Our Work:
Civic Engagement for Social Change
Fostering active citizenship, personal and social transformation.
Civic engagement for social change fosters active citizenship and personal and community popular education processes to strengthen democracy and promote a more inclusive, just and sustainable society.
Threats to the movement toward a more just and democratic society in Canada are rising. Social and economic inequalities, political polarization, and a decrease in social connection and cohesion all play a role. We view civic engagement for social change as a way of working that fosters critical consciousness by explicitly naming these factors, then working collectively to address them. This work begins at the personal level, then ripples out to the community and systems level. We often see overlaps here with CDF’s Environment and Housing streams, as social, economic, and environmental justice intersect.
As part of our Strategic Plan consultations, we have identified a number of factors that influence our granting: challenging economic circumstances for those who are underserved and for social impact organizations; emerging popular movements for social justice; intensifying climate change impacts; and increasing financialization of housing and an emerging call for human right to housing.
We have also committed to fostering deeper and expanded relationships with organizations led by and serving Black, Indigenous and People of Colour communities. All three granting committees use this lens when reviewing applications. We recognize that BIPOC communities are the source of knowledge and practices need to create a more just society and regenerative economy and that BIPOC communities are historically underserved by philanthropic and investment dollars. Changing this is part of the path to social change.
UPCOMING GRANT DEADLINE
June 2, 2026
"CDF has been the most collaborative and supportive funder I have ever worked with. They truly have walked this journey with us. And in doing so they have self-reflected and worked hard to decolonialize their practices through-out the entire organization. As one Indigenous woman stated, “CDF has supported us being us. We have not had to fit into a box but can do what we need to do to bring about healing and positive changes. That is huge.”
Ishbel Munro
National Steering Committee Righting Relations
Civic Engagement for Social Change at a glance
By Fall 2024, our Civic Engagement funding stream will have provided more than 240 grants.
These grants total nearly $9.2 million.
Objectives and approach
Our Funding Objectives
Civic engagement for social change fosters active citizenship and personal and community transformation to strengthen democracy and promote a more inclusive, just and sustainable society. We support projects that enhance belonging and connection, augment the protection of engaged democracy, respond to polarization, and promote respectful dialogue in public spaces, and strengthen communities and change systems.
This funding stream was previously known as Adult Education. We have renamed it to use language that is more accessible and understood. We continue to support initiatives adopting a popular education process where individuals, as the source of knowledge, voice their experiences and needs to define goals to work as a group toward community action and change.
Adult education, as a model, builds on collective knowledge and strengths and offers opportunities for more equitable power-sharing, especially for groups systemically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social and civic life.
Our Approach
The Foundation supports projects that use adult education or popular education processes to assist equity-seeking groups to collectively name the racism, poverty, violence or other forms of exclusion and oppression they experience.
CDF funds initiatives that engage those underserved groups to develop a critical analysis of the social, political or economic roots of problems they experience and then develop strategies for change by recognizing their group strengths and organizing for systemic change.
We encourage groups that develop leadership, communication, organizational skills and participatory research allowing equity-seeking communities and allies to develop and implement strategies for change, particularly initiatives that amplify voice and strengthen community response and democracy.
Increasingly, we see that more organizations are identifying civic engagement as an important tool to address a decrease in democratic participation and polarization at a societal level, and even loneliness and disconnection at the individual/community level. Indeed, these two things are connected.
What We Look For
We look for participatory processes:
- Where everyone teaches and everyone learns.
- That begin with the experience of the group engaged in the program.
- That involve a high level of participation, critical dialogue and reflection which helps develop new knowledge, consciousness, attitude, leadership and skills.
- That culminates in action for empowerment and social and systemic change.
Some thematic areas include but are not limited to: social justice; human rights; gender justice; poverty/economic justice; Indigenization/decolonization/rematriation; and projects that overlap with our other two funding streams: Environment (Climate Justice) and Housing.
The Foundation also embraces the significant role faith can have in motivating and sustaining social action for change. As a result, we consider multi-faith projects that draw upon religious and spiritual traditions in support of social change, such as work for peace, human rights, equity, and social justice. Such projects could take place within a specific faith community, multi-faith or secular context.
Successful Funding Examples
Some examples of the type of projects funded:
Workshops, learning circles, trainings, gatherings, network-building, as well as arts-based and other types of collective learning activities that aim explicitly to address issues such as racism, sexism/violence against women, gender justice, poverty, social exclusion and marginalization
Activities including participatory action research that promote active citizenship, mobilization or address polarization
Projects that seek change at the systems level through collaboration, collective action, advocacy, or policy at the local, regional or national level
Training programs and capacity-building for social movement activists/leaders and cohorts, including leadership and mentorship
To browse previously funded projects, visit our Recipient Directory here.
Exclusions:
- Children and youth programming (under age 18)
- Life skills, numeracy, literacy and writing skills
- Group or individual counseling or therapy
- Job skills training, employment or vocational training (including on the job learning)
- Conferences or symposiums
- School-based learning projects or those tied solely to traditional classroom curriculum
- Fellowships, internships, or scholarships
- Service for individuals, emergency assistance
- Projects related to provision of direct services in health care, mental health, addiction recovery or health support
- Requests solely for internal organizational planning
- University/post-secondary-focused projects
- Fundraising initiatives and campaigns
- Requests primarily for capital expenses such as buildings, construction, renovations, vehicles, equipment
- Library-focused projects in large urban centres
Our Civic engagement for social change initiatives
Righting Relations: The work of handing control to partners and aiding systems change
In the spring of 2014, The Catherine Donnelly Foundation gathered adult educators from Indigenous, women’s, labour, newcomer, arts and cultural organizations to discuss how to address Canada’s most critical and complex issues.
Inspired Stories
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