County of Brant Council received a report detailing the results of the 2025 Community Grant Program during their regular Council meeting on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
The Community Grants program is a key funding tool that helps support a variety of non-profit and charitable organizations within the County to deliver vital services and amenities to the community.
While Council used to choose which organizations received the funding, in an effort to streamline the process, the decision was made in 2023 to enter into a partnership agreement with the Brant Community Foundation (BCF) to deliver the grants.
According to a report submitted to Council, grants were available under three categories: operational (up to $5,000), events (up to $5,000) and capital projects (up to $10,000), though organizations were permitted to apply for more than one type of grant.
This year, the BCF received 109 grant applications with funding requests amounting to a total of $631,831. Given that a number of applications were considered late, incomplete, or otherwise ineligible for funding, only 75 grants totaling $350,000 will be issued come the week of June 16.
During the meeting, Councillor David Miller expressed his concerns in regards to those organizations who typically rely on such funding, but were not able to make it through to the adjudication process.
“In the report it says, ‘there were a number of organizations that typically receive community grants from the County that were deemed ineligible because of incomplete application materials,’ I know one of them was Burford Minor Hockey and I don’t think they’re going to be happy.”
Noting that many of the organizations are run by volunteers and in some cases, roles are often switched around, he asked staff if such organizations would have time to re-submit their applications and try again.
“Council was very clear when we went through this last fall, that we were not accepting any applications that were missing documents,” responded Heather Boyd, General Manager of Corporate Services. “…The instructions themselves were very clear that certain paperwork was required to be submitted as part of the process. …The awards are done now.”
Councillors John Peirce, Steve Howes, Jennifer Kyle and Brian Coleman said that while they understood Miller’s point of view and were sympathetic to the situation, the whole point of entering into the partnership with BCF was to take the politics out of the awards.
“I remember going back five years or so, the crazy, reverse auction process that we had where we all sat around this table trying to figure out who’s worthy and who’s not, and it was painful,” said Howes. “We made the decision that we were going to take an arm’s length approach to this after we determined how much money we were going to make available for these groups, and I think we have to stand by the process.”
Councillor Lukas Oakley later pointed out that, as stated in the report, the County will be utilizing an on-line application portal through the BCF in 2026.
“One of the key improvements on that will be, in order to proceed to the next stage of the application, you have to provide the information requested,” he said. “That should help clear up, at least in theory, some of these applications that were submitted and deemed incomplete because you won’t be able to submit unless it is complete, or you’re submitting supporting documents.”
Councillor Robert Chambers then added that he would like to also have the application criteria reviewed at some point given that some of the organizations who are set to receive grants this year, appeared to be more Brantford centric.
“Some of the organizations I’ve never even heard of before,” he said. “Some of the organizations are, in my mind, more City of Brantford centric than County of Brant. …I think we need to review, first of all, the criteria, and the amounts, at some point.”
While there may be organizations who may not be satisfied with the outcomes, BCF staff will be the first point of contact to discuss award outcomes, and will be working on enhanced educational materials to support applicants down the line.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
