A5: Foundations and What They Look For: Beyond The Grant Proposal
For many community organizations, foundations provide much-needed resources to bridge gaps in programming and services or address critical community needs that are unmet by other sources of funding. The scope and scale of foundation grants are broad and diverse, and like most funders focused on addressing specific priorities. This seminar will give participants the opportunity to dialogue with a broad representation of foundations on what they typically look for in a grant proposal. The session will feature resource persons from the Canadian Women’s Foundation, the Atkinson Foundation and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Monderator: Morteza Jafarpour was born in Iran and studied medicine in Turkey. During his university years he worked with human rights organizations regarding violations in Iran. He also worked closely with refugees in Turkey. For the last 20 years he has been actively involved as a volunteer with the development, implementation and evaluation of programs, services and community-based organizations to serve immigrants, refugees and visible minorities in many different ways. He has served in various positions at SISO (Settlement and Integration Services Organization), in the last eleven years, he has been Executive Director. Among his many achievements are: a founding member of the Iranian Society of Hamilton, the Hamilton Council of Canadian Arabs, Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre and most recently, Hamilton’s Centre for Civic Inclusion. Among many other organizations, he is past member of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI). For the past 20 years, Morteza has been instrumental in bringing Hamilton’s diverse cultures together by building relationships and fostering a common goal to strengthen Hamilton as a community working closely to support meetings between Muslim, Arab and Jewish community leaders.
Panelists:
Maureen Adams is the Vice-President of Grants and Community Initiatives at the Canadian Women’s Foundation (CWF). She oversees grant making, capacity building, skills training and research on evaluation work in the Foundation’s three priority areas: Transitioning low-income women out of poverty; Preventing violence against women; Building resilient girls. Prior to joining CWF, Maureen worked in senior positions for 10 years at both the United Way of Toronto, and the Ontario Social Assistance Review Board. She also spent 10 years in the community sector working at the YWCA, the Emily Stowe Shelter for Women and Scarborough Community Legal Services.
Carrie Butcher, Program Manager, The Ontario Trillium Foundation in its Toronto Community Grants Program. Prior to this she has worked with non-profit organizations in various sectors as a volunteer board member and staff.
Pedro Barata is the Communications and Outreach Coordinator of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, where he also leads poverty reduction initiatives. He is engaged in a variety of community initiatives related to improving income security, advancing social inclusion and reforming Canada’s immigration system. Pedro is a board member of the United Way of Greater Toronto, where he also chairs the Research and Policy Priorities Committee. He has held previous positions with Family Service Toronto, where he led community research initiatives related to young families and people with disabilities, as well as coordinating Ontario Campaign 2000. His volunteer history includes roles with the Portuguese Canadian National Congress, Low Income Families Together and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
