Series - Editorial Fellowship: Transforming Funding Models

Meet the BC funder who’ll pay you for time you spend applying for a grant

Author Gabe Oatley
This spring, Clayoquot Biosphere Trust will offer grant applicants $500 to help cover the time and expenses they incur to complete a full application for one of the foundation’s funding streams.

Why It Matters

Social purpose organizations spend thousands of hours each year applying for grants. A new practice — of grantmakers compensating for that time — could help to soften the financial impact of unsuccessful grant applications and could help increase the number of grant applications from organizations with limited fundraising capacity.

This independent journalism ​​is made possible by the Future of Good editorial fellowship covering the social impact world’s rapidly changing funding models, supported by Future of Good, Community Foundations of Canada, and United Way Centraide Canada. See our editorial ethics and standards here.

For Rebecca Hurwitz, the idea just made sense. 

On November 15, the executive director of the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust, a west coast community foundation, gathered with about a dozen of her organization’s past grantees in a meeting room at a resort in Tofino, on the traditional territory of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. 

The group’s task was straightforward: suggesting improvements for the foundation’s “Vital Grants” program, which had r

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