Making Collaboration the Default: What’s New with the Canadian Collaborative Funding Initiative

Why we're doing this

Across Canada, there are so many individuals, groups, organizations, networks and movements working towards caring for our communities and our ecosystems. Yet too often, the resources supporting this work move through fragmented, parallel efforts: well-intentioned, but limited in their ability to address challenges that are complex and interconnected.

We are seeing an increase in demand amid challenging economic conditions for our society. As demand grows across our communities, the landscape of giving is changing. Fewer Canadians are participating in charitable giving, while an increasing share of philanthropic capital flows through major donors, donor-advised funds, and foundations, raising important questions about how resources can be connected, aligned, and mobilized for greater collective impact.

Nonprofits continue to compete for scarce dollars instead of pooling their gifts and assets. Leaders are spending precious hours navigating funding streams with different requirements, timelines and expectations. Funders tell us they are finding aligned partners through word of mouth, LinkedIn and luck, often bringing 40 to the table only to engage nine or ten.

Yet, collaboration trained on systemic change is much discussed, highly valued, and infrequently achieved.

We know what's possible when rigorous collaboration takes hold. We've seen a poverty reduction partnership in Saskatoon grow to 160 partners and 10 funders, change practices related to procurement and decent work, and build a vision for a place-based integrated services and housing strategy that is ready for systemic investment. We've seen 60 environmental organizations show up in Ottawa with one voice. We've seen funders pool resources to strengthen the sector infrastructure, democracy, and independent journalism structures that we all rely on. We’ve seen community led collaboratives emerge through grassroots leadership in places like Northern Manitoba providing access to food for 75 communities.

Systems change cannot be achieved by organizations acting alone. It requires shared, audacious goals. It requires coordinated action across institutions. It requires aligned capital, and the full range of gifts - financial and otherwise - that philanthropists, nonprofits and communities bring.

At the Canadian Collaborative Funding Initiative, we are asking a simple question: what would it take to make collaboration for equitable, transformational results the default in Canadian philanthropy, rather than the exception?

The Canadian Collaborative Funding Initiative, jointly stewarded by SETSI, the Tamarack Institute and Philanthropic Foundations Canada (PFC), exists to answer that question together. It grew out of an open letter from Canada's nonprofits and charities, signed by more than 125 organizations, calling for more trust-based, relational partnerships with funders; supportive responses from all of Canada’s philanthropic networks (PFC, Community Foundations of Canada, The Circle on Philanthropy, and Environment Funders Canada); and gatherings convened by Gore Mutual around collaboration.

We are inviting leaders, supporters, innovators to join us in deepening our collective efforts to address our community challenges. There are many ways to get involved by contacting us here and exploring more about what we are doing and learning on this journey below.

What we're building together

By early 2027, CCFI will deliver practical tools that make collaboration easier for everyone:

• A map of what already exists. A publicly available database and taxonomy of the collaborative funding approaches already working in Canada and those in development, to provide a clearer picture of which funders and organizations are pursuing similar goals in similar places.

• Case studies of exemplary collaborative funding models. Capturing the experiences, journeys and lessons learned of a subset of Canadian collaborative funding examples through storytelling.

• Commitments for funders. A set of practices funders are ready to hold to collaborate well with each other and with the sector.

• Commitments for the charitable sector. A parallel set of practices that nonprofits and charities are ready to hold to be strong partners to one another.

• A pipeline of new collaborations. We’re taking ideas for outcomes that new cross-sector partnerships could align around - or that new funder collaboratives could resource. We’re keen to use what we’ve learned about collective impact and systemic change to move these ideas into action in ways that close specific equity gaps, centre people with lived experience, and work relationally.
  

Where we've been

Since June, we've been listening: in virtual tables, in Montreal, in Winnipeg, and in Toronto.

• The first Funders Table and Charitable Sector Table (June 2026). Funders shared models ranging from pooled funds and impact investing syndicates to Indigenous-led collaboratives. Nonprofit leaders told us what makes multi-organization partnerships succeed, and what funder behaviours help or hinder. Both tables agreed: greater visibility into who is funding what would materially increase collaboration.

• Montreal (July 2026). We gathered funders and partners to explore the power of place, and how collaborative funding can resource whole community ecosystems, not just individual organizations.

• Winnipeg (September 2026). At the PFC conference, CCFI joined a session on collaborative funding models alongside leaders from McConnell, Inspirit, Lawson and the Northern Manitoba Food, Culture and Community Collaborative. On the conference’s final day, about 80 CEOs of foundations and nonprofits joined a breakfast to share a deep collaboration they'd been part of, and what made it possible.

• Toronto (September 2026). The same week, CCFI closed the AFP Toronto TOgather conference with a panel featuring Tamarack, SETSI, Toronto Foundation and Carleton University's Women in Philanthropy initiative.

What we heard, again and again:

• Trust comes first. It cannot be mandated or funded into existence. It is built through relationships, transparency and shared experience.

• Power matters. Who sets priorities, who decides, and who is missing from the table shape whether collaboration serves communities.

• Collaboration needs infrastructure. Backbone support, dedicated coordination and time are what make it last.

• Community benefit must stay the goal. Collaboration is not an efficiency exercise. It is how we reach results none of us could achieve alone.

How our reach has grown

What began as a conversation among 32 funders convened by Gore Mutual has become a national movement.

• More than 40 leaders joined our first Funders Table and Charitable Sector Table in June, from foundations, credit unions, financial institutions, impact investors, nonprofits and sector networks.

• About 80 CEOs of foundations and nonprofits joined the PFC breakfast in Winnipeg, out of more than 125 who registered.

• Several dozen new organizations raised their hands this fall to join a table, share their story, host a conversation, contribute financially or help design the 2027 pilots.

• New networks are engaging, including the Workforce Funders Collaborative and Community Foundations of Canada.

We're grateful to the organizations whose wisdom and support have made this work possible, including Inspirit Foundation, Gore Mutual, Co-operators, Philanthropy Together, Sillons, AFP Toronto, and New Power Labs.

How you can get involved

We've designed CCFI so that everyone can take part, whatever your capacity. Here's how:

• Share your story. Tell us about a collaboration you've been part of, through an interview or our survey, so it can inform the database and the commitments.

• Host a conversation. If you're holding an event this fall or winter, we'd love to test and validate our findings with your community.

• Help design the 2027 pilots. Help identify, design or join the new collaboratives we'll launch next year.

• Support the work financially. We're raising funds for the next two years of design, convening and facilitation work, and to compensate the charitable sector partners who contribute their time and wisdom.

• Stay informed. Receive updates and help us make the case for collaboration.

You can also meet us in person this fall, at a CCFI workshop at Tamarack's Community Change Summit in Toronto (October 21–23) and at New Power Lab's Capital Unlocked conference in Toronto (November 5).

Tell us how you'd like to be involved: sign up here. It takes just a few minutes.