Summary of the evaluation of the New Horizons for Seniors Program

About the program

The New Horizons for Seniors Program provides $50 million annually in grant and contribution funding to projects that enhance the quality of life and promote the full participation of seniors in Canadian society.

The Program provides funding through 2 funding streams. Through the Community-based funding stream, the Program provides up to $25,000 per project to help seniors in areas such as social isolation, elder abuse, and mentorship. Through the Pan-Canadian funding stream, the Program supports projects using collaborative approaches to address senior issues. Since 2015, the Program has been providing multi-year funding to a group of organizations that work together to achieve common goals, called Collective Impact Initiatives. The first cohort of these projects focused on addressing social isolation with funding of up to $750,000.

Key findings

Overall, the program contributed to the well-being of seniors and their communities.

• The program contributed to some aspects of increasing funded organizations’ capacity to support seniors’ initiatives
• The Collective Impact approach showed promise in addressing social isolation. However, more time is required for fostering close partnerships, which is necessary to fully implement the model
• The Community-based funding request proposals would have benefited from greater guidance from the Department

Observations

1. Over the reference period, there is some indication that funding recipient organizations contributed to building the capacity of their organization in a variety of ways
2. There is some evidence that points to some challenges in obtaining historical information needed to assess the applications due to the labelling of documents in the Common Systems of Grants and Contributions
3. The Pan-Canadian Collective Impact approach hinges on the success of the organization’s ability to further strengthen partnerships and relationships