Calgary Foundation

Jan 06, 2012 No Comments by

Since 1999, The Calgary Foundation has strengthened the ordinary bonds of neighbourliness and active citizenship through grassroots grantmaking.

Neighbour Grants offers grants of up to $5,000 for resident-led projects that engage people in the well-being of their neighbourhoods and communities. Neighbour Grants offers in-person support to applicants as well as links to networking opportunities to strengthen their organizing skills and to advance their projects.

Neighbour Grants supports resident-led projects that:

  • Bring together people in a neighbourhood or community to achieve a common goal
  • Help create a new or renewed sense of belonging, welcome and neighbourliness
  • Help build connections across the diversity of people in neighbourhoods and communities
  • Help create meaningful partnerships between local people, resident groups, non-profit groups, charitable organizations and public institutions
  • Express neighbourliness, creativity and meaningful resident leadership and involvement
  • Have the potential to spark further involvement of residents and new local opportunities
  • Benefit a wide circle of people and groups in neighbourhoods and communities

Stepping Stones, added in 2006, offers smaller grants of up to $600 for similar projects of smaller scale. From intergenerational craft clubs to multicultural potlucks, Stepping Stones has so far supported over 120 “neighbourly first steps.” First Calgary Financial is the ongoing partner in this initiative.

Neighbour Grants and Stepping Stones are available to any neighbourhood or community across Calgary, from the historic inner city neighbourhoods, to the established and newer suburbs that ring the city, to cultural groups and communities of interest spread across the city. In a rapidly growing and changing city, everyone can benefit from a new or renewed sense of community and strengthened grassroots leadership.

The Calgary Foundation continues to enhance its grassroots granting practice by partnering or advising on several new neighbourhood- or community-specific grassroots granting programs and by becoming the Calgary organizer of Jane’s Walk, an international annual weekend of free neighbourhood walking tours led by local residents and community groups.

Contact Person: Julie Black
Title: Citizen Engagement Associate
Email: jblack@thecalgaryfoundation.org
Telephone: 403-802-7720

Exemplary Programs, Programs

Upcoming Webinars

Rachel’s Reflections

Rachel’s Reflections: The Gray Zone

The tricky thing about grassroots grantmaking is that it operates in the nebulous gray space of the funding world.  Behind the foundation walls are dollars and cents that add up very neatly, accounts receivable records coming through humming fax machines, and proof of non-profit status reports in piles across cubicle desks.  On the streets ofClevelandCity’s [...]

Rachel’s Reflections: The Final Report Party

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending my first Neighborhood Connections Final Report Party.  What is a Final Report Party, you ask?  Well, at the close of a grantee’s project year they have the option to complete their final report in several different ways.  The first is to write a traditional, [...]