Philanthropic Contest

What would your charity do with a $100,000 donation?

$500,000 donated to charities supporting people struggling with social issues such as homelessness, food insecurity, dropping out of school, addictions, violence, mental illness or isolation.

I want to vote
event_available The public has until November 27 to vote!

4 grand prize donations of $100,000
8 donations of $10,000

The contest aims to support Canadian charities that work in the health, education, environment, or social services sectors. These charities can have a mission directly related to social issues or submit a related project.

12 charities selected and submitted to a public vote

expand_moreSelection Criteria

To be eligible, you must meet the following criteria:

  • Be registered with the Canada Revenue Agency
  • Operate in the health, education, environment or social services sectors
  • Aim to improve Canadians’ quality of life
  • Show that the donation would contribute to supporting people struggling with social issues.
  • Provide assistance to individuals – we are not looking for organizations that help other organizations
  • Demonstrate that the donation would be used for concrete initiatives starting in 2025 at the latest
Contest Rules (PDF)download 

Important dates

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September 10 to October 14

Contest entry period

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November 4 to 27

The 12 finalists are announced and public voting is open

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Week of December 9

The winners and donations are announced

Vote for your favourite projects!

1 - Your personal information

2 - Your favorites

Vote for your favourite charities. A $100,000 donation will be made to the charity that receives the most votes in each of the four featured markets.

Note that you have the choice to vote for only one market, for two markets, for three markets or for all four markets.

Quebec

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AutonHommie, resource centre for men, Quebec Inc

A challenge for men

A donation of $100,000 would help launch a campaign to raise awareness of the need for support for men in the Capitale-Nationale region. We’ll be approaching companies where the majority of the employees are men to offer meetings to raise awareness of men’s need for support, and to inform as many people as possible about the resources available to them. With this project, we want to reach out to men from all walks of life, to let them know that they don’t have to solve their problems alone, that there are resources available for them, and that the sooner they act, the more likely it is that serious problems will be avoided. When we help a man, everyone wins: his partner and his children.

Charity’s mission

AutonHommie’s mission is to support men in difficulty on their journey, to provide them with the means to meet their needs and to participate in the global advancement of men’s issues.

www.autonhommie.org

La rue des Femmes Foundation

Healing homelessness

A $100,000 donation to La rue des Femmes will offer a fresh start to women experiencing homelessness, many of whom have suffered deep trauma. Thanks to your generosity, we are able to expand our range of therapeutic care by opening our fourth home and offering more hours of personalized therapy. These treatments, such as psychotherapy, art therapy or addiction counseling, provide them with the tools they need and a safe environment to overcome their traumas. La rue des Femmes offers a complete care pathway helping thousands of women to regain their dignity and their lives. Our aim: to offer a better future to all the women we support and help build a more just and inclusive society.

Charity’s mission

La rue des Femmes offers therapeutic and preventive relational health care to women who are in a state of homelessness. It offers a response to basic needs and therapeutic care aimed at healing their trauma, improving their wellbeing, which is essential for safety, restoring social ties and rebuilding their lives. The organization is also committed to raising public awareness of this major societal issue, and to changing the paradigm of homelessness.

https://laruedesfemmes.org/en

Pleins Rayons

Together we shine!

With a donation of $100,000, Pleins Rayons helps position its clients to play an active social role by developing projects in which people with disabilities become key players in social issues such as processing food for the region’s food banks, helping young people with atypical backgrounds, and receiving specialized services adapted to the needs of its clients. Pleins Rayons hopes to continue developing promising projects that can be shared across Quebec to improve the quality of services for people with disabilities. The support provided by the apprentices to the community targets retirees, farmers, low-income families, businesses, municipalities and local cultural events. Apprentices work to help their fellow community members, while discovering that they can play a helping role in their community. The aim is to combat the isolation and marginalization of people with intellectual or functional limitations.

Charity’s mission

Pleins Rayons’ vision is to combat the isolation of people living with an autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability, and promote positive social inclusion of young adults by offering them the opportunity to develop socio-professional skills through various social economic projects and therapeutic recreational activities.

pleinsrayons.ca/en

Ontario

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Canadian Mental Health Association, York Region Branch

Keep MOBYSS in MOTION

A donation of $100,000 will support MOYBSS (Mobile York South Simcoe), Ontario’s first and only mobile (and now also virtual) mental health clinic for youth 12-25 in York Region and South Simcoe. Since 2015, MOBYSS has provided care to 20,000+ young people. Its goal is to save young lives from suicide and substance abuse, and help youth build resilience and coping skills. Annually, almost 3,700 individuals die by suicide in Canada, and suicide is the leading cause of death for young people 15-24. 75% of mental illness begins in the teen years, but many people wait 4-20 years to seek help.

Charity’s mission

CMHA York Region and South Simcoe (CMHA YRSS) is an award-winning branch of the national nonprofit, Canadian Mental Health Association. Located throughout York Region and South Simcoe, we facilitate access to the resources people require to maintain and improve mental health and community integration, build resilience, and support recovery from mental illness and addiction.

www.cmha-yr.on.ca

Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada

Stay in School

A donation of $100,000 would go towards providing critical tutoring and mentoring services, funding for essential school supplies and technology, and recognizing exceptional students through Stay in School Awards—ensuring that young people in the child welfare system are supported to meet their academic goals, stay in school and graduate high school. Stay in School helps the children and youth across Canada living in foster care, group homes or with extended family due to abuse, neglect or abandonment.

These young people face significant educational challenges, with only 46% graduating from high school compared to 83% of their peers. Many also have special needs or lack stable support systems. By providing targeted educational supports, we aim to improve graduation rates and help youth in care achieve their full potential.

Charity’s mission

Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada (CAFC) is our country’s leading charity dedicated to improving the lives of children and youth and families involved in the child welfare system.

www.cafdn.org

Food4Kids Halton

Food4Kids Halton

A donation of $100,000 would significantly enhance our mission to combat childhood hunger and to support vulnerable families across the region of Halton. It would directly fund nutritious food for over 1,200 children in our Weekends Without Hunger program, a lifeline for vulnerable children facing food insecurity and ensuring they have access to healthy meals when school nutrition programs are unavailable.

Food4Kids Halton’s Weekends Without Hunger project is a lifeline for vulnerable children facing food insecurity in Halton. By providing nutritious meals on weekends, we ensure that no child goes hungry, allowing them to thrive physically, mentally and academically. With a youth internship program, we can empower high school students with valuable job skills, fostering hope and resilience. This dual impact not only addresses immediate nutritional needs but also fosters long-term growth and stability within our community, helping to break the cycle of poverty. Together, we can break the cycle of poverty, transforming lives and creating a brighter future for our children.

Charity’s mission

To provide packages of healthy food for elementary school students with little or no access to food during the weekend and throughout the summer.

food4kidshalton.ca

Western Provinces

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Saskatoon Crisis Intervention Service

Crisis Support After-hours

A donation of $100,000 would go towards increasing our capacity to respond to service demand. As a trusted resource for underserved populations, there is an expectation that we will always be there. There are few options for underserved populations to access help in the evenings, weekends and holidays. The crisis response can take place over the phone, in the office or in the community. Adding more staff hours to continue to provide a quality crisis response would be the focus of this project.

Charity’s mission

Established in 1980, Saskatoon Crisis Intervention Service is a non-profit that includes a Mobile Crisis Service that intervenes and responds to social, emotional and psychological emergencies 24/7/365. PACT is part of our emergent mental health response. Intensive Community Support Services support adults with significant and enduring mental illness, who are considered to be hard to serve and difficult to engage. In 2023-2024 MCS responded to over 30,000 crisis service requests. PACT assisted over 2,090 people.

saskatooncrisis.ca

Airdrie P.O.W.E.R.

Empowerment for Women

A donation of $100,000 would go towards supporting, strengthening and growing our Empowerment Program, which focuses on providing individualized support, safety and resources to women fleeing domestic violence. A donation like this would have a massive impact for our community, allowing us to help more women, provide more hours of support and implement additional programming to help women rebuild their lives. As an alternative to overfull shelter systems, we focus on long-term safety planning and address every issue—big or small—with personalized, adaptive support. With no other organization in our area solely focused on this critical issue, our services are vital to the community we serve.

Charity’s mission

Airdrie P.O.W.E.R. is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide women in Airdrie and District with the means to leave an abusive environment through emergency resources, education and empowerment, thus creating a safe and sustainable community. As an alternative to traditional systems, we provide customized prevention and intervention services designed to help women experiencing domestic violence and their families with minimal disruption to their current living and community supports.

www.airdriepower.com

Vancouver Food Runners

Vancouver Food Runners

A donation of $100,000 will support our small team of six staff to organize 10,000+ food rescues by volunteer drivers in 2025, which will deliver 1.6+ million pounds of healthy food (in-kind value: $5.6 million) to community members experiencing food insecurity. In addition, this will mitigate 2.7+ million pounds of CO2eq from the environment. Vancouver Food Runners’ tech-powered and community-centred food recovery program is scaling rapidly to meet the demand from both food businesses and nonprofit partners. We partner with nonprofits to increase healthy food access for residents experiencing food insecurity. The organizations we partner with support Indigenous, Black, immigrant and newcomer communities, at-risk children and youth, individuals experiencing disability and seniors who have a low income. 35,000+ community members experiencing food insecurity are reached through VFR’s food program each month.

Charity’s mission

Vancouver Food Runners is an innovative food recovery organization that uses app technology and a team of volunteer drivers to redirect food from 150+ businesses to 150+ nonprofit partners in the Metro Vancouver region. In 4.5 years, VFR volunteers (3,400+ registered on the app) have delivered 4.1+ million pounds of healthy food (3.4+ million equivalent meals), also mitigating 6.9+ million pounds of CO2eq. Check out our program video: https://youtu.be/z1v7TNnY0dY?si=I4X4gLrT9SuPI-sl

www.vancouverfoodrunners.com

Atlantic Canada and Northern Canada

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Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre

Food Access in Iqaluit

A donation of $100,000 will support our food access and education programs, including:

1-Community Meal: A balanced meal offered free, Monday-Friday. The meals have variety and are made from scratch using the freshest, most nutritious ingredients possible.
2-Piruqtuviniit Box: A weekly PWYC produce box program to feed 4 people for a week. Contains 18-20 different fruits and vegetables.
3-Inuliqtait Box: A weekly PWYC country food box program designed to work with hunters to increase access to nutritious and sustainable country food for the community.
4-Inuit Women’s Circle: A weekly peer support drop-in program for Inuit women in Iqaluit to connect with one another.

We aim to support individuals experiencing food insecurity in Iqaluit, NU. Despite this small community, last year we served 66,000 meals. Indicating the dire need for food security initiatives in the community.

Charity’s mission

Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre’s (QCFC) mission is to promote health, belonging and food sovereignty by harnessing the power of tradition and community. We address the many root causes of food insecurity through a combination of food access services alongside medium- and long-term education and training initiatives that increase availability of healthy and culturally sustaining food while also supporting the local food system.

www.qajuqturvik.ca

Easter Seals Nova Scotia

The Next Step

A donation of $100,000 would go toward The Next Step—a supported employment program for youth with disabilities—which would benefit tremendously from this donation and would give us the capacity to grow this program outside of Halifax and into other parts of the province. The Next Step works with recent high-school graduates with disabilities to help them find their place in the workforce. Without this program to assist them, these young adults often describe their lives as graduating to the couch. The short-term goals for the program are to assist each client in finding meaningful, paid employment in the community. The long-term goal is to establish a network of inclusive employers, not only in Halifax but other parts of the province as well.

Charity’s mission

Easter Seals Nova Scotia provides individualized solutions to support inclusion and empower persons with disabilities. Our Vision is to see a world where everyone is included. We deliver quality programs and services that help clients reach their goals.

www.easterseals.ns.ca

Greater Moncton YMCA

YMCA ReConnect

A donation of $100,000 will strengthen and extend our reach in preventing and diverting homelessness with YMCA ReConnect. These funds will enhance our street and encampment outreach services, enabling us to provide immediate assistance such as food, clothing, hygiene products and harm reduction supplies. Additionally, we will expand our efforts to address long-term solutions through a housing-first approach, helping individuals secure essential documentation, overcome housing barriers and access critical community resources. The funding will allow us to offer more trauma-informed support, ensuring that we reach more individuals at risk, ultimately reducing homelessness and fostering stability in our community.

Charity’s mission

Since 1870, the YMCA of Greater Moncton has been a champion of people and the heartbeat of our community. At our core, we are passionate about creating opportunities and continuously advancing the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve. We provide many programs for free and offer financial assistance to anyone who wants to join a paid YMCA program but can’t afford the fees. Mission: We create opportunities for better health and wellbeing.

www.moncton.ymca.ca

3 - Review and confirmation

Quebec :

No favorite selected

Ontario :

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Western Provinces :

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Atlantic Canada and Northern Canada :

No favorite selected