McConnell Foundation Grant Program

The McConnell Foundation Grant Program supports innovative initiatives focused on community resilience, reconciliation, and climate change. As a private Canadian foundation, it collaborates with various sectors to address critical social issues. The program emphasizes capacity strengthening and encourages projects that connect different focus areas. It also provides resources and guidance for potential applicants, particularly those in Montreal, to foster impactful solutions and enhance organizational leadership in addressing pressing societal challenges.

About the McConnell Foundation
We do so through funding and investment partnerships, and by collaborating with the public, private and non-profit sectors.
3 focus areas
We fund organizations working to address community resilience, reconciliation, and climate change.
With our funding, we hope to help create significant positive impact and demonstrate that lasting change is possible across the country. McConnell, who sought to find solutions to some of the most important issues of his time.
While our focus areas tackle different issues, they are also interconnected. While you must choose one focus area to submit under, there is space to identify linkages with other areas.
We also occasionally direct modest amounts of funding to support unique and time-sensitive needs through our Opportunity funds, or to organizations that seek to test a new idea aligned with our focus areas through our Program Development funding. These contributions are discretionary and cannot be applied for. Finally, acknowledging our special relationship with our home city, we fund organizations dedicated to improving the lives of Montrealers.
To explore your project idea, or if you are unsure which focus area is right for your application, we invite you to book a 15-minute Virtual Office Hours appointment with a member of our program team. They will help you explore potential alignment between your project and our focus area funding and guide you to resources you may need as you consider applying.
Communities
Our Communities focus area aims to support the leadership of equity-deserving groups to collectively address systemic barriers to economic and social justice.
Reconciliation
Our Reconciliation focus area aims to address – and redress – the socioeconomic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples by building prosperity with and for Indigenous peoples.
Our funding priorities
We have chosen to focus our funding on issues of generational importance, that are impacting communities across the country, and where we believe we can contribute to creating significant change. On this page you will find information about our focus areas,
For a strong and resilient social sector
The McConnell Foundation’s partners must constantly adapt to large changes. Whether it’s a pandemic or the rising demand for services, there will always be challenging situations that require charities and nonprofits to act efficiently and creatively. This is why the McConnell Foundation offers support to help partners strengthen organizational capacity and leadership and to navigate change.
Our commitment to Montreal
On this page, you will find information about the funding priorities and application guidelines for our Montreal funding stream.