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community climate transitions innovation fund

Are you a member of Tamarack's Community Climate Transitions network and doing local climate work and looking for funding to start or scale your project?

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This summer, the Tamarack Institute is offering funding for 13 climate-related projects in communities across Canada. Ideal projects will help communities mitigate and/or adapt to climate change, focusing on innovative, participatory, equitable, and multi-solving approaches.

Grants range from $2,000 to $10,000, supported through the Definity Insurance Foundation and Echo Foundation.

Apply by September 12, 2025, at 23:59 ET.

Read on for more details.

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Background

Tamarack was founded in 2001 to catalyze collective action with diverse leaders to solve major community challenges including ending poverty, building youth futures, deepening community, and addressing climate change. We believe that by strengthening our collective capacity to engage citizens and lead collaboratively, we help build a more equitable and sustainable future. Community Climate Transitions (CCT) is Tamarack’s newest network for change, launched in 2021.

With the support of Definity Insurance Foundation, the CCT team introduced the Community Climate Transitions Innovation Fund (CCTIF) in 2023 and provided an initial six grants to projects advancing community-led climate action and innovation that is responsive to local needs. In 2024, the CCTIF supported six additional projects. This year, the CCT team is excited to have 13 project grants available thanks to continued support from Definity Insurance Foundation and Echo Foundation. Both Tamarack members and non-members with climate transition initiatives are invited to apply for one of the 13 grants, before September 12, 2025. 

The CCTIF aims to spark new ideas, create connections and build capacity for community-led projects focused on mitigating and/or adapting to climate change. We are seeking innovative projects and solutions that can have quantifiable impacts within the communities and beyond.

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Available funds

We intend to support 13 participative innovation projects per year that are aligned with our guiding principles and community change approaches (see below).

This year, 11 grants will be available to applicants located anywhere in Canada, and 2 will be available only to applicants based in Ontario. 

Nationally Available Grants: 

Definity Insurance Foundation is supporting grant amounts that will range between C$2,000 and C$10,000 each and be split as follows:  

 

Grant Name Amount Quantity
Seed Level C$2,000 4
Sprouting Level C$5,000 3
Scaling Level C$10,000 2

 

Ontario Specific Grants: 

This year, the support of the Echo Foundation has enabled us to provide two additional Sprouting Level grants to members based in Ontario. 

 Grant Name Amount Quantity
Sprouting Level C$5,000 2

 

Each level is designed to match the advancement and resource needs of a variety of projects: 

  • Seed level is for experimenting with new approaches and/or supporting early-stage projects that need help getting off the ground.

  • Sprouting level is for growing promising projects.

  • Scaling level is for supporting projects to scale up (impacting laws or policy), scale-out (impacting greater numbers) or scale deep (impacting relationships, cultural values and beliefs). 

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Important dates and application deadlines

The Innovation Fund will accept applications from until September 12, 2025, at 23:59 ET.  

Please follow these steps to submit your application: 

  1. Review the eligibility requirements, statement of intent, and application form included on this page. 

  2. Join us for an information session on August 21, 2025, at 1:00 PM ET. The Tamarack team will overview the project, provide examples of past funded projects, and answer questions. 

3.  Book time to connect with a member of the CCT team to discuss your idea and clarify any questions you may have about the grant requirements. This step is not required but is strongly encouraged.

4.  Complete the application form by September 12, 2025 at  23:59 ET and attach any relevant supporting documents such as proposals, impact studies, reports, etc. 

Once the application deadline has been reached, our team will begin the review and selection process: 

  • Applications will be reviewed by staff and members of the CCT Advisory Group through September. Some applicants may be contacted for follow-up questions on their proposals. Applicants will be contacted with a decision by the end of September.  

  • The funds will be allocated in October, and a public announcement will be made.  

  • Each grant awardee will be required to use the funds within a year starting from the date of the allocation of the funds. 

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Eligibility 

Applicant Eligibility 
To be eligible, applicants must: 

  1. Represent a nonprofit, community organization or resident-led group, municipality*, or multi-sector collaborative focused on developing community-level solutions that advance a just and equitable climate transition;  

  2. Include a minimum of two people leading the planning and implementation of the project;

  3. Be fiscally and legally based in Canada. Projects submitted for funding should also be based in a Canadian province or territory;

  4. Representatives must have financial authority or authorization from a senior-level representative of the organization to sign and agree to all the terms and conditions of the Funding Agreement. 

Proposal Eligibility 
To be eligible for consideration, proposals must: 

  1. Be an existing or new project that is aligned with the Innovation Fund’s Statement of Intent (see below);

  2. Not be a one-off event or engagement;

  3. Start within 2 months of receiving the grant;

  4. Run for 6 to 12 months;

  5. Share a budget which includes a maximum of 20% for overhead costs and;

  6. Fulfill reporting requirements. We aim to ensure that reporting uncovers key learnings without taking capacity away from awardees’ projects. Grant awardees will: 

    • Share a mid-way progress update with the CCT team verbally. The Tamarack team will set up check-in dates and reminders based on project start date and length and book virtual meetings on Zoom or Teams.  

    • Provide a short report of a maximum of 500 words at the end of the project that captures key impacts and learnings (Tamarack to provide questions that can be answered in a blog, video or other form).  

Proposals that do not align with these criteria will not be considered. If successful, applicants will be expected to adhere to these criteria. 

Note: We are not able to support projects promoting political or faith-based activities. 

 

* We define municipalities as a town, a district with a local government of any size, but we also mean the governing body of a given municipality.  

To be eligible for the two special Ontario Sprouting Level grants, applicants must be fiscally and legally based in Ontario. Projects submitted for funding should also be based in Ontario. All other grants are available nationally. 

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Statement of Intent

The CCT Innovation Fund exists to spark new ideas, create connections, and build capacity for community-led projects focused on mitigating and/or adapting to climate change. We are seeking innovative projects and solutions that can have quantifiable impacts within the communities and beyond. 

Successful applications will align with these CCTIF community-oriented goals: 

  1. Spark new ideas – CCTIF is looking to support community innovation projects. Community innovation has two essential parts. (1) Community Innovation centres community members as both the champions and arbiters of change and seeks to provide meaningful benefits for the community (2) It goes beyond incremental change in bold and ambitious ways, accepting a higher level of risk to achieve meaningful benefits for the community. 

  2. Create connections – CCTIF projects build and expand connections between community members. Reciprocal care and equity, justice, and reconciliation are centred by a recognition that diverse voices – in particular those that have been historically excluded – are vital to climate transition efforts. 

  3. Build capacity – CCTIF projects have the potential to lead to sustained change in a community. This includes (1) Growing the capacity of community members by meaningfully engaging them in collaborative leadership and problem-solving. (2) Providing ongoing benefits to the community.

  4. Demonstrate impact – CCTIF seeks to share project learnings and impacts with other community change practitioners to support nationwide learning and unlearning.  Projects should include plans to measure change that place the community at the centre of assessment processes and use results to drive new thinking, better strategies, and deeper impact.  

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Examples of projects

The CCTIF will fund projects that focus on sharing resources, reciprocal models of support, increasing awareness and engagement, and equity-centred climate mitigation and adaptation solutions, such as: 

  • Sandrine and Pierre are with a community-led organization looking to develop an assessment of energy poverty in their region. They receive a CCTIF Seed grant to do market research and get their project started. They also join a Community of Practice on Emergency Preparedness led by Tamarack, where they meet like-minded people across the country who provide support and advice for the implementation of their project.

  • Aditi and Raven are running the local library and partnered with the city council to increase the number of climate-related books from Indigenous authors, for children and teens in their database and launch a climate café.

  • Javier and Arash lead their city’s climate-focused collective impact initiative and want to support the participation of individuals with lived experiences to join their leadership table. After joining the Tamarack network, they took advantage of the exclusive resources that deepened their knowledge of the collective impact concept.

  • Mingma and Diego work for a local non-profit and want to scale the community engagement volunteer program to decrease food waste and raise climate awareness in their province. They receive a CCTIF Scaling grant to increase the organization’s outreach to two new regions in the province.

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Process for selecting recipients and managing conflicts of interest

Achieving CCT’s mission requires input and guidance from diverse experts (both content and context experts) engaged in climate change and equity work. This includes our members themselves, as we strive to be as member-driven as possible in all that we do. We are also committed to experimenting with participatory grantmaking approaches, where communities themselves select which projects receive funding. In collaboration with the WES Mariam Assefa Fund, Tamarack launched a participatory grantmaking pilot in the Peel Region in 2021. Building off its success, we will once again take a participatory approach to grantmaking in how we allocate the CCTIF.

CCT has recently formed a new Advisory Group that is made up of members of our network and other climate leaders from public, private and non-profit sectors. This Group will work with CCT staff to select which projects receive funding. As such, managing potential conflicts of interest is essential and Tamarack will take measures to address both real and perceived conflicts. 

 

Conflicts of interest

All parties agree to avoid any conflict of interest in the performance of their contractual obligations and disclose to Tamarack without delay any actual or potential conflict of interest that arises during the performance of its contractual obligations.

In the event of a breach of agreement or clear conflict of interest, Tamarack may terminate the partnership, including but not restricted to its obligation to make any further payments. If Tamarack terminates the agreement, Tamarack will require unexpended funds to be returned.

Scoring Rubric

Each applicant’s submission will be reviewed by members of the CCT team as well as an advisory board, and evaluated according to the following scoring rubric:

 

Rubric Score
Expectations exceeded 4
Expectations met 3
Guidelines adequately met 2
Guidelines somewhat met 1
Inadequate or incomplete  0

 

Criteria 4 3 2 1 0
Comprehensive and clear: Application fully completed, clear and concise.            
Impactful: If achieved, the project would have important social and/or environmental impacts in the community.           
Innovative: The project idea is innovative, bold, and ambitious. It is not an incremental change.          
Equitable: The project represents equity-denied groups in either the people they serve (2 pts), the communities they work with (3 pts) or the management team (4 pts) .          
Collaborative: The project meaningfully engages community members  in collaborative leadership and problem-solving processes.           
Realistic and achievable: The project and desired impacts are realistic and achievable considering timeline, budget, management team and other considerations.            

 

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Application Form 

To apply, complete the application by September 12, 2025 and attach any relevant supporting documents such as proposals, impact studies, reports, etc.