Who We Are
CCFI is jointly stewarded by three organizations working together to strengthen collaboration across Canada’s philanthropic ecosystem:
Why are we here?
Across Canada, there is no shortage of commitment or innovation in the philanthropic sector. Yet too often, these resources are deployed through fragmented, parallel efforts that are well-intentioned but ultimately limited in their ability to address complex, interconnected challenges. At the same time, demand for funding is increasing and capital is not keeping pace. Nonprofits and other social purpose organizations are often in competition with one another to access scarce resources, rather than pooling their diverse gifts and assets to achieve greater impact. They spend considerable time navigating multiple funding streams with differing requirements, timelines, and expectations. The result is a system where collaboration is widely valued but difficult to operationalize
More than funding
Our three organizations are jointly stewarding the Canadian Collaborative Funding Initiative (CCFI) to better align capital, strategy, and community leadership to support more ambitious, coordinated responses to complex challenges.
Over the past two years, we have held funder convenings, charitable sector leader convenings, and dozens of key informant interviews, bringing together funders and charitable sector leaders to explore and build the infrastructure necessary to address this structural gap.
Our collective effort catalyzes the growing recognition that systems change cannot be achieved by individual organizations acting alone. It requires:
Shared, measurable, audacious goals
Coordinated action across institutions
Aligned capital deployment
Investment in emerging leaders
Our Phase 1 Approach (2026)
1: Mapping: Existing collaborative funding models Partnership Discovery What’s already here? What principles and practices guide their progress? How do we bolster for greater adoption?
Deliverable: A playbook of what’s already here, and enabling and destabilizing influences.
2: Forging Shared commitments among funders What stances, processes and practices enable collaboration across funders?
Deliverable: Standards/commitments/best practices that supply side actors endorse.
3: Enabling Community-led, coordinated, multi-organization proposals What enables “demand” side to move beyond isolated requests and into coordinated proposals capable of transformative change? What stances, processes and practices enable this collaboration? provides a clearer view of currently available capital.
Deliverables: Standards/commitments/best practices that demand side actors endorse. A capital pathways map that
This collaborative work sets the foundation for work in 2027 to identify, convene, and stand-up new Canadian funder collaboratives and charitable sector collaboratives accountable to systemic change
Our resourcing need
Lead alongside us
We are inviting a small group of founding and supporting funders to help resource and shape this work.
There are opportunities to support at the following levels:
1 – Lead Visionary partner ($100,000, two-year commitment) – Tentatively secured
4 – Ecosystem Leaders ($50,000) – 2 tentatively secured
4 - Collaborators ($25,000)
10 - Contributors ($5,000)
Gratitude
This work has been made possible through the wisdom and support of the following contributors
