Apply for funding for the Canada Service Corps Program – Micro-grants stream
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Application period Closed
Current status: Closed
Applicants should not start their proposed projects until:
- they receive approval of their project from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)
- an agreement has been signed between the organization and a representative of ESDC
Please note that not all applications submitted under this process will be approved. Funding is limited. It is subject to budget considerations of ESDC and allocation of funds by Parliament.
Decisions are final and there is no appeal process.
Learn more about other funding opportunities
Description of the funding
The Canada Service Corps (CSC) supports a national movement to build a culture of service in Canada.
It encourages youth between 15 and 30 years of age, to give back to their community through meaningful service, with unique opportunities to:
- practice leadership;
- learn new skills;
- grow personal and professional networks; and
- gain valuable life experience.
Projects should focus on at least one of the following service themes:
- Reconciliation
- Building an inclusive Canada
- Preserving the environment
- Promoting civic and democratic engagement
- Strengthening youth resilience
- Potential new themes that are youth-identified
The CSC supports different types of service opportunities. In this CFP, each program stream requires a unique application. There are 4 streams in this Call for Proposals:
- Service Placements National stream
- Service Placements Regional stream
- Micro-grants stream
- Micro-grants Diversity stream
All streams will have an intake through a Call for Proposals, and eligible organizations may only submit one application per stream. Applications will be screened for eligibility and assessed against the criteria outlined on this page and in the Applicant Guides.
Objectives
The Canada Service Corps (CSC) promotes civic engagement among young people from 15 to 30 years old through access to meaningful volunteer service that help them gain essential life skills and experience.
Objective of the CFP
The objective of this CFP is to continue to expand the CSC program and strengthen diversity. This goal is aligned with the Government of Canada’s commitment to youth programming and the pledge to equity, diversity and inclusion through the new Anti-racism Strategy. This CFP identifies the engagement of Indigenous and under-served youth as a key program focus and the need to increase the level of participation of these youths in the program.
Objective of the Micro-grants stream
The objective of this stream is to fund organizations to deliver supports to youth and provide them with small, one-time cash payments (“micro-grants”) to carry out innovative, youth-led community service projects. Participants would develop a budget plan and receive funds up to a maximum of $5,000 per participant to undertake their project and through this experience, would develop skills such as leadership, planning and budgeting skills among others.
The government will invest up to $5,000,000 in 2022-23 in Grants and Contributions (Gs&Cs) to fund micro-grants through the Canada Service Corps. Some of this funding will be spent on current contribution agreements to support the continuation of existing programming with the remainder supporting the establishment of projects through this CFP. The government will invest up to $5,000,000 in fiscal year 2023-24 in Gs&Cs to fund micro-grants through the CSC with this funding supporting projects funded through this CFP. Eligible organizations can receive up to a maximum of $3M annually to deliver CSC Micro-grants.
Projects under the Micro-grants stream will be required to:
- Support youth-led projects by soliciting applications and identifying potential recipients, assessing projects, supporting youth in their service projects, funding, and monitoring projects including how funds are spent
- Provide a micro-grant of up to $5,000 per participant, or group of youths, who identify a project that needs a small amount of financial aid in order to cover project-related costs. Youth will be expected to take ownership of an issue, propose a solution and implement it at the local level
Project proposals must also describe:
- How they will provide youth with the knowledge and tools to engage in service
- How they will promote and deliver micro-grants, including how they will work with their network of partners
- Their plan to reach/enrol and support Indigenous and under-served youth to meet the target of 50% Indigenous and under-served youth per project
- How they will support youth in developing and delivering youth-led projects
- How the organization will collect data and report on results
- How they will manage the distribution of funds to youth to cover service project costs
- If applicable, how they will plan to encourage youth to participate and successfully complete youth-led projects, including using methods and/or non-financial incentives
Project requirements
This section describes the mandatory requirements for projects in the Micro-grants stream. Your application will be assessed based on how it meets the requirements listed below.
Projects in this stream will be required to:
- Take place in Canada
- Target participation of 50% Indigenous and under-served youth
- Focus on one or more of the following service themes:
- Reconciliation
- Building an inclusive Canada
- Preserving the environment
- Promoting civic and democratic engagement
- Strengthening youth resilience
- Potential new themes that are youth-identified
- Confirm that the organization can provide a safe and inclusive environment that is free from racism, harassment and discrimination for CSC participants as well as others in the organization
- Collect data to inform the evaluation of the CSC program
- Report on performance indicators
- Provide participants with supports, such as mentoring/coaching, alumni activities as well as funding participant costs and supports, such as equipment or services that enable virtual service opportunities, dependent care, transportation, accommodation, mental health supports, specialized services or referrals to appropriate resources, arrangements or equipment for persons with disabilities; and
- To mentor or guide youth in co-creating their micro-grant youth-led projects to:
- Meet the needs and interests of youth
- Address a community volunteering need.
Eligible applicants must have:
- SignificantFootnote 1 experience working with or delivering programming to youth (aged 15-30) in a volunteer or service environment
- significant experience working with or delivering programming to Indigenous or under-served populations
- experience in running an intake process and assessing applications
- experience disbursing funds or making payments to participants or clients
Applicants in this stream will be required to complete Program Specific Questions to indicate whether your organization meets the diversity-related or youth-led prioritization criteria. If you do not wish to answer, or if these questions do not apply to your organization, you may select “No”. If you select “No”, your application will still be assessed for funding, however, it will not be considered for prioritization under these criteria.
Diversity-related prioritization:
- Identify the specific groups and sub-groups you serve. This includes indigenous people (First Nations, Inuit, Métis citizens); visible minority and other racialized populations (with sub-categories such as Black, East Asian, South Asian); LGBTQ2 persons, persons with disabilities, and people from Official Language Minority Communities.
- Indicate whether at least 50% of your leadership, and if applicable, 50% of your governance represents one or more of the groups that you indicate your organization currently serves.
- Leadership: minimum 50% of executive management positions (Director, and above) reflect one or more Indigenous and under-served populations
- Governance: minimum 50% of Board of Director seats (governance bodies) reflect one or more Indigenous and under-served populations.
Youth-led prioritization:
- Organizations in which at least 50% of leadership and/or governance is youth between 15 to 30 years of age are considered youth-led organizations.
Eligibility
This section describes how your application will be screened to determine its eligibility. Your application must meet the eligibility criteria listed below to apply for this program. Otherwise, your application will be deemed ineligible.
Eligible recipients
Eligible recipients are:
- Not-for-profit organizations
- For-profit organizations (provided that the nature and intent of the activity is non-commercial, not intended to generate profit, and supports program priorities and objectives)
- Research organizations and institutes
- Indigenous organizations (including band councils, tribal councils and self-government entities)
- Municipal, Provincial and TerritorialFootnote 2 entities, which includes institutions, agencies and Crown Corporations, Public health and educational institutions (i.e., universities, colleges, CÉGEPs, school boards/school districts).
Note to organizations located and operating in Quebec: Ministère du Conseil Exécutif (M-30)
The Quebec National Assembly adopted An Act respecting the Ministère du Conseil exécutif (M-30). The provisions of this Act include certain conditions on Quebec government bodies and certain other entities wanting to contract with the federal government. You may wish to consult the provisions of M-30 at the following website prior to submitting your Application for Funding to ensure compliance with the Act respecting the Ministère du Conseil exécutif (M-30). Any entity that is subject to the Act is responsible for obtaining such authorization before signing any agreement with the Government of Canada.
Eligible participants
In order to be an “eligible participant,” an individual must be both:
- A Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or has been granted refugee status in Canada
- At least 15 years of age upon starting participation in the program and no older than 30 years of age at time of application.
Eligible activities
Eligible activities in this stream may include, but are not limited to the following:
- Activities that support the development (incubation) of promising youth volunteer service ideas;
- Activities that support the implementation of youth led strategies or actions to address community issues;
- Activities supporting the implementation of innovative methods of reaching Indigenous and under-served youth;
- Activities that offer support for youth in the identification and validation of issues and priorities for community action;
- Activities that support the implementation of strategies or actions to address community issues;
- Activities that explore, test and/or develop innovative solutions, best practices, tools and/or methodologies (e.g., toolkits, resources, etc.);
- Activities designed to support access and participation in service opportunities for youth;
- Activities designed to support innovative approaches to facilitate youth participation in civic life;
- Activities designed to support knowledge development and research on engaging youth in service;
- Activities designed to test projects to engage youth in service; and
- Activities supporting the dissemination of information and knowledge.
Eligible expenditures
Eligible expenditures are those considered necessary to support the purpose of the funding. The following expenditures are eligible for your project in this Call for Proposals:
- Overhead costs, normally up to 10%, including costs related to central administrative functions of the recipient organization that are drawn upon to support agreement activities (such as shared postage, telephones, information technology maintenance and head office support).
- Costs of materials and supplies;
- Wages and mandatory employment-related costs (MERCS);
- Training and professional development costs for project staff;
- Honoraria (program participants are not eligible);
- Printing and communication costs;
- Professional fees, such as consultant, technical expertise, or facilitation;
- Domestic travel costs, not exceeding rates and allowances in the National Joint Committee travel directives;
- Participant costs and supports (such as living expenses, equipment or services that enable virtual service opportunities, mentorship, dependent care, transportation, accommodation, specialized services or referrals to appropriate resources, arrangements or equipment for persons with disabilities); and
- Recognition or completion certificates
- Financial payments made to participants for eligible expenditures under youth-led projects.
Where the recipient further distributes contribution funding to a third-party organization to carry out project activities, payments from the recipient to the third party to reimburse the latter for the above-listed types of expenditures incurred are also eligible expenditures.
Other eligibility requirements:
- You must complete the Program Specific Questions in the application, to indicate if your organization meets the diversity-related or youth-led prioritization criteria. If you do not wish to answer these questions, or if these questions do not apply to your organization, you are required to select “No”; your application will still be assessed for funding, however, it will not be considered for prioritization under these criteria.
- Your application is received before the deadline of March 22, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. ET.
- Your application package is complete and contains all the required information.
- Your project does not extend past March 31, 2024.
- The funding amount you are requesting from ESDC does not exceed $3,000,000 per recipient per year.
- The funding amount redistributed through micro-contribution funding for a youth-led project does not exceed $5,000 per project participant.
Contact us
If you have questions about this call for proposals, send an email to NC-DGOP-POB-CSC-SJC-GD@SERVICECANADA.GC.CA. Please use the following naming convention in the subject line of your email when sending an inquiry: Organization Name-CSC Micro-grants stream-Question.
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