BOF & BCFC Grant and B3 Capacity Building Program
Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) is pleased to be launching a grant and capacity building program for Canadian Black-led, Black-serving, and Black-focused nonprofits and charities, in partnership with the Black Canadian Fundraisers Collective (BCFC).
The program is made possible through generous funding support from the TD Ready Commitment and the RBC Foundation.
The BOF/BCFC B3 Capacity Building Program is an 8-month program funded by Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) and delivered by Black Canadian Fundraisers Collective (BCFC), designed to provide Black-focused, Black-led, Black-serving nonprofits and charities, with funding and capacity development support that positions them to collaborate, lead and deliver community-determined solutions that effectively address identified community priorities and needs.
This pilot initiative is made possible through funding commitments from the TD Ready Commitment and the RBC Foundation. Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) is pleased to be partnering with BCFC and delivery partners Imagine Canada, Management Advisory Services (MAS) and the International Coaching Federation, Vancouver Chapter.
This BOF/BCFC grant and Capacity Building Program is national in scope, involving the selection of twenty-five B3 organizations from across Canada, delivering initiatives in one or more of BOF priority areas, however, program funding has been secured from philanthropic organizations – United Way Halifax, and The Toronto Foundation, to prioritize the participation of fifteen B3 organizations selected specifically from three communities (Halifax Regional Municipality and East Hants; the Greater Toronto Area; and Windsor-Essex County) in the pilot.
All organizations selected will receive $20,000 in funding to allocate according to their charitable purposes, operational and program needs. In addition to this funding, organizations selected to participate in the pilot will receive coaching support from certified professional Black coaches and access to mandatory training in key areas of nonprofit management. All applicants will have access to specifically curated online resources covering relevant topics critical in building and maintaining healthy, adaptable, and community-responsive organizations.
We require a commitment from applying organizations, that individual leaders selected from the organization to participate in the program, will be allowed the required time to invest and participate in all aspects of the program fully and will include at least one key leader/ decision-maker.
The B3 organizations can anticipate 75 hours of capacity building engagement over 34 weeks (8 months) to represent approximately 2-1/4 hours per week of programming.
Applications open on Monday March 25, 2024 and will close on Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 11:59 PM EST.
Program Details
Below are examples of project areas for which organizations can apply for funding.
- Education
- Health
- Women & Gender
- Criminal Justice
- Arts & Culture
- Youth
- Housing & shelter
- Food security
Eligibility criteria:
- Must be a *Black-led, **Black-focused and ***Black-serving organization;
- Must be a registered Canadian nonprofit or charitable organization;
- Must have an existing project in the priority areas, which meets the grant program criteria, or a proposed project for which funding has already been secured;
- Must have an online web presence (i.e. website, social media, etc.);
- Must be able to show up-to-date financial records (i.e., audited financial statements or unaudited financial statements within the past two years, coupled with a tax return & bank statements are acceptable);
- Must be able to provide a project budget for the initiative for which funding is being sought;
- Cannot have any outstanding tax debt – or should have an up-to-date payment plan (demonstrating at least two (2) months of on-time payment of outstanding tax debt);
- Organizations cannot have declared bankruptcy;
- The pilot is for organizations with budgets under $2.5M and have 50% of annual operational income is generated from Grant-based funding sources (less than 25% from unrestricted sources);
- Organizations operating anywhere across Canada, with the prioritization of organizations operating in the Greater Toronto Area, and historic Black Communities located within the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) and East Hants, and Windsor-Essex County for the pilot. [i];
[i] Historic Black Nova Scotian organizations and Windsor-Essex B3 organizations representing Historic Black Communities and the Black Descendants of the Underground Railroad and Historic Black Communities that meet the eligibility criteria are encouraged to apply.
*Black-led: At least two thirds of the leadership (e.g. board of directors, executive, management team) must self-identify as Black.
**Black-focused: establishes as its primary goal to meaningfully support and engage with Black communities by taking an Afro-centric lens to the programming and services delivered, and ensuring Black representation as part of its leadership.
***Black-serving: A significant portion of program activities prioritize serving Black communities of Canada. Black Opportunity Fund recognizes and is committed to reduce the power imbalances inherent to funder/fundee relationships and to use an anti-oppression and intersectional lens. We use trust-based participatory decision-making processes so the communities who are most impacted by our work have a say in how we carry out our mandate.
Please direct program related questions to:
bofgrants@blackopportunityfund.org
Applications open on Monday March 25, 2024 and will close on Wednesday April 24, 2024 at 11:59 PM EST.
Please follow this link to access the Black Canadian Fundraisers Collective resources page: https://www.blackcanadianfundraisers.ca/resources-tools
About Black Opportunity Fund
Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) is a community-led registered Canadian Charitable organization that supports a prosperous, healthy, and thriving Black Canada by challenging anti-Black racism in two ways by:
- Responding to long-standing underinvestment in Black communities
- Working nationally to strengthen collective actions by Black organizations and leaders, helping them to create new and more impactful ways to support and advocate for our community.
BOF prioritizes initiatives around education, youth, health, women and gender, criminal justice, entrepreneurship, arts and culture, housing and shelter, and food insecurity, that impact the quality of life in Black communities across Canada.
About Black Canadian Fundraisers’ Collective (BCFC)
The Black Canadian Fundraisers’ Collective (BCFC) is a group of Black identifying people, rooted in the historic African tradition of Ubuntu, “I am because you are. We exist to inspire and elevate our fundraising sector as the leading advocate and thought collective for Black Canadian philanthropy.
Anchored by its purpose and guided by its belonging and freedom values, BCFC’s Black Philanthropy Fund (BPF), in partnership with Carleton University, offers the Award for Black Emerging Fundraising Professionals enrolled in the Master of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership (MPNL). The award promotes Black leadership within the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors by making education more accessible through this meaningful and impactful financial support.