Who can apply

This page explains:

• Eligibility
• How we assess your application

Eligibility

To apply, you must meet all the following eligibility criteria.

Applicants

Your organization must be in Canada and be one of the following types:

• not-for-profit organization
• for-profit organization (provided that the nature and intent of the activity is non-commercial and not intended to generate profit)
• municipal government
• Indigenous government (including band councils, tribal councils, and self-government entities)

You can only submit 1 application as a backbone organization under this process.

The following organizations are eligible if their provincial or territorial government agree:

• post-secondary institutions
• public health and social services institution

To be eligible, all organizations must have a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) business number or charitable registration number.

Concepts

Your concept must meet all the following criteria:

• be between 4 and 5 years in duration
• request between $1 million and $5 million
• meet the objectives of the call
• show eligibility and capacity to reach vulnerable seniors and act as a backbone organization
• describe the proposed concept, including all of the questions described under Prepare to Apply.

Activities

Eligible activities increase social inclusion among vulnerable seniors. These could include, but aren’t limited to:

• developing partnerships to encourage new groups of seniors to be more involved in community activities
• adapting policies and tools to better attract, recruit and keep diverse groups of volunteers
• sharing seniors’ knowledge, skills and experiences with others
• promoting awareness of elder abuse
• reaching out to vulnerable seniors such as those who are socially or geographically isolated
• volunteering, mentoring, leadership training and skill matching
• building intergenerational and intercultural learning and relationships
• developing and sharing tools and resource materials
• sharing best practices

What the funding can be used to pay for

Eligible costs

• wages and mandatory employment related costs (MERCs) for project staff
• professional fees, such as:
  • facilitators
  • researchers and experts in evaluation or in the collective impact field
• evaluation costs (such as surveys)
• hospitality
• participant costs (for example, security checks for volunteers)
• printing, advertising, distribution and other communication costs
• travel costs within Canada
• rental and/or maintenance of facilities
• purchase and/or rental of equipment, materials and supplies
• shipping costs for equipment, materials or supplies
• other costs necessary to support the purpose of the funding as approved by ESDC

Examples of ineligible costs

• Costs for programs and services that fall within the responsibility of other levels of government, such as providing core health services, social services and legal services
• General operating costs that are not directly related to the collective impact initiative (concept)
• Contingency costs
• Purchase of land or building, including new constructions, repairs or renovations
• Purchase of a motor vehicule (such as a car, van, bus, etc.)

Other eligibility requirements

Location of eligible activities

• Address a complex problem facing vulnerable seniors in a targeted geographic area (for example a city or a rural area)
• Concepts that focus on Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) can address a complex problem in many geographic areas rather than in a targeted geographic area

How we assess your application

We will review your application in 3 steps by:

• Step 1: Screening for eligibility

  We will screen for eligibility based on whether the:

  • application (EMP5688) is received by the deadline
  • application is complete
  • organization is eligible
  • organization demonstrates capacity to reach vulnerable seniors and act as a backbone organization
  • concept is eligible

  It is important to submit a complete application. We will assess your project only if all of the eligibility requirements are met.

  Things that may impact your eligibility

  Your past performance or issues of default in projects with us may impact the eligibility of your application.

  When determining the eligibility of your application, we may review information in the public domain including, but not limited to, materials on your website and media articles. Please provide all of the required information in your application. Do not provide links to websites to answer application questions, except for Question 41 (Organizational capacity) where you are requested to provide your organization’s website address as part of your answer.

• Step 2: Assessing on program objectives

  We will assess your application based on the following criteria:

  Organizational Capacity

  Demonstrate your organization’s capacity: to reach vulnerable seniors, including explaining which group(s) of vulnerable seniors they currently serve; and to act as a backbone organization including: how they have secured or plan to secure the commitment of a number of collaborating organizations.

  Target group

  Who are the vulnerable seniors you plan to serve with your proposed collective impact plan and why are they vulnerable (supported by evidence if possible)?

  Need

  What is the need among vulnerable seniors you intend to address (supported by evidence if possible)?

  How would your collective impact plan address this need among vulnerable seniors?

  Innovation

  To what extent would your collective impact plan include innovative approaches to addressing the identified unmet need among vulnerable seniors?

  Results

  What results do you hope to achieve and how those would be measured?

  Budget

  How do you intend to use the funds?

  Letters of support:

  Provide 2 letters of support to demonstrate the extent of existing community support for their application.

• Step 3: Assessing on other criteria to select a diverse range of projects to fund

  Priority will be given to funding projects in as many provinces and territories as possible.

  We will also consider how the projects contribute to the diversity and inclusion of the group of projects. The following intersecting considerations could be applied at the same time:

  • regional distribution, which includes geographic distribution of concepts within a province or territory
  • delivering different types of approaches
  • maximizing the diversity of sub-populations of vulnerable seniors to be served. These sub-populations may include, but are not limited to seniors who:
    • have low income
    • are Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit and Métis)
    • are 2SLGBTQIA+
    • are Black or racialized
    • are members of OLMCs  
    • are persons with disabilities
    • are immigrants or newcomers
    • are living in rural and remote settings
    • are at increased risk of social isolation due to factors such as being an informal caregiver or living alone
  • concepts that focus on a specific sub-population of vulnerable seniors (as opposed to multiple sub-populations at once). This specific sub-population may be composed of seniors who experience intersectionality in that they are members of more than one vulnerable sub-population of seniors at the same time.