Park People Nature Connect Fund – Emerging Stream

No, please submit only one application per organization.

No, the emerging stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund is for activities that will be delivered in 2026. 

Yes.

Your organization or project can demonstrate a positive impact on nature in many ways, whether through environmental education, nature-based activities or events, ecological stewardship and restoration or other landcare activities: 

• Education and raising awareness of environmental issues, such as climate change, biodiversity or teaching about the local environment by hosting a nature walk. 
• Hosting nature-based activities could include park cleanups, nature-related arts programming or citizen science initiatives such as species monitoring and bioblitzes 
• Hands-on stewardship and restoration activities such as planting of trees, shrubs, and plants; invasive species removal, and other projects that enhance local parks and green space.

Here are some useful links: 

• Host a Climate Change Workshop
• Make Your Park Clean-Up a Great Community Event
• How A Food Forest Took Root In A Concrete Jungle

Developing an inclusive and accessible project or event involves inclusivity for people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds, accessibility (e.g. physically accessible, open to the public) and safety (e.g. health measures).

For further reading, see our resource on Events Accessibility.

Decisions will be made by a team of reviewers composed of Park People staff. Application selection will be based on the following criteria:

• Strength of the application, including past experience, compelling argument describing the proposed project
• Environmental Impact as demonstrated by nature-based activities and ecological stewardship and restoration goals.  
• Nature connection through volunteer and community engagement
• Diversity or parks, green space and habitats represented across Canada
• Evidence of consideration of inclusion and accessibility

Park People is dedicated to funding a diversity of parks, green spaces and different habitats across Canada, and this will be considered in the review process. While meeting any or all of these criteria will not guarantee that your organization/project will be awarded funding, we are looking for these qualities in each application.

Park People works towards addressing the inequitable distribution of resources within the parks sector. To this end the application includes questions to help understand if your organization is led by and/or engages with members of equity-deserving communities. Please note that this is not a criterion for eligibility.

We use the term equity-deserving communities to refer to groups who, because of systemic discrimination, oppression, and/or the ongoing impacts of colonization, continue to face barriers that prevent them from having equitable access to resources and opportunities available to other members of society. These may include, but are not limited to, Indigenous Peoples, Black, and other racialized communities, disabled persons, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, newcomers, women, and people living on low incomes.