Grants Awarded 2008
Total disbursements for 2008 under the Metcalf Foundation’s Community Program equal $1,083,951. The following is a list that includes grants to qualified donee organizations and descriptions of contracted services for specific charitable work to be carried out on behalf of the Foundation.
Communities in Action
The Communities in Action Program supports people and organizations to create comprehensive collaborative long-term solutions to issues of poverty.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
$20,000
to support the Growing Gap project to work with Environics Research to conduct focus groups and a national poll to get a clearer sense of what citizens believe their governments should do about poverty.
Community Action Resource Centre
$35,000 (year 2 of 2)
to strengthen their ability to support people living in poverty to work together to influence change on issues affecting their lives. They will do this by: integrating and expanding board, volunteer and staff community development capacity, and facilitating the mobilization of residents to address underlying conditions of poverty through a range of strategies including education, leadership development, and organizing.
Community Social Planning Council of Toronto
$40,000
to increase public conversation and engagement on issues of poverty reduction through strengthening outreach and communications capacity of the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction.
Community Social Planning Council of Toronto / Council of Agencies Serving South Asians
$75,250
to strengthen and expand the coalition of South Asian organizations working for economic justice in Toronto and to link their efforts to other networks focused on these issues.
Community Social Planning Council of Toronto
$10,000
to support the creation and launch of the Toronto Community Development Institute, an effort of community agency staff, academics and activists committed to strengthening community development practice as a city-building strategy.
Community Social Planning Council of Toronto
$5,000
to support the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction’s Cross Community Leadership Forum.
COSTI Immigrant Services / South Asian Women’s Rights Organization
$16,664
to investigate the lack of access to affordable and adequate childcare services within the Teesdale and Crescent Town communities, in order to address issues of access to participation in language, education, or employment training and ultimately the workforce for newcomer women in these neighbourhoods.
Daily Bread Food Bank
$3,100
to support a coalition of people from the rental housing industry, non-profit housing sector, and the community-based and foundation sectors to put together a proposal to the provincial government for a new housing benefit initiative - a rent supplement for low-income Ontarians.
Daily Bread Food Bank
$58,176
to create a Deprivation Index (DI), a statistically valid set of indicators that could be used by the Ontario government as a component of its official measure of poverty. A DI consists of a list of items considered necessary to have an adequate standard of living but which those who are poor are not likely to have. This index will add a new dimension to understanding poverty.
Family Services Association
$87,828 (year 2 of 2)
to assist Campaign 2000 and the Income Security Advocacy Centre to support low-income communities to contribute to the development and implementation of an Ontario Poverty Reduction Plan and to help engage other stakeholder groups in this process.
Gerstein Centre
$30,000 (year 1 of 2)
to support Voices from the Street, a project that trains individuals who have had the lived experience of homelessness to become educators and leaders on issues relating to poverty. This will strengthen and extend their participation in a range of initiatives such as the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction, and to develop tools and resources to help organizations, institutions, and policy makers to facilitate the participation of low-income people in dialogue and decision making processes.
Houselink Community Homes
$25,000
to support the Dream Team, a group of psychiatric consumer/survivors, who advocate for safe, affordable supportive housing by telling their personal stories to politicians, community groups and institutions. They will focus on developing their capacity to engage more effectively in both the public policy process and with other networks trying to address issues of poverty in Ontario.
Houselink / Ontario Disability Support Program Action Coalition
$19,800
to enable the Coalition to undertake a strategic planning session with their members and policy experts to analyze the Province’s Poverty Reduction Strategy and other recently created policy tools to see what opportunities can be developed to improve the quality of life and opportunity for low-income people with disabilities in Ontario.
Informetrica Limited
$38,850
to develop a roadmap to support policy makers, the media, think tanks, and community groups to navigate differing poverty related claims and measures, their strengths and weaknesses, and their relative statistical validity.
LAMP Community Health Centre
$5,000
to strengthen the planning efforts of LAMP, its partners and low-income tenants in the redevelopment planning process unfolding in their community, and in particular, to address the issue of preserving the affordable housing stock.
Mennonite New Life Centre
$50,000
to continue their work on how community agencies can venture beyond government funded settlement services to support poverty reduction efforts that address the systemic barriers to newcomer economic integration, and build newcomer voice to lead in this process.
Ontario Association of Food Banks
$5,000
to support a research initiative to cost the economic consequences of poverty in Ontario.
Ontario Employment, Education & Research Centre
$65,000 (year 1 of 2)
to strengthen the capacity of contingent workers to develop their leadership and public policy capacity to address issues of precarious employment.
Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre
$28,660 (year 1 of 2)
to support the ongoing develop of the Ambassador Project, a new neighbourhood consultation model led by low-income residents in the community. This project will support ongoing training, curriculum development, and dissemination of the model locally and nationally.
Regent Park Community Health Centre / Health Providers Against Poverty
$10,000
to assist with planning and development efforts of HPAP. In particular, this grant will examine how to engage more providers in public policy debate and advocacy on the social determinants of health, and the role that income security and social programs play in improving the health status of low-income people.
Sage Centre / East Scarborough Storefront
$70,000
to support East Scarborough Storefront to develop a model that would effectively support local emerging small businesses. The desired outcome is the creation of a local small business incubator that would begin to help residents break the cycle of poverty.
St. Christopher House
$78,983 (year 2 of 2)
to explore how organizations can increase and sustain the capacity of low-income communities to contribute to the broader public discourse and advocacy aimed at increasing income security and reducing social isolation.
The Stop Community Food Centre / Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre
$75,000 (year 1 of 2)
to expand and enhance community-led efforts to address poverty and hunger. These include expanding the work of the Income Security Advocacy Council and launching a new public education and engagement effort through the Green Barns Support Club to bring a new constituency of people together to work on addressing poverty.
Leadership in Action
Leadership in Action is intended to contribute to fostering a reflective, diverse, robust community sector capable of responding to complex social challenges. We offer three distinct learning and leadership opportunities: Emerging Leaders - a Management and Leadership program, Innovation Fellowships, and Renewal Fellowships.
York University Foundation
$27,541 (year 2 of 2)
to support the work of the Emerging Leaders Program, a joint initiative of Metcalf, United Way of Greater Toronto and the Schulich School of Business. This program builds the management skills and capitalizes on the inherent leadership abilities of middle managers in the social services sector. The long-term goal of the program is to assist the entire sector with succession planning and leadership diversification.
Renewal Fellowships
The Renewal Fellowship supports exceptional senior leaders in the community-based sector who have demonstrated outstanding work and a long-term commitment to improving social conditions and opportunity for low-income people. It provides a sabbatical for intellectual and personal revitalization. The Foundation provides financial support up to a maximum of $40,000.
Michele Heath, Director of Community Services - Fred Victor Centre
Michele will explore innovative models for housing and services for those most marginalized by poverty through visiting several organizations in Vancouver and New York City. She will also travel to Montreal to visit several leading capacity building organizations to study organizational structure and strategic thinking and planning.
Axelle Janczur, Executive Director - Access Alliance Multicultural Community Health Centre
Axelle will travel abroad to study policy development related to service responses to high needs populations. She will also pursue self-study of a new conceptual framework aimed to help non-governmental organizations create supports and influence policy that directly addresses the risks in vulnerable peoples’ lives called Social Risk Management.
Innovation Fellowships
Innovation Fellowships give people of vision the opportunity to investigate ideas, models and practices that have the potential to lead to transformational change. The Foundation provides financial support up to a maximum of $40,000.
Lynn Eakin, Lynn Eakin & Associates
to provide strategic leadership to the recently created Ontario Nonprofit Network. Lynn also will pursue further research on a new economic framework to underpin the nonprofit sector.
Parkdale Project Read
to develop a new approach to discussion and decision-making by boards of directors in nonprofits that limits the use of the written language as part of the board’s regular practice to ensure boards are accessible to all members of their communities.
John Stapleton, Open Policy
to advance a new vision and approach to income security for working age adults, and more broadly, the development of a robust poverty reduction strategy for Ontario.
Patricia Thompson
to explore how nonprofit leaders renew themselves in their work and how their organizations and causes benefit when this happens.
Other Grants
Columbia Institute
$1,500
to support the Columbia Institute and the Guelph Civic League to host the Communities in Action Symposium, an event for groups across Southern Ontario interested in growing citizen engagement that positively impacts the environment, heritage, social justice, and the growth and economy of their cities.
Ground Level Youth Venture
$7,000
to support increasing locally grown food into this social enterprise. This entails training for senior kitchen staff in purchasing locally grown food, the development and supervision of preparing a new menu for the youth at the café, and to evaluate the benefit of doing this program for youth, restaurant patrons, and the café’s bottom line.
Tides Canada Foundation
$10,000
to support the creation of Enterprising Nonprofits, a new program to seed and support nonprofit social enterprises in Toronto.
Communities In Action Guidelines >
Innovation Fellowship >
Renewal Fellowship >
Emerging Leaders >
Application Deadlines >
Advisory Committees >