2021 Saskatoon District Funding Guidelines

Our Funding Priorities and Preferences

We’re committed to building a better world by investing our resources in bettering our communities, strengthening our economy and improving quality of life for individuals and families. We focus on distributing funding to local programs and initiatives that make a meaningful difference.

We’re specifically interested in supporting local initiatives and organizations dedicated to:

• promoting self-reliant approaches to poverty reduction and community-based economic development.
• creating opportunities for disadvantaged individuals (such as people living with disabilities, low-income families, at-risk youth and Indigenous populations) to integrate more fully into economic and social life. 
• enhancing and promoting approaches to environmental sustainability that minimize social and economic barriers. These initiatives may include environmental leadership and education, retrofits, sustainable transportation, local/sustainable purchasing, ecosystem preservation and restoration, sustainable agriculture and resource management
• responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action. 

When assessing applications, we prioritize organizations and initiatives that:

• demonstrate potential to achieve positive outcomes in our funding priority areas.
• address a critical need in the community and have strong community support.

• have limited access to other sources of funding and demonstrate a high need for Affinity support, and/or can leverage Affinity support to access other funds.
• demonstrate the capacity to successfully carry out the proposed program or project.
• have a membership with Affinity Credit Union.

Types of requests we consider include:

• program funding and one-time project funding requests.
• capital request for facilities/building construction, repair or maintenance projects, equipment and other capital items.
• organizational capacity development funding.
• seed/planning funding (e.g. business plans for projects, enterprise or housing initiatives).

Typically, we don’t consider requests for:

• private businesses or individuals.
• political or lobby groups.
• religious activities (with the exception of non-denominational activities with community-based purposes other than propagation of faith)
• contingency funds or deficit funding.
• team requests, including travel or uniforms.
• assistive equipment for individual use.
• event sponsorships (please see our sponsorship and donation program). 

Eligibility

You’re eligible to apply for funding if:

• you’re a not-for-profit, community-based voluntary organization, community service or not-for-profit co-operative, charitable organization or mission-based enterprise.
• you’re a municipal, First Nations or local educational institution/entity.
• your organization or initiative is located in and/or directly benefits communities and individuals within our district.

Application Deadline and Processes

We accept applications any time of the year; however, we only make our funding decisions once a year. Our deadline is May 1, 2021. We’ll inform you of our funding decision six to eight weeks after the deadline has passed.

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