Community Vitality

• November 12, 2025 – The London Community Foundation Grants Portal opens for organizations to submit a three-page letter of intent outlining their proposal for a Community Vitality grant.
• November 20, 2025  – Grants team staff begin hosting drop-in sessions on Thursday afternoons to answer questions and provide feedback on grant ideas.
• January 20, 2026, at 2 p.m. – The portal closes to letters of intent for the Community Vitality grant program at 2 p.m.
• February 27, 2026 – The Foundation’s volunteer Grants Committee invites selected organizations to apply for the grant, based on their letters of intent and the criteria of the grants program.
• March 24, 2026 at 2 p.m. – Selected organizations submit full applications for a Community Vitality grant.
• May 1, 2026 – The Foundation’s volunteer Grants Committee invites selected applicants to attend a short in-person meeting to discuss their project, based on the committee’s review and assessment of each application.
• May 21, 2026 – Meetings are held between the Foundation’s volunteer Grants Committee and applicants to answer outstanding questions.
• June 12, 2026 – Applicants are notified of the decision on their grant application. Successful applicants receive information about next steps, including plans for photography and media promotion.

To be eligible for a grant you must be a qualified donee, meaning an organization recognized by the Canada Revenue Agency under the Income Tax Act that an issue official donation receipts for gifts they receive from individuals and corporations.

If you are not a qualified donee, you may partner with an organization that is one, and apply in partnership. If you wish to do this, we recommend you contact us before applying and discuss this with a member of our Community Impact Team.

The project receiving the grant must primarily impact one or more of the areas in London Community Foundation’s catchment area, which includes:

• City of London
• County of Middlesex
• Oneida Nation of the Thames
• Chippewas of the Thames First Nation
• Munsee-Delaware Nation

London Community Foundation will consider supporting reasonable and essential expenditures required to implement the proposal. A Community Vitality Grant will not fund:

• Land acquisition
• Building purchases
• New construction

Proposals will be evaluated by the Foundation’s Grants Committee based on the extent that the project demonstrates the following required criteria:

• Transformative Impact: Proposes significant change to the current situation, through altering a system, turning around an undesirable trend, improving current methods, or filling unaddressed gap in the community.
• Accountability and Measurability: Demonstrates capacity, competence and commitment by providing evidence that makes the project’s approach plausible, outlining a plan to achieve outcomes, and providing evidence of your capacity to deliver the project.
• Acts on the concept of “nothing about us, without us:” Proposals are led by or meaningfully engage those who are directly impacted by the project, inclusive of community members with diverse lived experiences, and plan to establish or build on existing relationships with those who will benefit from the project.

London Community Foundation reserves the right to provide full or partial funding. There is no pre-determined number of projects to be funded. London Community Foundation is happy to be one of any number of funders contributing to the project.