In the 2024 Vital Signs citizens survey, the Victoria Foundation asked respondents, "Can you imagine Greater Victoria for the next generation?”
Today, the Foundation's Pulse magazine shows how local organizations are answering that question with a resounding "Yes!"
In fact, the engaging, insightful features in the latest edition share how Greater Victoria residents and non-profits aren't just imagining the future, they're creating it.
"Our community is truly driven to overcome today’s challenges, to ensure our grandkids and future generations can thrive in the Greater Victoria we envision," says Victoria Foundation CEO Sandra Richardson.
The family-run Fateh Care Charity mobile food bank is the perfect example. As newly arrived residents at the start of the pandemic, the Popli family saw a gap not only for newcomers, but for many others in the community who didn't know where to turn for help with groceries or medicines at a difficult time.
“There were single mothers, seniors and kids with mobility challenges asking for help, but no one seemed to be delivering them anything. There was a big need,” Nanveet recalls. In that moment, recovering from COVID themselves, the family decided to start a charity to help everyone in need, no questions asked.
Today, Fateh Care has grown into a wider community initiative with two part-time employees and many volunteers who deliver food, hygiene products, clothes and other essentials to thousands of people with mobility challenges from Sooke to Sidney, supported in part by the Victoria Foundation's Community Grants Program.
For Iyé Creative, a grassroots movement focused on restoring food as a relationship, not a commodity, the focus is on connecting food and ancestral roots, learning from those who went before and embracing that knowledge through initiatives like growing culturally relevant crops.
Supported by a $30,000 Collaboration Grant Stream grant, the project helps BIPOC communities reconnect to the foods their predecessors grew and ate – making space for healing, sovereignty and belonging, and addressing the 2024 Vital Signs survey where 66 per cent of respondents said there should be more opportunities to support cross-cultural education and awareness.
Food and culture are also at the heart of projects like the Pauquachin Nation’s sea garden restoration project, funded in part by the Victoria Foundation's Indigenous-led Granting Advisory Pilot. Restoring the shellfish harvest in Coles Bay will not only restore the bay’s health and food sources but reawaken a deep, intergenerational bond to the beach.
Other projects, like the South Island Reciprocity Trust, aim to build cross-cultural connections by helping residents and small businesses bring more meaning to their words of gratitude to Indigenous communities.
Whether through food, culture or community connections, Pulse's elevated and colourful storytelling demonstrates the incredible impact the region’s diverse non-profits and charities are making to help the capital region thrive.
After all, "imagining the future is just the beginning, and we are well on our way to making these goals a reality," Richardson says.
Impact investing, the granting process and more
Pulse delves into impact investing – the latest philanthropic trend that intentionally directs investments toward social purpose initiatives.
The magazine also presents some transparent, easy-to-read financial highlights from the Foundation last year, along with a timeline that aims to de-mystify the granting process for anyone new to applying or who has questions about the process.
Read the full magazine here and be inspired today!