Grant and Funding Programs Offered by Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption – Canada (DTFA)

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption – Canada is a national charity created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas, himself adopted, to ensure that children and youth do not grow up without a permanent family. Working across Canada and in coordination with its U.S. counterpart, the Foundation focuses on children who have spent long periods in foster care, including teenagers, siblings groups and children with special needs who are often overlooked.

The Foundation describes its work as a combination of evidence-based service delivery, adoption awareness and innovative grantmaking. Its flagship Wendy’s Wonderful Kids™ program provides financial support to public and private child welfare agencies so they can hire and retain specialized adoption recruiters. These professionals carry smaller caseloads and use a proven, child-focused recruitment model that has been shown by independent research to make youth up to three times more likely to be adopted.

Through Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, the Foundation partners with agencies across multiple provinces and territories, supporting the salaries and training of recruiters dedicated to the longest-waiting children in care. A dedicated “WWK Agencies” page lists participating agencies and ministries, illustrating the program’s reach and the organizations benefiting from this financial support.

Beyond direct program funding, the Foundation invests in large-scale awareness campaigns about foster care adoption and commissions recurring research on public attitudes in Canada. These studies inform national messaging and the development of free educational tools, such as the "Finding Forever Families" step-by-step adoption guide, videos, webinars and blog content aimed at prospective adoptive parents, donors and professionals.

The primary beneficiaries of the Foundation’s funding are children and youth in foster care who are at high risk of aging out of the system without a family. Indirectly, child welfare agencies, adoption workers and adoptive families benefit from the grants, training and resources provided. The organization highlights hundreds of adoptions completed in Canada and tens of thousands across North America through Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, alongside growing numbers of trained recruiters and scaling agreements with provincial authorities.

Dave Thomas established the original Foundation in 1992, and the Canadian entity was formally incorporated in 2003. The Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program launched in Canada in 2006, with the first Canadian WWK grant issued in Ontario in 2007. Since then, the Foundation has expanded its network of funded agencies, celebrated key adoption milestones and continued to refine its evidence-based model through ongoing research and evaluation.

Backed by individual donors, corporate partners and Wendy’s franchisees, the Foundation positions itself as a long-term, accountable funder and advocate working toward the vision that every child will have a permanent home and a loving family.