Our 2019-2020 Year

The Thomas Sill Foundation is a sub-tenant of the Winnipeg Foundation and is committed to comply with the safety measures put in place by the Winnipeg Foundation.  We now work remotely with office visits only on approved days with attendance restricted to one person at a time. We have had to stop site visits to grant applicants and recipients. Our arrangements with the Winnipeg Foundation continue to be beneficial to both parties however our interaction with their staff has been reduced since March.

The 2019-2020 year saw the retirement of Robert Martens as a Governor and the addition of Doug Einarson and Jeanne Millis as Governors. We thank Robert for his years of service to the Foundation.

In March the Governors approved an amount for Covid-19 emergency grants. A total of 11 grants were paid totaling $83,000.The majority of the grants were paid to food banks and homeless shelters.  The Board did not require the organizations to complete grant applications as per the normal process.

Grants for the 2020 fiscal year totaled $929,900.  This was allocated to 104 organizations for projects and programs conducted in Manitoba. The number of grants is a slight increase from the previous year.  We also saw a number of first time applicants. After March we saw a decline in the number of applications received each month as charities reduced their operations.  In the 2020 year 38 grants totaling $287,540 were made to organizations operating outside the city of Winnipeg. There were 66 grants totaling $642,360 to organizations based in Winnipeg. Of the 66 grants to Winnipeg organizations 39 grants totaling $388,600 were made to organizations that provide services to all Manitobans. This calculates to 73% of the grants potentially impacting all Manitobans.

The grant applications covered almost all of the categories in our granting guidelines. We once again saw the average size of the grant decrease slightly. Two larger requests were deferred to the 2021 fiscal year and approved in August, 2020. If these grants had been approved in the 2020 fiscal year we would have exceeded our previous year’s total grants. The Foundation was not immune to the March 2020 stock market meltdown, the worst since the great depression, however the conservative nature of our portfolio helped reduce the negative impact of the meltdown and the Board did not suspend granting.

It always a pleasure to see the good work done by charitable organizations.

Click below for a detailed list of who we helped in the 2020 fiscal year

 

Enter Annual Report