Backgrounder - Gender-Based Violence Program 

While violence affects people of all genders, ages, cultures, ethnicities, geographic locations, and socio-economic backgrounds, some populations are more at risk of experiencing violence than others. This could include Indigenous women and their communities, as well as other underserved populations, which face additional barriers to access services.

Following the June 2017 announcement of It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence, Status of Women Canada (SWC) launched the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Program.

The GBV Program complements SWC’s Women’s Program to further help organizations working in the GBV sector develop and implement promising practices to address gaps in supports for survivors and their families. Funding is provided to eligible organizations in support of projects at the local, regional and national levels, and is available for projects that address gaps in supports for specific groups of survivors, including Indigenous women and their communities and underserved populations, such as children and youth, ethno-cultural women, LGBTQ2 communities and gender non-binary people, non-status/refugee/immigrant women, seniors, women living in official language minority communities, women living in northern, rural and remote communities, and women with disabilities and exceptionalities.

Call for concepts: Promising Practices to Support Survivors and their Families

After listening to experts, survivors, and stakeholders across the country in the summer of 2017, the call for concepts was put in place as an innovative way to create funding opportunities that are more accessible and sustainable for organizations. And because this approach focuses on the idea stage, SWC hopes to engage a broader range of organizations, including those that until now, haven’t had the resources to complete full proposals—especially since this approach also provides intermediary support to develop fully detailed proposals after an initial concept approval.

The call for concepts is an innovative way to apply for funding opportunities and differs from traditional call for proposals. First, organizations are invited to submit concepts, including only high-level information. SWC will then assess concepts and approved organizations will be invited to develop and submit a full proposal, for which funding support (up to $30,000) will be available. All full proposals will be assessed, and approved projects will be eligible to receive up to $1 million in project funding. The call for concepts is a competitive process and all submissions are subject to screening and review. Not all organizations that submit a call for concepts will be invited to submit a proposal for funding.

Other changes include:

• a longer funding period of up to five years;
• a two-stage application process, which reduces the administrative burden for applicant organizations. Less information is required in the initial concept phase meaning a leaner application process for organizations;
• eligible recipients have been expanded to include labour groups and unions; provinces, territories, municipalities and their agencies; research organizations and institutes, centers of expertise, educational institutions (i.e. universities, colleges, CÉGEPs, secondary schools, school boards/school districts) as well as public health institutions, hospitals, and healthcare service providers; and
• the emphasis of this call for concepts is on testing and evaluation of promising practices means clear impact and results for Canadians.

To better advance equality issues and make lasting impact for women in Canada, SWC has implemented changes to the Women’s Program to strengthen its support and flexibility to funded organizations and initiatives making it easier for organizations to access resources, through for example, longer-term, higher value funding opportunities and funding core programming. To ensure your proposed project fulfills the requirements of the GBV Program eligibility criteria, we invite you to consult the General Eligibility Requirements or contact a GBV Program staff to discuss the application with a project officer. The deadline to submit applications under this call for concepts is 12:00 p.m. (PT), March 1, 2018.