Canadian Sacred CommonsFoundation
Our Approach

PILLAR 01 · GRANTMAKING

A collaborative fund for spiritual solutions

A collaborative fund and grantmaking mechanism for spiritual solutions already transforming communities.

Spiritual solutions that tend to the root remain significantly underfunded. There is not yet a collaborative fund to uplift community-led, spiritual solutions that animate Love. We are changing that.

WHY A COLLABORATIVE FUND

Collective funding
for community-led spiritual solutions.

Exceptional spiritual initiatives already exist across Canada, yet much of this work remains fragmented, invisible, and under-resourced.

We aim to establish a collaborative fund and grantmaking mechanism. Our Founding Partners will help shape its strategy and grantmaking outcomes.

WE ASKED CANADIANS
“What should the principles and practices of a pooled fund, and collaborative grantmaking mechanism, for Sacred Love be?”

EMBEDDING & FUNDING LOVE

Four levels, woven like a braid

Love can be embedded and funded across at least four levels, which may develop separately or become tightly interwoven, like a braid.

Love moves along a continuum, from explicitly spiritual practices to relational approaches. There is no single right entry point; we meet people wherever they are.

Programmatic

Spiritual solutions at every scale, from the individual and family to community, society, and the Earth.

Organizational

Leadership, governance, workplace culture, operational rhythms, and grantmaking practice.

Inter-organizational

Field-building, network weaving, collaborative grantmaking, and cross-sector coalitions.

Conceptualization

The frameworks that weave spiritual, scientific, and societal ways of knowing.

INVESTING AT THE PROGRAMMATIC LEVEL

Why, who, and what we invest in

Participants spoke to three dimensions that grantmaking
for Love should consider together, across five domains of flourishing.

Why we invest

  • WorldviewInterventions that (re)awaken consciousness—shifting foundational assumptions away from paradigms of separation, scarcity, and dominance, toward paradigms of dignity, interdependence, and sacredness of all.
  • Narrative and storytellingInterventions that shape the public climate of story, media, and cultural memory, making alternative futures visible, inspiring hope, and expanding moral imagination.
  • Behaviour and actionPractices, routines, and policies that translate inner alignment into daily habits of care, equity, and solidarity within personal and collective life, with all beings.

Who we invest in

  • IndividualInner and relational development, contemplative capacity, and moral courage.
  • FamilyIntergenerational healing, relational grounding, and elder and youth care.
  • CommunityLocal networks, grassroots organizing, dialogue circles, and third spaces.
  • SocietyPublic institutions, social movements, policies, and collective norms.
  • EcologicalLand stewardship, ceremonial kinship, and ecological repair.

What we invest in

  • Inquiry, documentation, and researchUnderstanding and sharing how spiritual solutions work.
  • Art and cultureCreative expression that awakens awe and wonder, moral imagination, and ancestral, cultural, and spiritual connection.
  • Programs, products, and policiesSolutions that bring Love into daily life within public and private systems.

THEMATIC AREAS OF INVESTMENT

Across five domains of flourishing

  • Happiness and life satisfaction

  • Mental and physical health

  • Meaning and purpose

  • Character and virtue

  • Close social relationships

Weaving experience and evidence. Our grantmaking brings together what we heard from 200+ Canadians with what research tells us about flourishing. The five domains above are drawn from the Global Flourishing Study, co-led by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, the Center for Open Science, and Gallup, which follows 207,000 people across 23 countries and territories over five years.

We are a Member of the Love & Flourishing Special Interest Group of the Flourishing Network, based at the Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University.

Explore the study
AND BEYOND, WE AIM TO FUNDThe bold, experimental, radical, and imaginativeRoom for the work that doesn’t fit a box yet. Room for emergence, failure, and adaptation: ideas that are both daring and loving.
“There are powerful effects of love on human flourishing… We need to promote love—a love of neighbor and even love of enemy—in our communities and political life if we are to avoid increasing polarization and discord.”
Dr. Tyler J. VanderWeele, Director, Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University (2025)
How love helps us flourish