Summary of the Evaluation of the New Horizons for Seniors Program, 2026

About the Program

The New Horizons for Seniors Program, launched in 2004, is a grants and contributions initiative that supports projects aimed at enhancing social inclusion, well-being for seniors through two streams: Community-based and Pan-Canadian.

The Program supports activities such as volunteering, mentoring between generations, social participation, raising awareness about elder abuse, and provides capital assistance to augment program delivery. By supporting these activities, the Program seeks to strengthen community vitality while addressing the diverse needs of Canada's aging population.

Key findings

• The aging population and various health and social indicators related to loneliness and social isolation points to the ongoing need for this type of Program. Evidence also demonstrates that the Program remained relevant in responding to the evolving needs of seniors and funded organizations, particularly during the Pandemic
• Evidence demonstrates that the Program reached vulnerable senior populations across both the Community-based and Pan-Canadian streams. Reported challenges continue to limit the ability of some projects from effectively reaching vulnerable seniors, particularly in rural regions
• Responses from funded-organizations and senior participants in Community-based and Pan-Canadian funded projects highlighted that involvement in volunteer, mentoring, and social participation activities contributed to social inclusion for seniors, including social connections, a sense of belonging, well-being, and quality of life
• The document review, performance data and survey results indicate that increased elder abuse awareness through targeted initiatives combined with improvements in access to program initiatives contributed to empower participating seniors and reduce barriers to social inclusion
• The Program has improved data organization and document clarity, which helps inform program performance. However, data quality issues, lack of program outcome targets and the limited number of revisions of these targets impede the ability of the Program to fully assess program performance

Recommendations

The evaluation recommends the Program should:

• continue exploring approaches to help senior serving organizations to better address barriers to seniors' participation, with a focus on vulnerable populations
• take steps to continue improving the performance measurement strategy, including the Performance Information Profile, and the associated data capacity and collection methods to better support and inform policy analysis, research and evaluation activities
• review the Community-based funding limit of $25,000 on projects to assess its impact on project scope, scale, oversight, and the achievement of expected results from funded initiatives