The Indigenous Climate Action Grants offer funding up to $20,000 to support Indigenous-led climate action projects that:
| Funding Stream 1: Up to $10,000 per project | Funding Stream 2: Up to $20,000 per project |
|---|---|
|
|
Successful applicants will be required to sign the Declaration of Compliance of Anti-Harassment/Discrimination City Policy and will be asked to review the City of Toronto Guide to Political Activities for City Funded Groups and sign a corresponding document to acknowledge the policy.
The Indigenous Climate Action Grants will be open from September 2 to October 8, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. (midnight).
Timeline is subject to change.
The City of Toronto (Environment, Climate & Forestry Division) collects personal information in this application under the legal authority of the City of Toronto Act, 2006, section 83 and Item IE26.16, City Council Decision 1, as confirmed by the City of Toronto By-law 1110-2021.
The City will utilize this information for the purposes of administering the Indigenous Climate Action Grants program, including: the consideration and evaluation of applications; communication with grant applicants, selection of grant recipients, processing and entering into grant agreements with successful applicants as required, as well as monitoring and ensuring on-going compliance of grant recipients with the terms and eligibility of the Indigenous Climate Action Grants program.
As mandated by the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, section 2(2.1) and 2(2.2), information collected on this form is considered business identity information. Business identity information could be publicly available and/or disclosed upon request, unless an exception applies.
For any questions regarding this collection, please contact: Project Lead – Indigenous, Outreach and Engagement, Environment, Climate & Forestry Division, USEW-2 C/O Metro Hall, 2nd Floor, 55 John Street, Toronto, Ontario M5V 3C6.
All projects funded by the Indigenous Climate Action Grants must directly support and benefit Toronto’s Urban Indigenous community.
Examples of eligible projects include:
For support in developing your project budget please contact:
Below is a list of expenses that are eligible and ineligible. Please note that only expenses that are deemed reasonable and necessary to the success of the project will be approved.
| Category | Eligibility Details |
|---|---|
| Tools & Equipment | Eligible Items |
|
|
| People & Labour | Eligible Items |
|
|
| Ineligible Items | |
|
|
| Events & Workshops | Eligible Items |
|
|
| Ineligible Items | |
|
|
| Capital Development | Ineligible Items |
|
In 2025 we will be welcoming back all members of our Indigenous Climate Action Grants Review Committee:
The Review Committee is devised of members of the Indigenous Community who have been selected to review grants for the Indigenous Climate Action Grants based on the following considerations:
The Review Committee assess proposals based on the following criteria:
Final recommendations for funding will be approved by the Executive Director of the Environment, Climate & Forestry Division.
Groups are required to report in the following ways:
A trustee is an incorporated not-for-profit organization with audited financial statements and the financial systems in place to administer grant funds.
A trustee will distribute the funding according to the approved project budget. Trustees may also provide additional support to funded projects, such as project management and mentorship. Non-profit applicants in Stream 2 can act as their own trustee, provided they fulfill all the requirements listed below.
Trustee organizations must meet all of the following eligibility criteria and be approved by City staff to act as your trustee:
The trustee organization:
Trustee organizations may charge fees for their services. Fees of up to 15 per cent of the total project funding are eligible for funding
| Year | Name of Group | About the Group | Project Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 440 Parkside Dr. | 440 Parkside Dr. is a community of volunteers who coordinate an Indigenous-led land restoration project located at 440 Parkside Drive in High Park. | The grant supported events at 440 Parkside, Anishinaabemowin signage for the garden, and tools & supplies to continue the ongoing work in the garden. |
| 2024 | Anishinawbe Wellness Collective | The collective is a group of Anishinawbe caretakers who have a mission to support Indigenous families in Toronto West End (Mount Dennis) area. They focus on supporting families and single parents with access to land-based programming. | With this grant, the collective ran a Deer Hide Camp. These were four workshops including, traditional preparation of hides at the Humber River Lodge, a medicine making workshop, a traditional hand drum workshop, and traditional mitt making. These skills are important for passing down traditional ecological knowledges to the next generation. |
| 2024 | Afro-N8ive Creations | Afro-N8ive is a grassroots initiative. The travelling market is held in Neighbourhood Improvement areas to inspire Afro-Indigenous artists to showcase art and traditional cultural goods thereby increasing resiliency to climate impacts by creating community. | With the support of the 2023 Indigenous Climate Action Grants, Afro-N8ive Creations were able to run four markets. In 2024, they expanded to four themed healing markets. These themes are: MMIWG, 2SLGBTQ+, and healing from Addictions and Trauma. |
| 2024 | Crosby Gitigaan | Crosby Gitigaan Services is a family run non-profit that specializes in Indigenous agricultural techniques. They aim to supply the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities with more awareness of Indigenous foods, medicines and farming techniques that will help fight climate change |
The Indigenous Climate Action Grant was used to develop workshops about carbon sequestration by creating natural bricks out of biochar and Sunroot (ashkibwaa). The process of cooking the bricks in solar ovens eliminates GHG emissions as the bricks absorb carbon. |
| 2024 | Earth Helpers | Earth Helpers is a collective of tradespeople, artists and Elders who have been working in Paul Martel Park (10 Madison Street) since 2020. The garden is home to four types of Native Gardens and incorporates art through the murals surrounding the garden. | This year, Earth Helpers used the Indigenous Climate Action Grant to support the ongoing work in Paul Martel Park. To bring more traditional knowledge into their work, they hosted ceremonial events with community Elders to learn about the plants and be in rhythm of the earth. |
| 2024 | Evergreen Brickworks | Evergreen Brick Works is a nine-acre heritage industrial site that transformed an abandoned brick factory into a community space for connection to land, recreation, and community events. Indigenous Earth Workers, April and Luke, have been able to develop four Indigenous spaces at the Brick Works for community programming, including the Heart Berry Lodge and Gitigaan, a medicinal and food garden. | In July 2024, Evergreen Brick Works experienced mass flooding that greatly affected their Indigenous spaces that are snuggled within the lowlands of the facility. The Indigenous Climate Action Grant supported the reconstruction of the Indigenous gardens affected by floods. The grant also supported the development of ‘Indigenous Land Connections’, a program for high-school students that includes winter growing knowledges, bush-crafting, and animal tracking. |
| 2024 | Finding Our Power Together | Finding our Power Together is an Indigenous mental health non-profit in Toronto. They are deeply invested in reconnecting Indigenous communities, particularly youth, with traditional foods, medicines, seeds, and practices to enhance physical health and promote cultural continuity and resilience. | The grant funded a youth program focused on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Climate Action and Mental Health, including taking youth to the field at a local Indigenous-run farm to learn about food sovereignty, food security, and teach traditional growing practices. |
| 2024 | Giwaabamin | Giwaabamin is a free herbal clinic for Toronto's Street involved community. A main aspect of the clinic is to provide free and safe care that includes climate induced health impacts such as chronic conditions due to environmental exposure. | The Indigenous Climate Action Grant supported Giwaabamin with supplies and herbal medicines needed to run the clinic. It also helped the clinic to become more mobile while ensuring that transporting services across the city is aligned with the Transform TO Net Zero Strategy. |
| 2024 | Gwai-yuk Gih’nendahmoen | Gwai-yuk Gih’nendahmoen is an Indigenous collective formed in 2023. They are focused on land stewardship and the popular restorative use of urban lands based on Indigenous principles, knowledges, and practices. Their activities support urban Indigenous people to learn and practice cultural traditions, as the basis for reconnecting with communities and the natural world around us. Currently they steward three garden plots on private properties in St. James town. |
Funds from the Indigenous Climate Action Grant supported Indigenous stewards to partake in preparing soil/garden beds, starting seedlings, seed saving, and maintaining their four garden sites. The grant was also used to bring traditional ecological knowledge and growing practices to their sites by hosting an elder teacher in fall and spring 2024. |
| 2024 | Harmony Nests | Harmony Nests engages community members in hand- on workshops to remove invasive species and replace them with native berry plants, creating a thriving ecosystem that supports local birds and wildlife, and develop and preserve Indigenous cultural connections and place-making that promotes food security, traditional medicine cultivation and ecological biodiversity that incorporates Indigenous knowledge systems into ecological restoration. | First funded in 2023, Harmony Nests has had a surge in membership and interest in their traditional bird nest making. This year, Harmony Nests will be running workshops to teach community members how to make traditional bird nests out of invasive species (dog strangling vine, etc.) to promote the art to new groups. |
| 2024 | Humber River Lodge | The Humber River Lodge is an Urban Indigenous cultural site that is stewarded primarily by the youth agency ENAGB, with the support of the City of Toronto, the TRCA and many other organizations and individuals. Through consultations with key Indigenous knowledge holders and leaders, they are developing a land management plan to support the healing of and the ecological restoration of the site. |
The Indigenous Climate Action Grant supported ecological restoration work and program contributions at the Humber River Lodge site (six-hectare space). The grant supported costs of facilitating weekly gatherings at the Humber River Lodge over the summer and fall. Activities included planting and harvesting ceremony, invasive species removal, gardening caretaking, a phragmites roofing workshop, planting, cooking traditional meals, a seed saving workshop and harvesting teachings. |
| 2024 | Taiaiako'n Historical Preservation Society | Taiaiako'n Historical Preservation Society is an Indigenous-led group that has worked to protect sacred sites in Toronto, especially in High Park where there are 57 ancient Haudenosaunee burial mounds, and the Mohawk-Seneca town site of Taiaiako’n located in current day Baby Point. They do cultural preservation and environmental stewardship work in High Park and in Allan Gardens. | With this grant, the group held teachings on the four orders of creation in the Onhen Takwedekwa teachings, that are Haudenosaunee ecological teachings related to the Great Law, a series of law and ethics on how to take care of each other and the earth. In recent years they have held successful events on the first, second and third order of creation. |
| 2024 | Toronto-Peel Metis Council | Toronto-Peel Metis Council (TYRMC) is a volunteer-run Metis council who represents over 1500 citizens in the Toronto and York region. They offer cultural programming including workshops that center around Metis identity and revitalization of cultural knowledge. | The grant funded the "Back to the Land project" a land-based retreat that aimed to energize and promote physical, psychological and emotional connect of the Metis youth and elders in the GTA. The program was a three-day cultural immersion camp centered on the revitalization of traditional ways of living on the land, including ice-fishing, trapping, and snowshoeing. |
| 2024 | Turtle Protectors | Turtle Protectors is an Indigenous-led and guided stewardship program that is supported by Msit No’kmaq, the Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle, Indigenous Elders, and community members. They advocate, support, and protect Turtle relatives living within High Park, Humber River, and Rennie Park while embracing all our kin. | The grant supported the Turtle Protectors hotline that is a critical aspect of the project. In 2024 Turtle Protectors expanded to eight parks throughout Toronto with many other requests coming from Woodbine Beach and other shoreline parks. The hotline operators connect volunteers to sites where residents and park visitors have spotted turtles so they can protect egg laying sites. |
We aim to accommodate needs such as documents in alternate formats, ASL interpretation and off-hour meetings to ensure that groups can fully participate in the funding process. If you require accommodation or assistance, please contact: