The Daylight Fund is an open call granting opportunity to address the safety needs of women and non-binary individuals across Canada. Launched in spring 2025 with grants awarded in summer 2025, this pilot fund is designed to support organizations directly addressing gender-based safety issues.
Thirty-eight organizations across Canada received a total of $500,000 in support to advance safety for women and gender-diverse people—helping build stronger, more inclusive communities nationwide. This funding reflects the urgent and widespread need for safety-focused programs across the country. The Daylight Fund is now closed for applications.
Why Safety?
Right now, women and gender-diverse people across Canada are facing rising rates of violence, heightened discrimination, and growing barriers to accessing safe housing, healthcare, and community support. The conditions that should foster safety, stable shelter, affirming care, freedom from harm are increasingly out of reach, especially in rural and remote areas across the country. Safety for women and gender-diverse people means living free from violence, discrimination, and harm in all forms—physical, emotional, and systemic. It ensures autonomy over one’s body, access to supportive resources, and the ability to participate fully in society.
The Daylight Fund responds to this urgent reality. It supports the organizations working every day to strengthen the systems of care and connection that make all our communities more secure.
Meet the Grantees
These organizations represent a powerful range of community-led initiatives across Canada, working to address the safety needs of women and gender diverse people. Funding decisions were shaped by participatory grant making committee, broadening decision-making to those with lived experience and professional expertise.
Each grantee is advancing safety and dignity through community-based leadership, regional expertise, and a deep commitment to gender justice.
African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region, Kitchener, Ontario
Aide aux Trans du Québec, Montreal, Quebec
Alternatives for Women, Picton, Ontario
Antigonish Women’s Centre & Sexual Assault Services, Antigonish, Nova Scotia
BGC Prince County, Summerside, Prince Edward Island
Campbell River and North Island Transition Society, Campbell River, British Columbia
Domestic Abuse Services Oxford, Woodstock, Ontario
Elizabeth Fry Society of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
End Sexual Violence NL, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women Canada, Victoria, British Columbia
Hope Resource Centre Association, Westlock, Alberta
Iranian Women’s Organization of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
Kamloops Sexual Assault Counselling Centre Society, Kamloops, British Columbia
Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers Action Project, Toronto, Ontario
Maison le Paravent, Pointe-Calumet, Quebec
Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters, Winkler, Manitoba
Nipissing Transition House, North Bay, Ontario
PearlSpace Support Services Society, Squamish, British Columbia
PEI Family Violence Prevention Services, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Prairie Harbour Inc, Portage La Prairie, Manitoba
Pro-Choice Society of Lethbridge & Southern Alberta, Lethbridge, Alberta
Project Agape, Ottawa, Ontario
Safe Haven Foundation, Calgary, Alberta
Supporting Survivors of Abuse and Brain Injury through Research (SOAR), Vernon, British Columbia
SWAN: Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network Society, Vancouver, British Columbia
The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Ottawa, Ontario
The Memphremagog Women’s Center, Magog, Quebec
The Tahiuqtiit Womans Society, Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories
Thela ylexw awtxw Foundation (House of Life Givers), Surrey, British Columbia
Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver, British Columbia
Wasoqop’q First Nation for Weli-ankweyasimk Women’s Shelter, Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia
West Kootenay Women’s Association, Nelson, British Columbia
Women’s Multicultural Resource and Counselling Centre of Durham, Pickering, Ontario
Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network, Athens, Ontario
Women’s Rural Resource Centre, Strathroy, Ontario
Xolhemet Society – Wilma’s Transition Society, Chilliwack, British Columbia
Yellowknife Women’s Society, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
YWCA St. John’s, St. John’s, Newfoundland