What You Can Expect From Us

Vancouver Foundation is committed to making a meaningful and lasting impact in communities through shifting and sharing power, and centering justice and equity in our work. We achieve this mission by partnering with many individuals and organizations province-wide. 

As part of that commitment, we embrace the principles and values of trust-based philanthropy and are working to embed these in our grantmaking.  

Trust-based Principles: 

• Be transparent and responsive 
• Simplify and streamline paperwork  
• Give multi-year, unrestricted funding 
• Do our homework 
• Solicit and act on feedback 
• Offer support beyond the check

Trust-based Values: 

• Lead with trust  
• Center relationships  
• Collaborate with humility and curiosity 
• Redistribute power 
• Work for systemic equity 

We believe in fair and transparent processes and being accountable for our actions. We want the service we provide to everyone – by every department and staff member – to be grounded in transparency, trust and open communication.  Our actions should clearly align to our intention to be community-inspired and responsive to local needs.  Our actions should clearly align to our intention to be community-inspired and responsive to local needs.

When it comes to decision-making about discretionary granting, we want you to fully understand our processes, timelines, and deadlines, which can be found here in this section of our website.

As we explore new ways to shift and share power in our grantmaking, the methods and processes we use to arrive at granting decisions can change from year to year and between each program. Program guides for each grant type will clearly communicate how granting decisions are made.

We seek to center community voices, especially those traditionally excluded or marginalized, in our decision-making. This can take many forms including creating advisory councils, through community listening and feedback, and having community advisors review grant applications. You may find the name of our community advisors on our Board and Committees page. 

Grant recommendations from Advisory Committees are approved as follows:

• Up to $100,000 – approved by the Vice President, Grants & Community Initiatives 
• $100,001 to $250,000 – approved by the President & CEO 
• $250,001 to $499,999 – approved by the President & CEO, and 2 Vice Presidents (two signatories) 
• $500,000 and above – approved by the Board of Directors  

Should your project application not be successful, we will tell you why. There are no appeals of granting decisions.  We recognize, however, that from time to time, there may be disagreement with the granting decision or process. In these cases, we encourage dialogue and feedback with our staff so we can learn about your concerns and continue to strengthen our relationships.

Should the issue still not be resolved following such dialogue, you may wish to consult our Complaints Policy. 

Vancouver Foundation is committed to shifting and sharing power to center justice, equity, diversity, inclusion and respect in all aspects of its granting and operations.  Please read our blog post for more information on how we are doing this.  

We will not fund organizations that discriminate or seek to limit the legal rights and activities of people. And we will rescind funds to grantees that engage in discriminatory practices as defined by British Columbian and Canadian law.