📸: Radium, BC – Mitch Winton/kootenayrockies.com

Vibrant Rural Communities

250.489.4356

About Our Grant

 Our Community Economic Development Grant provides up to $5,000 in funding to nonprofit organizations within the East Kootenays for projects that support the economic vibrancy and sustainability of communities within the region.

There are two application intakes each year. Our next intake will be in September 2026 and the following one in February 2027. 

Make sure to sign up for the CED Update to stay in the know of other funding opportunities!

CED Funding Policy
ced update

**EXCLUDED from this funding: Applications from for-profit
businesses and local and regional governments, sponsorships, direct marketing, fundraising projects, operational costs.

Projects Must:

  • Have broad community benefit
    (ie. a large portion of the community’s population will feel or recognize the project’s impact)
  •  Be led by a nonprofit organization.
    We are unable to fund for-profit businesses or local and regional governments through this funding.

Guiding Principles

All applications are assessed against a rubric scoring system. When assessing grant applications, the CFEK Communities Committee will be guided by the Funding Policy, the Scoring Rubric and the following key principles:

  • Successful applicants must have completed their project and submitted their final funding report before applying for funding for other projects.
  • Projects that support CFEK’s current strategic CED priorities such as childcare, workforce housing, disaster preparedness, youth development, economic diversification and social enterprise development will be prioritized.
  • The grant is not intended to fund regular organizational activities or annual events. It is unlikely that the same project will be funded more than once through this fund, although phased projects are not precluded.
  • It is important to have diversity in the geographic distribution of projects over time. Where possible, the committee will look to have a good spread of funded projects across the entire CFEK service area.
  • The fund aims to support a variety of organizations across the CFEK service area over time. This doesn’t preclude organizations to apply each funding round, but where possible the project should be different from previous funding requests.

Projects will be Assessed on:

All applications are assessed against a rubric scoring system.

Examples of Successfully Funded CED Projects

  • Columbia Valley Community Foundation, Vital Signs project. This report provides the Columbia Valley with relevant and digestible data that can be used to spur action to address the challenges and opportunities facing the local communities. It measures the vitality of the Columbia Valley communities and looks at trends related to quality of life for full- and part-time residents.
  • Columbia Valley Food & Farm, Market Trail Project Food. This guide promoted food businesses and farmers’ markets from Canal Flats to Golden, with the aim to promote the food sector within the Columbia Valley region more widely and act as a tourism tool to promote food opportunities to visitors.
  • Cranbrook Chamber of Commerce, Business Walks. Business Walks are a great opportunity to engage with businesses in person and get valuable information about the barriers and challenges facing businesses within a community.  They provide everyone with a better understanding of the advocacy, programming and supports that are needed for businesses. View the report here.
  • Golden Community Economic Development, Canyon to Confluence Initiative. This project aims to engage the community of Golden and CSRD in visioning what the Kicking Horse River (from the mouth of the canyon to the confluence with the Columbia River) would best look like 10-15 years from now, thereby enhancing the community’s connection to the river.
  • Sand Creek Community Club, Community Coordinator. This Community Coordinator role aims to unite nonprofits and create a community hub for RDEK Area B, thereby fostering collaboration, understanding community needs for projects and services, and addressing service gaps.
  • Society for Kids’ Care, Mountainview Child Development Hub feasibility study. This study will investigate the opportunities of using space at the Mountainview School in Sparwood to increase the number of full-time day-care spaces for those under 5, support before and after school care, provide offices for child support services and also allow space for other community programs to use.
  • Tourism Fernie, Work in Fernie website. This funding helped enhance the social media, content, website and digital marketing efforts of the Work in Fernie website in preparation for the summer 2021 season. The aim of the project was to help increase employment opportunities and address workforce shortages with Fernie.
  • Wasa Lions Club, Wasa Community Map. This funding helped produce a map of the community to help increase traffic to local businesses and increase visitor’s awareness of services and activities available in the area.