The Pillar Community Impact Program (PCIPs) is designed to strengthen the capacity-building functions of community organizations in support of COVID-19 recovery efforts. All eligible grassroots initiatives, volunteer-driven entities, social enterprises, advocacy groups, nonprofit organizations, charitable endeavors, or organizations committed to promoting positive social change that are currently facing financial barriers may apply.
Services offered to Pillar Community Impact Program recipients will be customized based on the needs of each organization and may include resources, consulting, customized workshops, training, or individual coaching. The areas of focus for 2024 PCIPs are Youth Engagement, Social Finance, Policy and Advocacy Planning.
Our pilot year of programming was a great success, as we were able to offer support to four organizations with services and support valued at over $41,000. We also identified ways to support an additional 24 organizations through access to a Pillar membership, meeting spaces at Innovation Works, opportunities to participate in our Learning and Development programming, and connections to marketing support through our in-kind sponsors. Learn more about our impact here.
Services offered
Recipients will be selected based on an External Advisory Panel review and scope assessment by the Pillar Community Impact Program team.
Applicants can apply to receive one of the services listed below:
Youth Engagement Coaching in one of the following areas:
- Youth engagement and building impactful programming,
- Designing effective communications/marketing for youth, or
- Engaging youth with an intersectionality and inclusion lens.
Social Finance Coaching or Readiness Assessment in one of the following areas:
- Introduction to Social Finance:
- Social Finance: What is social finance and how does it differ from traditional finance?
- Importance and Purpose: Why social finance is relevant for social purpose organizations.
- How it can help address societal challenges, create sustainable solutions, and enhance overall impact.
- Types of Social Finance Instruments: Explore the various Social Finance Instruments and cases of how they have been implemented, or;
- Building a Social Finance Strategy: Assessing Investment Readiness: How to assess financial readiness for social finance initiatives.
Policy and Advocacy Coaching in one of the following areas:
- Evaluating and articulating the risks of advocacy work vs. the risks of not doing advocacy work,
- Designing an issue-based public policy and advocacy campaign for implementation, or;
- Embedding public policy and advocacy work into your organizational structure and processes.
Each eligible applicant will also be invited to participate in the SDG Cities Online Academy. The Academy offers a variety of learning opportunities to deepen community impact using the shared language of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
A PCIP recipient may also get an opportunity to receive a 3-5 minute video, produced and edited by rTraction for their organization.
Application and selection process
- Applications open on November 20, 2023
- Deadline: January 23, 2024
- Selections made in February 2024. Projects begin March 2024 and end Summer 2024
Eligibility
- You are an employee of a grassroots, volunteer-run, social enterprise, advocacy, nonprofit, charity initiative or organization invested in positive social or environmental impact. You don’t have to be a registered charity or nonprofit.
- You have an operating budget under $1M and have a financial need for capacity building support.
- You are located in London, Elgin, Middlesex or Oxford Counties.
- You are not related to any employee or board member of Pillar Nonprofit Network.
- NOTE: by applying to this program, you consent to exploring storytelling/communications activities about your experience for Pillar’s platforms or in the media. You will have the opportunity to review prior to posting or remove consent at any time.
Questions? Email mlcontursi [at] pillarnonprofit.ca.
If you would like to learn more about how you can sponsor this program to make a positive impact in our community, please email donate [at] pillarnonprofit.ca.
