Grant and Funding Programs Offered by Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring

The Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring is a non‑profit charitable organization based on Salt Spring Island, Canada. Founded around Raffi’s Child Honouring philosophy, it treats the early years as the foundation for a compassionate and sustainable world. Beyond education and advocacy, the foundation is an active funder: it operates a grants program that supports organizations developing projects aligned with its Nine Principles for Child Honouring, and it offers bursaries to help individuals and groups access its flagship 18‑hour online course.

The grants program supports a wide range of one‑time or short‑term projects that care for the youngest inhabitants of the planet while also regenerating ecosystems and addressing climate change. Examples include early childhood initiatives, tree‑planting and community gardening, compost systems in schools and workplaces, waste‑reduction strategies, elimination of toxic cleaning products, and advocacy or policy work aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The foundation explicitly congratulates annual cohorts of grant recipients and communicates changes to its granting cycle, underscoring a structured and ongoing funding role.

Funding is directed primarily to organizations rather than individuals. Eligible recipients include Canadian registered charities, journalism organizations, national arts service organizations, municipalities and municipal or public bodies performing a government function, as well as universities outside Canada that are registered with the Canada Revenue Agency. This framework situates the foundation as a national‑scale private funder with specific charitable compliance requirements.

In parallel, the foundation offers bursaries to reduce financial barriers for people who wish to enroll in the Child Honouring online course. Individuals or groups can apply for tuition support through a dedicated bursary application form, broadening access to education in conscious parenting, emotional intelligence, nonviolence, sustainability and other core principles.

All grants and bursaries are grounded in the Covenant for Honouring Children and the Nine Principles for Child Honouring: Respectful Love, Diversity, Caring Community, Conscious Parenting, Emotional Intelligence, Nonviolence, Safe Environments, Sustainability and Ethical Commerce. Priority is given to projects that embody at least two of these principles, for example by combining child‑centred programming with environmental action or community‑building. This value‑based lens ensures that funded initiatives address both the wellbeing of young children and the health of the wider social and ecological systems that shape their lives.

While detailed scoring rubrics are not published, the foundation’s materials emphasize care for community, reduction of toxic exposures, climate and ecosystem regeneration, and the primacy of the early years. Applicants are encouraged to design concrete, time‑bound projects that demonstrate clear benefits for young children, families and local communities. The foundation communicates openly about pauses or changes in its granting cycle and provides a dedicated email for grant‑related questions, supporting a transparent relationship with applicants and grantees.

Through this mix of project grants, bursaries, education and advocacy, the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring occupies a distinctive niche in Canada’s philanthropic landscape: it links early childhood development with environmental and social justice outcomes, and channels charitable dollars into practical initiatives that bring the Child Honouring vision to life on the ground.