New process requires organizations to register with Ontario Trillium Foundation before submitting grant applications

New process requires organizations to register with Ontario Trillium Foundation before submitting grant applications

Starting today, nonprofit and charitable organizations can register with the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF). Under the new Investment Strategy, this registration is a new mandatory process that organizations must complete before gaining access to grant applications. This new step will ensure that eligibility is confirmed before even applying, saving precious time and resources for the applicants. Here are the application deadlines.
Grow Grants:

• Organization registration deadline: August 12, 2015, 5:00 p.m. EST
• Application deadline: August 26, 2015

Seed and Capital Grants:

• Organization registration deadline: August 19, 2015, 5:00 p.m. EST
• Application deadline: September 2, 2015

Collective Impact Grants: there are no deadlines for submitting applications and they will be accepted on an ongoing basis.
Registering your organization by the above dates will give OTF enough time to process your registration and confirm that you can submit an application. If you do not register before the August dates, OTF cannot guarantee that your registration will be verified in time to provide access to the grant application for the next round of grants.

Deadline extended for volunteer consulting in Toronto

Deadline extended for volunteer consulting in Toronto

The University of Toronto's Volunteer Consulting Group (VCG) offers pro-bono consulting services for nonprofit organizations, forming teams of five undergraduate and/or graduate students and one MBA student. With the guidance of external advisors from the consulting industry, the teams tackle cases from fundraising strategies to marketing plans. Each engagement typically runs for 6 months, beginning in November. The team members commit a few hours of their time each week to work on the engagement. The application deadline has been extended to July 31, 2015. After your application form is received, you will be contacted with information on how to proceed with the application process.

Children in Nigeria

• In Nigeria, around 15 million children are engaged in child labour, many in very dangerous conditions. Some children work in hazardous industries, where they are potentially exposed to toxic fumes and dangerous machinery.

• About 360,000 children live with HIV/AIDS. The disease is a major cause of the increasing poverty in the country. Children with the disease, or who live with people with the disease, face issues such as losing their parents, neglect and social discrimination.

• The child mortality rate stands at 138 per 1,000 live births. Around 30% of children under the age of five are underweight.

In Nigeria, poverty and HIV/AIDS impact the lives of millions

Around 63% of Nigeria’s population live in abject poverty. Many thousands live in shacks without the basics like clean water and sanitation, needed to provide stability. An increase in crime and violence in some areas has made life increasingly dangerous for the people of Nigeria
HIV/AIDS has a terrible impact on the people of Nigeria. Approximately 3.3 million are living with the disease and over 200,000 die every year.

Seven Way to Help Relieve Stress

Stress is an issue that many of us struggle with every day in our highly stressful society. Bills, jobs, family responsibilities, and feelings of not having enough time in the day can cause us to feel stressed and overwhelmed. Over time, an overabundance of stress in our lives can take a toll on our overall mental health and physical well-being. To compensate for the daily stress we feel from demands and responsibilities, most of us seek out activities or hobbies to help relax. Though this is absolutely healthy and necessary for our mental health and happiness, for someone who has struggled with substance abuse in the past, the desire to relieve stress can resurface old impulses to use drugs to take the edge off. Luckily, there are many small, and healthy ways we can relieve stress and feel more in control of our emotions, schedule, and demands. Here are seven ways to healthily relieve feelings of stress.

1. Meditate
Spending a few minutes meditating every day helps to ease stress. Research suggests that meditating daily can alter your brain so that you are more resilient to stress. To meditate, just sit up straight with both feet on the floor. Close your eyes, and try to quiet your mind. Focus your mind on positive thoughts or mantras. You can also use this time as quiet reflection. Meditation can either be done quietly or by reciting out loud.
2. Listen to Your Favorite Tunes
Listening to soothing music has been linked to lower blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety. Listening to soft classical music can help you focus your mind and relax. Or, if you’re looking to blow off some steam, you can rock out to your favorite rock songs, releasing stress by singing along and jamming out.
3. Sweat it Out
Exercising has long been known and used as a way of getting rid of stress. Not only does exercising release feel-good endorphins, but it can help ease depression and anxiety. All types of exercise can be good for your mental health, whether it be running the treadmill at the gym, going for a walk around the park, or dancing. Just get up, and get moving.
4. Keep a Stress Journal
Maintaining a stress journal can help you discern what triggers your feelings of stress, and methods of deal with those stressors. Every time you feel stress, jot it down in your journal. Keep track of things like: what caused your stress, how you felt about it, how you acted, and what you did to make yourself feel better. Over time with active use, you will begin to notice certain patterns and themes that will help you develop better coping mechanisms in the future.
5. Puppy Love
Spending time with your favorite furball of love can help provide comfort and relief after a long, stressful day. Research has found that people can experience an increased output of endorphins and dopamine in as little as spending five minutes with an animal. Don’t have a pet? Find a buddy that will let you love on their dog or kitty for a little bit. In one study, patients who spent a short amount of time with a dog before an upcoming operation experienced 37% reduction in their anxiety levels.
6. Talk it Out
Sometimes, just spending some time chatting with a friend can help you to relieve stress. Face to face conversation will help to best maintain that personal connection. As an added bonus, conversations with friends often lead to a couple of good laughs, which by themselves can be a good relief.
7. Do What You Love
In our culture, we tend to prioritize work and productivity while downplaying leisure activities and play. Doing something just for fun that may not seem “productive’ is often perceived as trivial, frivolous, or even lazy. However, free time is anything but trivial. In fact, having free time to enjoy leisure activities is crucial to our mental health and well-being. Doing things like playing an instrument, reading a good book, playing a favorite RPG, playing sports, crafting, or even just drinking coffee while people-watching, are wonderful ways to nurture our mental health. So don’t feel guilty about taking a little “self-time” to decompress.
So if you’re feeling stressed out, try these methods to help you relax and feel better about your day. Lowering daily stress helps to maintain good Vancouver mental health and an overall happier outlook.

Isn't this great ''Armstrong embarks on controversial Tour de France ride for charity''

 

MURET, France (AFP) — For the first time since he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, Lance Armstrong on Thursday rode a stage of the famous race for charity.
Armstrong was riding a 198-kilometer stage of the race a day ahead of the competing riders for a leukemia charity, but cycling officials have branded the exercise “disrespectful.”
The 43-year-old American and cancer survivor stressed he was riding for a “great cause” and it was something he was committed to, “regardless of what people think.”
The charity, the brainchild of former professional soccer player and leukemia survivor Geoff Thomas of England, aims to raise around 1.4 million euros ($1.5 million), mainly via sponsorship garnered by the 10 other amateur cyclists riding the route.
Armstrong was surrounded by reporters, but no members of the public were out on the course to welcome him as he set off.
The trip has sparked further controversy in a Tour de France that has seen race leader Chris Froome (Sky) questioned about whether he’s clean after he put in strong rides in the Pyrénées.
Armstrong batted off the accusation that his presence was a distraction.
“It’s one thing if I said, ‘Oh, I’m going to go to the race and I want to stand around at the start.’ I’m not asking that, you know. I understand there is sensitivity around that, but here helping a group of people in a great cause, I’m going to do that forever,” he said.

‘I’m an old man’

The participation of Armstrong, who admitted in a stunning TV interview in 2013 that he had doped his way through the Tour de France throughout his career, has already sparked controversy.
The president of cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has warned Armstrong “may not get quite the welcome he would like” in France.
“It is undesirable, I think it is disrespectful. I think there are plenty of ways of raising money for charity that Lance could do,” said Brian Cookson.
Armstrong dismissed the comments, saying, “Brian Cookson needs to worry about other things.”
However, Armstrong declined to be drawn on Froome and the numerous questions about doping leveled at him.
“For the first time in a couple of years I’ve watched the race,” admitted Armstrong.
“It’s been an interesting first week. There’s obviously a lot of drama in the race, like crashes and winds and things like this that separate a lot of people. Chris Froome has been smart. He’s avoided all the problems.”
Asked if he found Froome “impressive,” he replied: “Well, of course. If you’re leading the Tour by three minutes, that’s impressive.”
The Kenyan-born Froome was asked about Armstrong’s return to the Tour.
“We definitely don’t see it as him being necessarily back at the Tour, he’s not on the starting line with us,” said the 30-year-old Briton.
However, Froome said Thomas’ cause was “close to my heart” — Froome’s mother died of a blood cancer a few years ago, and he supports cancer charities.
Armstrong quipped he would have enjoyed the experience much more without a crowd of journalists hovering around him before batting them off, saying he had to get going.
“I have to ride a long way. It’s going to take a long time. I’m an old man.”
Isn't it great for 

The Nepal Earthquakes

Tuesday mid-day shower was a welcome relief. I had been up most of the night trying to coordinate a potential shipment of 25 more water purifiers. It was hot and as the cold water turned warm from the solar unit, I lathered my hair and sighed a sigh of relief. As I was thrown to the floor, I heard screams before I actually hit the hard tile. As I tried to get up I realized the floor kept sliding out from under me and I could not get a footing to get up. Once I did get up, I realized I was on the second floor of a four story house and that it was taking every thought I had to grab a towel and try to get down the stairs that were swaying like an aerial trapeze. I first realized I had cleared the house into the crowd of screaming neighbors and at first, I thought it was due to the continuing earthquake, but in hindsight it was probably the sight of an old foreigner emerging from the house with just a towel and a head full of shampoo with a toothbrush still in his mouth. Pretty scary sight I must admit. I am not sure what the highlight of the week was as this was just one of many. For the next 20 minutes we stood clear of the house with the ground swaying underneath our feet, and it was like trying to run on a shifting sailboat with nothing to hang on to. I was the better off with only bruises and a stubbed big toe, I thought I had broken. Tonight I am writing from inside the house where I will sleep hopefully without interruption. We have been sleeping in tents since the quake that measured 7.3 and had six quakes ranging down to 5.8 within 20 minutes. Sleeping in tent city with many panicked people and hundreds of dogs barking in unison, military jets taking off at all times during the night and the rolling of the ground has left for sleepless nights.
I am to be at the airport at this moment, boarding my flight for home, but I am not. Both Mary Jo and I were compelled to extend my stay until Sunday night in an attempt to complete the 2 additional purifiers that New Life International gave us. The quake disrupted our schedule by three days, so here I am, tired, dirty, hungry and entirely happy that God is so good and has allowed me to complete my work here on this trip.
We now have 4 systems installed with one more to install tomorrow and then I will return to the last two installed to purify and train the locals in their operation.
My life here has been an emotional roller coaster that would not only be hard to imagine, but impossible to explain. I have seen what seemed like the worst the devil could dish out and then today. The area of Spindupunchwk which has been the hardest hit is where I have had the privilege to work. I returned for my third trip, and today I was shocked at what lay before me after Tuesday’s quake. Once at a junction where we turned off in a different direction than I had previously been it looked like heaven and hell met. I climbed up a steep one lane road through incredible beauty with pine and other trees and looked out over the massive valley and still higher mountains on the other side. Just then as we rounded the corner, there were signs of fresh landslides across the road. As we traveled for the next 15 miles I passed what I would estimate were the remains of 6000-8000 homes of which there were only approximately 30 standing. I could only count three that looked like they would be safe to enter and the rest was worst than a war zone. Village after village was in total ruin. Most people are so traumatized they just are existing but trying to function. In one village there was a group of multistory homes perched on the side of a 500 foot drop. The homes where strewn down the mountain with the concrete floors still intact but looking like dominos with 12 people still buried under an impossible recovery situation. For almost 2 hours we wound up and down to the village of Sirubari. Here one of the few structures that remain has the second floor slid across the first floor and hanging precariously across the road. It is extremely dangerous as the slightest aftershock will immediately bring it sliding down across the road with no regard to the villagers who must walk past it on this dirt trail.
I then had to hike down ½ mile of Grand Canyon style hiking (you know, the ones with vertical steps of stone and mud going straight up or down) and then we located the area to place the purifier. This has a slow but continuous stream of water and will soon be providing the first hope these people have had.
So many miracles, but they will have to be written when I am conscious. Please pray for those who are so affected; those who are risking their lives to help and to those who are able to support financially. It is easy to continue life as normal and think this only happens to the other country. It is so real, it is so devastating, there is so much pain, anxiety and terror and this is just the beginning. Cholera will hit as soon as the rains come and mudslides will take out hundreds, Malaria will follow with the rain, and this beautiful country with its welcoming people will continue to be hammered by the reality of what the devil would choose for all of us.
I cannot express enough how to take time to love, don’t sweat the small stuff, decide what is really important and follow your heart as God leads.