, focused on Toronto’s most underserved downtown communities. >> read more 

 

 

 

 

Foundations Seeing the World Differently: Great Grant Stories

PFC published a collection of grant stories in November 2003. You can download the entire collection or see below for individual chapters.