JustChange accelerates bold ideas in Ottawa for social, environmental and economic change. We’ve been doing this for over 6 years by giving out nearly $40,000 in grants to dozens of grantees. We’re so proud of the ideas we have funded and who we’ve partnered with along the way.

We’re now going to do something equally as bold. We’re going to press pause to take some time to step back and explore our model of delivery (okay, so not James Bond bold, but policy-wonk bold – this is Ottawa after all!)

We started as 12 young people with $50 to give a month in support of great ideas. We wanted to democratize philanthropy, lower barriers to accessing funding in the community and we wanted to give ideas a chance; people with proven concepts needed not apply. We were disillusioned by granting models that dictated how dollars were spent and decided to leave this up to the experts, the ones with the great ideas. We gave micro-grants and enabled average people to act as philanthropists. We’re proud of all this too.

The core of what we do will always remain. We will guard these principles. We just want to explore how we do it. We will be back! For those who have reached out recently with funding requests or expressions of interest to join our board, we have not forgotten about you – we appreciate your interest and we will be in touch! Thank you!

To all of our supporters, mentors and grantees over the years, thank you! If you have feedback, thoughts, words of encouragement as we take this new phase on, please do reach out. We’d love to hear from you.

Much love,

JustChange