Welcome to the Catherine Donnelly Foundation. The next deadline for Letters of Inquiry will be in July 2024.  For further inquiries, contact staff.

Application Guidelines

Currently, the Catherine Donnelly Foundation reviews grant requests twice yearly (Spring and Fall). Please review our application guidelines carefully to ensure you are applying to the appropriate grant stream. Download our full application guidelines here.
  
Application Process
The Catherine Donnelly Foundation operates with a two-stage application review process:
 1) Letter of Inquiry (pre-proposal inquiry)
 2) Invited Applicant (full application)
 
All applicants are encouraged to review our application guidelines prior to submitting a Letter of Inquiry. A Review Committee will evaluate Letters of Inquiry for their alignment with CDF objectives and criteria. If approved through the Letter of Inquiry submission, groups will be invited to submit a full application. The Catherine Donnelly Foundation Board reviews full grant application requests twice yearly to determine successful applications. Please note that the grant application process takes approximately eight weeks from the invited application deadline until board review & approval.
 
The Catherine Donnelly Foundation does not fund the following:

• Retroactive funding
• Fundraising campaigns
• Operating deficits
• Projects outside of Canada
• Emergency appeals
• Purely commercial recordings or film projects 

Potential applicants are strongly advised to contact the Foundation prior to submitting a letter of inquiry: 

Hamshaa Sivaruban
Grants and Logistics Coordinator
hsivaruban@catherinedonnellyfoundation.org