Hi Project Directors,

It’s been a difficult week, and my thoughts are with all of you and your communities as all of us continue to process the events and important conversations unfolding across North America – and indeed, across the world – while still physically distanced from one another. I hope that you’re all able to care of yourselves and your loved ones this week. Please see below for today’s Shared Platform updates:

1. Rapid Response Fund for Changemakers

• The review committee will meet to review mobilize/stabilize tomorrow (Tuesday June 2) to approve grants to be processed in the June 12 grant cycle. Please ensure any last minute applications are submitted by 9am PST tomorrow!

o   NOTE: We will still gladly accept proposals for mobilize/stabilize grants after this meeting, however we expect to receive a significant number of requests for strategize grants and funding will be limited.

·       The application form for Strategize grants is now open!. The decision committee will meet to review the first Strategize proposals on June 16, so all proposals must be in by end of day Monday June 15 to be considered in round one.

2. Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy update - Good news – the CRA has approved our CRA claim for the first CEWS period (Mar 15-Apr 11) and the money is in the bank! The $25,000 we already received from the Temporary Wage Subsidy was deducted from this total, which was in turn deducted from the CEWS of the projects that received both. One project received more through the Temporary Wage Subsidy than could be deducted from their CEWS eligibility, so the remaining ~$1,800 deduction has been allocated proportionally across all projects.

• NOTE: This is Mar15 - April 11 ONLY. The April 12 – May 10 claim has not been approved yet so it’ll be another couple of weeks before we get those funds.
• NEXT STEPS: The finance team is processing these funds through Salesforce next week. Projects will receive a revenue notification by June 5 under ‘other revenue’. Project Specialists have an updated list of approved funds by project, so please check with them if you need to know the total before June 5.

3. Reopening places of work – Please find attached a draft of the Tides Canada Return to Work guidelines for your review and feedback. We’re still pulling together template safety plans and other resources based on jurisdictional requirements this week, however I’m sharing these while still at the draft stage so that we can incorporate any feedback.

• ASK FOR YOU: If your project is considering resuming in-person activities in the coming weeks, please have a read and let me know via email if you have clarification questions or comments. While Tides Canada Senior Management has set the overall policy, it’s important that these guidelines address the needs of TCI staff, contractors and volunteers. So if your programming doesn’t seem to fit, or you have other questions, please do reach out. I’ll update as needed, and will share a final version with you all next week.
  • Highlights of the guidelines below:
    • Projects will have full decision-making authority as to when to starting working/delivering programming in-person
    • TCI is here to support your decision-making and talk through the considerations
    • Project Directors will be required to provide a complete and satisfactory safety plan to their Project Specialist a minimum of three days in advance of in-person activity

4. MakeWay Brand Launch: We are just days away from kicking off the next chapter in Tides Canada’s story! As part of our amazing community of partners and friends, we’d love to see you all at our ‘by-invite’ virtual celebration on Thursday June 4 at 1pm EST/4pm PST. Our CEO, Joanna Kerr, will host this interactive hour, which will feature a video premiere and messages from our stakeholders (including many projects!). If you haven’t yet RSVP’d, please do so here.

Have a great week everyone

Lizzie