The Veritas Foundation
Funding Guidelines for Non-Registered Entities and their Projects

The Veritas Foundation recognizes the significant value that non-qualified donees bring to charitable work in Canada and internationally.  We are ready and available to provide funding approval from Veritas Foundation Giving Fund accounts to support the projects of non-qualified donees.

We are dedicated to working with charitable organizations that share our goal to help make a difference in local communities and regions.  There are many benefits to this approach:

Benefits to the Community

 • Access to innovative programming

 • Enhanced service coordination through collaborations

• Opportunity for more people to participate in the charitable sector

• Support for an emergent group with innovative approaches and/or authentic connections to underserved communities

• Support for a collaboration that achieves what individual organizations cannot accomplish on their own

• Accelerated opportunities for innovation to solve unmet societal needs

• More programs, perhaps at reduced administrative cost due to collaboration

• The ability to quickly respond to an immediate need through targeted projects without necessitating the time and expense of creating a new registered charity

Benefits to Non-Charities

 • Access to charitable funding

• Access to Veritas Foundation administrative support (i.e., accounting, human resources, office services)

• Access to Veritas Foundation mentorship and expertise

• Exemption from income tax by falling under the tax exemption status of a charity

• Access to donations in support of the project from the Veritas Foundation

• Ability to focus on work because some administrative tasks are done by the Veritas Foundation

• Opportunity to build credibility as an charitable individual or group

• Additional relationships through the Veritas Foundation’s network

Benefits to Donors

• Opportunity to fund a wider range of initiatives focused on charitable benefit

• Opportunity to support new and innovative organizations or collaborations, or smaller community-based individuals, groups, and their projects

• High quality proposals, projects and evaluations

 

We aim for our programs to have sustainable funding sources and responsibly use their donors' funds. Our donation professionals follow a rigorous process when evaluating proposals to ensure funds are invested with the utmost care and responsibility.

The process includes a complete assessment of each proposed project's fiscal management and governance practices. We require our accountholders to demonstrate the social impact of their project clearly.

The Veritas Foundation must meet the Income Tax Act requirements, but rest assured we will take reasonable, flexible, and proportionate approval and support based on the unique nature of each grant. To do this, the Veritas Foundation must apply appropriate due diligence when making the grant. This allows the Veritas Foundation to account for the use of tax-assisted resources.

We generally approve project requests as follows:

• Organizations that are registered charities in their jurisdictions
• Projects or programs that provide a charitable benefit to individuals, groups, or communities
• Charitable organizations and projects that provide direct community benefit
• Programs with measurable outcomes

We Do Not Fund:

• Individuals except through scholarship programs, projects based on low incomes, or similar criteria
• Political organizations or projects involving political activity
• Any fee or revenue generating activity
• Organizations with Values, purposes, policies or practices in conflict with The Veritas Foundation values
• Religious or sectarian programs or purposes, unless they are engaged in a significant project benefiting the entire community

Evaluation Criteria generally used by the Veritas Foundation includes:

• The ability to provide direct-impact programming to the end-user
• Whether the organization has a clear evaluation process with planned outcomes that support a charitable purpose

Financial Position requirements for project approval will require the grantee to demonstrate that it and/or the project:

• has strong financial management
• has a budget/recovery plan to strengthen its financial position if it is currently in a deficit position
• has multiple donors
• can provide appropriate financial statements
• has appropriate governance oversight.

The key requirement is that the project is in furtherance of a charitable purpose and is:

• exclusively applied to charitable activities
• is in furtherance of a charitable purpose,
• and that sufficient documentation is on file to demonstrate this.

At the Veritas Foundation, we aim to adopt a reasonable, flexible, and proportionate approach to funding projects proposed by non-qualified donees.

We will apply due diligence by using accountability tools over the project's duration. The project risk will influence the level of due diligence required, and we will assess that risk as either limited, moderate, or extensive.  The extent of the documentation will be based on the level of due diligence needed for each project.

Some general guidelines we follow in our oversight:

• All projects must Comply with Canadian law and public policy for grant activities inside and outside Canada.
• All projects must be for the public benefit.  Projects not meeting the public benefit test would not be considered charitable.
• Projects can not confer an unacceptable private benefit on a person, entity, or organization. 
• No funding to a project can be made to an individual or group that is engaged in or supports terrorist activities.

In all cases, the grantee must enter into a Grant Agreement with The Veritas Foundation.  A Grant Agreement can be  agreed upon once an account is opened. 

The following chart shows our decision-making process regarding the risk assessment of a project proposed by a non-qualified donee: