Granting Impact

Years ago our research underscored the wide gaps between the haves and the have nots in our city. Since then, we’ve applied an equity lens to our granting, most notably through our annual, discretionary grant stream: Toronto’s Vital Signs Grants.

The grants are intended to support the smaller organizations doing the heaviest lift in community. We aim to be responsive while looking ahead to where we, as a community foundation, can best influence future outcomes.

In 2020 that meant further refining our giving around historically and persistently underserved groups. We acknowledge the systemic inequality and in particular, racism that permeates all aspects of society, including philanthropy. In response, we introduced the Black and Indigenous Futures Fund.

The Fund recognized that racial injustice has particularly affected Black and Indigenous communities and warranted actionable and meaningful responses. From 2021-2024, we supported organizations through multi-year grants. We’ve reflected on the Fund, our pilot granting to non-qualified donees and the collective impact we realized with our fundholders.

We want to be more transparent about our goal to consistently increase the flow of money to Indigenous and Black communities. Below we’re sharing the percentage of total and discretionary funding that went to these groups in 2025. While these numbers are above the norm in philanthropy, we know they are low and are actively working to increase them.