Canadian Environmental Grantmakers' Network : Canadian Environmental Grants Database

About the Canadian Environmental Grants Database

CEGN's Canadian Environmental Grants Database is an online database containing information on grants made in support of the Canadian environment.

The database is intended to help both grantmakers and grantseekers. For individual grantmakers, it serves as a practical resource that provides information for their day-to-day work and strategic funding decisions, identifies other players who may be sources of information or potential partners on specific issues, and expands their contact base of grantmakers and potential recipients. For grantseekers, the database helps to identify potential sources of funding for environmental work in Canada.

The latest release of the database (October 2003) contains information on over 4,000 grants made in support of the Canadian environment in the years 2001 and 2002. This represents the activities of 90 grantmakers representing a range of types of funders including family foundations, community foundations, government foundations/grant programs and corporate foundations/grant programs.

It is important to note that the information in the database is an interpretation of the past granting activity of the participating grantmakers, and may not reflect their current funding interests or programs.

How Were the Data Compiled?

Explanation of Terms

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How Were the Data Compiled?

The grant information included in the database was compiled from several sources. These include annual reports, grantmaker websites, other databases/directories, and directly from the grantmaker.

Grant information was analysed by environmental issue, keyword and activity funded using a standard framework developed by CEGN (see section on "Explanation of Terms") to provide consistency in the grants data and thus allow meaningful searches and sector-level analysis.

Please note that since grants were analysed using the database's standard framework for issues and activities, the way that a given grant is characterized within the database may differ somewhat from the description used by the grantmaker itself. However, in coding the grants, CEGN was guided by the wording and terms used in the grantmakers' own descriptions. Also, where we were uncertain of the appropriate interpretation the grantmaker was asked to confirm the correct coding.

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Explanation of Terms

The following is a description of the terms used in the database.

Activity Funded: Based on a framework of 11 types of activities: advocacy; capacity building (i.e. of recipient itself); communications/materials development; community development; direct activity (e.g. "hands-on" activities such as tree planting, building nature trails, etc); land acquisition; litigation/legal work; public education/awareness; public policy input/analysis; research (scientific/environmental); and other. Grants are described in terms of the one activity that best reflects the nature of the main or primary activity specifically supported by the grant.

Activity Location: Indicates where the activity supported by the grant took place, and is one indicator of the geographic scope of the funded activity. (Note that this is sometimes different from where the recipient is located.) Activity location is described as one of the following: (1) "Name of province/territory" for those activities taking place predominantly within a single province/territory; (2) "Canada" for those that are national in scope or significantly involve more than one province; (3) "International" for activities taking place outside of Canada, either fully or in part. (e.g. cross-border initiatives including Canada and U.S.)

Environmental Issue: Based on a framework of 14 broad categories of environmental issues: agriculture; climate and atmosphere; biodiversity/wildlife; energy production and use; international trade/finance; mining; oceans and coasts; solid waste; sustainable communities; terrestrial ecosystems/land; toxic substances; transportation; water - terrestrial freshwater; and general environment/sustainability. The Guide to Environmental Issues: Keywords lists the topics/sub-issues included under each of these 14 broad issue categories. Grants are described in terms of one or more of these 14 categories, based on available information. Where a grant relates to more than three issues, they are typically coded under "general environment".

Fiscal Year: The fiscal years used in the database refer to the calendar year in which the grantmaker's fiscal year ends. For example, the year "2001" includes data from fiscal years 2001 and 2000/2001.

Keywords: A wide range of keywords is used to provide an additional level of detail on each grant. Keywords may be sub-issues of one of the 14 environmental issue categories, or more general codes that cut across all issues. An example of a sub-issue type of keyword is "recycling", which is a keyword relating to the issue "solid waste". An example of a general keyword is "children & youth", which is applied to all grants that involve or relate to this target audience regardless of the issue. The Guide to Environmental Issues: Keywords provides a list of standard keywords used within the database. To attempt to reflect as closely as possible the specific nature of each grant, a wide variety of additional "custom" words or phrases used by the grantmaker to describe a specific grant were also included as keywords, where it seemed relevant.

Grantmaker: A range of types of grantmakers is included in the database including foundations (community, corporate, family, government, other), corporate and government grants programs/funds, and other types of grantmakers. Funders included in the database are organizations whose main purpose is grantmaking, and whose granting programs/activities include environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) among their eligible recipients. (i.e. Programs that are not open to ENGOs are not included in the database.)

Grantmaker Contact Information: (1) Lists of grantmakers generated using the basic search options provide a direct link to each grantmaker's website where full contact information and grants program details can be found. When no website is available, other public contact information is provided. (2) Lists of grantmakers generated using the detailed search options available to CEGN members provide available contact information for a staff member whose responsibilities include environmental grants.

Grantmaker Location: Indicates the Canadian province/territory in which the grantmaker is located, or the country in which the grantmaker is located for those outside Canada.

Project Name/Description: A brief summary of the grant, as described by the grantmaker in its grants listing. May include such elements as purpose, activity, audience and/or scope of the grant. The format varies widely from a short title to a longer description. Where the provided descriptions were too long for the available space, we have attempted to retain the key elements of the description in a shortened version. The same project may be called by different names, by different grantmakers.

Recipient: Grant recipients may be environmental organizations, other types of organizations or individuals. "Environmental" organizations are defined broadly as any organization whose main focus relates to the environment. Some grants have more than one recipient. In situations where one organization served as a sponsor for another organization vis-a-vis the grant, both organizations were included as recipients. Provincial or branch offices typically receive grants directly from the grantmakers, and therefore have been included as separate recipients.

Recipient Contact Information: The following contact information is provided for each recipient, where available: name; alias/acronym; city; province; and link to website.

Recipient Location: Indicates the Canadian province/territory in which the recipient is located. (Note: In this release of the database only recipients located in Canada are included.)

Recipient Name: Different grant lists often refer to recipients by slightly different names. This may be due to use of the legal versus common name, an acronym, the name in English or French, a change of name, or simply different versions of the name as used by recipient or grantmakers. In the database, we have tried to use the name that appears most frequently in the grant listings. However all searches by recipient name will also include acronyms or any known alternative names.

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Search the Database
There are two levels of access for searching the database: