Children, Youth & Families

We support organizations that collectively create a ladder of opportunities from early childhood to young adulthood and independence. We look for partners that foster positive youth development through education, post-secondary pathways, work related learning, and routes to employment.

The most promising approaches to social and economic mobility create opportunities for and address the needs of the “whole family”. To that end, we also strive to empower charities that create entrepreneurship and career opportunities for family members and provide the supports to pursue those opportunities. This requires a combination of resources across educational, employment, social, and health programs designed to serve children and their parents together.

We support the provision of clinical and therapeutic mental health interventions to school-age youth and emerging adults, ideally in partnership with their families and/or support systems. We acknowledge the toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on young people’s mental health. The pandemic both illuminated and exacerbated a mental health crisis that is being inadequately addressed, particularly for low-income families who struggle to afford care or find effective providers. This priority is not intended to include generalized positive youth development unless associated with a clinical or therapeutic intervention.

We know that access to healthy and nutritious food is a critical building block of health, wellness, education, and opportunity. We support programs that create and facilitate access to this fundamental basic need as well as related stabilizing supports that address chronic food insecurity. To learn more about our Food Security and Systems focus area, click here.

While we very much welcome applications for projects that serve Indigenous youth across the above themes, we also seek to provide core, general operating support to Indigenous-led organizations serving Indigenous youth. We are particularly interested in supporting organizations meeting the holistic needs of youth in rural and remote Indigenous communities. For more information, please visit our Indigenous Youth page.

Project grants fund specific programs or activities. Most grants provided through our Grant Program are single-year project grants.

Capacity-building grants are discrete, specific investments to strengthen internal capabilities, knowledge and resources.

General operating grants are typically only awarded to repeat grantees after a successful project or capacity-building grant, and to Indigenous-led organizations. Grantees may use these funds to cover any costs of running the organization and fulfilling the mission.

Our grants typically range between $50,000 – $100,000 per year. If you have a bigger project that meets our funding priories, put in an expression of interest and if our committee is interested in learning more we will be in touch.

You can submit a new Expression of Interest through our online application portal once you have provided your Final Report for your current grant.

The Peter Gilgan Foundation has a number of long-term strategic partners and we are not looking for new Special Opportunities at this time. We do not accept applications for funding for capital campaigns.