Introduction
We are committed to partnerships that help improve social and economic outcomes for Indigenous Peoples across the province, as we work together towards reconciliation.
In focus
Funds capital costs for Indigenous community-owned business projects.
Funds projects that increase safety for Indigenous women, girls and 2S+ people.
Backstops major Indigenous investments with loan guarantees and support.
Funding resources
Various funding programs and initiatives across Alberta’s government are listed in the categories below. Click the ‘+’ icon to expand each category.
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- Funding to assist organizations with culturally relevant programming during Alberta Culture Days, September 1 to 30.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, non-profits, universities and colleges in Alberta.
- Supports smaller budget Alberta productions and contributes to government’s goal of growing Alberta’s cultural industries.
- Who can apply: Organizations engaged primarily in film, television and/or digital media production.
- Support for organizations working in screen-based productions, book and magazine publishing, and sound recordings.
- Book Publishers Operating Grant
- Magazine Publishers Operating Grant
- Music Organization Operating Grant
- Who can apply: Projects and organizations involved in book publishing, magazine publishing, sound recording and film production.
Indigenous Arts Individual Project Funding
- Provides funding for a specific cultural or artistic project led by Indigenous artists, arts administrators or ensemble of artists.
- Who can apply: Indigenous residents of Alberta, ensembles, collectives and collaborations.
Indigenous Reconciliation Initiative – Cultural Stream
- Supports Indigenous-led initiatives that enhance, protect or revitalize Indigenous languages, heritage, cultures and arts.
- Who can apply: Indigenous people, communities, organizations and governing bodies in Alberta.
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Alberta Community Partnership (ACP)
- Helps municipalities provide regional collaboration, capacity building initiatives, internships and new or enhanced services.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements, municipalities, regional boards and societies.
Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP)
- Provides funding to acquire, build, purchase, repair, renovate, upgrade or expand sports, recreational, cultural or other related public-use community facilities.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities and organizations, non-profits that fall under the grant’s eligibility criteria.
Community Initiatives Program (CIP) Project-Based grant
- Funds projects for non-profit organizations that focus on programs, events and technology.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities and organizations, non-profits that fall under the grant’s eligibility criteria.
- Funding for Indigenous-led projects that seek to improve the well-being of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit plus people by addressing violence and increasing their safety and economic security.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities and organizations.
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Alberta Community Restorative Justice Grant
- Provides funds to non-profits that provide restorative justice services and referrals.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, non-profits, youth justice committees, and more.
Help for victims of crime – Emergency assistance
- Provides financial assistance, counselling service and court expenses to victims of a violent crime to assist with losses and damages.
- Who can apply: Victims of a serious eligible offence in Alberta.
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Aboriginal Business Investment Fund
- Helps Indigenous community-owned businesses capitalize on business development opportunities to improve socio-economic outcomes.
- Who can apply: Indigenous community-owned businesses in Alberta.
- Funding for projects that assist underrepresented groups in the agriculture sector.
- Who can apply: Indigenous groups and other underrepresented and marginalized groups.
Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation
- Works with Indigenous communities across Alberta to invest in natural resources, agriculture, telecommunication, transportation and tourism projects.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities.
First Nations Development Fund
- Provides funding for economic, social, and community development projects.
- Who can apply: Recognized First Nations with reserve land in Alberta that have signed a First Nations Development Fund grant agreement
Indigenous Reconciliation Initiative – Economic Stream
- Funds Indigenous-led capacity and opportunity development projects that improve economic outcomes for communities.
- Who can apply: Indigenous people, communities, organizations and governing bodies.
Northern and Regional Economic Development Program
- Funds initiatives that support economic development and diversification.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, non-profits, and municipalities.
Small Community Opportunity Program
- Funds for small communities to help build capacity in agriculture, small business and local economic development.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, small communities, and non-profits.
Training and employment services – Self-employment Program
- Supports formal training, business plan development, one-to-one business counselling, coaching and guidance.
- Who can apply: Unemployed or underemployed people living in Alberta seeking to start a business for the purpose of self-employment.
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- Provides financial assistance to help individuals restore uninsurable lost or damaged property due to a disaster.
- Who can apply: Individuals impacted by uninsurable loss due to disasters.
Drought and Flood Protection Program
- Provides funding to help build drought and flood protection projects.
- Who can apply: Indigenous Communities, municipalities.
- Provides funding to communities to help ensure their local fire services are properly trained to respond safely to community risks.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities and partnerships of these entities.
- Provides funding for projects related to fire planning, fuel management, public education, inter-agency cooperation and training.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities and partnerships of these entities.
Municipal Wildfire Assistance Program
- Provides financial assistance to local authorities that incur extraordinary costs in the suppression of wildfires.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements and municipalities.
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Alberta Child Care Grant Funding Program
- Early Childhood Educators can receive wage top-ups and professional development funding funnelled through a childcare program.
- Who can apply: Licensed childcare programs.
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- Provides funds to promote and improve healthy eating and active living opportunities in communities.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, non-profits, municipalities and public schools.
Honouring Life – Indigenous Health
- Formerly, Aboriginal Youth and Community Empowerment Strategy or AYCES, a youth life promotion and suicide prevention program developed to build capacity in mental wellness, resiliency and healthy lifestyles.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities.
Indigenous Addiction and Mental Wellness (IAMW)
- Supports Indigenous-led organizations that build on community driven mental health and wellness projects to address needs and service gaps.
- Who can apply: Indigenous organizations.
Indigenous Primary Health Care Innovation Fund
- Invests in Indigenous-led, culturally safe primary health care programs that improve health equity and access through traditional healing, elimination of systemic racism and community-designed services.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, Indigenous non-profits, Inuit organizations registered in Alberta.
Indigenous primary health care funding – Patient Navigator Grant
- Funds the hiring of Indigenous Patient Navigators to help patients access health services, advocate for care and support care coordination.
- Who can apply: Indigenous organizations or health service providers working with Indigenous populations.
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- Funds initiatives that create intercultural connections and celebrate diversity among ethnocultural and Indigenous groups.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities and community organizations.
- Supports interpretive and public engagement projects that preserve and promote Alberta’s history.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, individuals that reside or have a permanent address in Alberta, registered organizations.
- Supports the production of publications that preserve and promote Alberta’s history.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, individuals that reside or have a permanent address in Alberta, registered organizations.
- Supports research projects that preserve and promote Alberta’s history.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, individuals that reside or have a permanent address in Alberta, registered organizations.
Historic resource conservation grants
- Funds to conserve historic places.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities, non-profits, churches and schools.
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Affordable Housing Partnership Program
- Funding to help pay for construction, renovation or development of housing projects.
- Who can apply: Public, private, non-profit organizations aiming to provide affordable housing.
Continuing Care Capital Program – Small Care Home Stream
- Capital funding to build care homes that house between 4 and 14 residents in small, rural and remote communities that support populations with complex health needs.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities, and organizations.
Indigenous Housing Capital Program
- Increases the supply of affordable housing units for Indigenous people through construction (including additions/extensions), purchase and repurpose.
- Who can apply: Indigenous governments or organizations; housing management bodies, municipalities, and non-profits with formal partnerships with Indigenous governments or organizations.
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- Funds projects that extend or enhance household access to high-speed internet services with speeds less than federal targets.
- Who can apply: Indigenous entities, municipalities and Canadian companies.
- Funds capital projects and planning and design projects that develop transit solutions for rural and remote communities.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities and rural, remote, northern communities and municipalities .
Alberta Municipal Water/Wastewater Partnership
- Funding for municipal water supply and treatment facilities, and wastewater treatment and disposal facilities.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements, cities (under 45,000 population), towns, villages, summer villages, regional commissions, counties and municipal districts.
- Funds help local governments switch to sustainable practices faster in waste, water, energy, transportation, land use and housing.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities and non-profits.
Local Government Fiscal Framework (previously MSI)
- Provides funding for projects and activities that enhance municipal sustainability and growth.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements and municipalities.
Local Municipal Initiatives (LMI)
- Provides funding to municipalities for priority local transportation infrastructure projects not eligible under other streams of the Strategic Transportation Infrastructure Program (STIP).
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements, municipalities.
Municipal Climate Change Action Centre
- Various funding programs aimed at addressing climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities, towns and cities.
Municipal Stimulus Program (MSP)
- Provides capital infrastructure funding to support economic recovery and job creation.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements, municipalities.
Strategic Transportation Infrastructure Program (STIP)
- Provides funds to assist in road, airport and bridge construction and maintenance.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements, municipalities, counties and towns.
- Funds new regional water supply and treatment facilities, and wastewater treatment facilities.
- Who can apply: Metis Settlements, regional commissions, and municipalities.
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- Funding to help employees and unemployed people living in Alberta access training opportunities.
- Who can apply: Indigenous communities, municipalities, and employers.
Employment Partnerships Program
- Funding for Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Program agreement holders to connect Indigenous people to employment.
- Who can apply: Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) Program agreement holders.
Indigenous Employment Training Partnerships Program
- Eligible Indigenous organizations can apply for grant project funding to assist unemployed or under-employed Indigenous individuals with skills training and work experience.
- Who can apply: Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Program agreement holders.
Training and Employment Services – Self-employment Program
- Training, business plan development and one-to-one guidance for eligible people living in Alberta to develop and start a new business.
- Who can apply: Unemployed and under-employed adults in Alberta, who are permanent residents or Canadian citizens, seeking to start a business for the purpose of self-employment.
- Funding to support labour market adjustment strategies and workforce development to attract and retain workers.
- Who can apply: Indigenous organizations, non-profits, employers, industry associations.
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Belcourt-Brosseau Métis Awards
- Helps Métis people in Alberta realize self-sufficiency through post-secondary education and skills development. This award is intended to cover a portion of education-related costs such as tuition and fees.
- Who can apply: Students who show financial need and have a connection to the Métis community, priority given to first year students.
Bob Etherington Heritage Conservation Fund
- Funding to support attendance or delivery of training that will develop heritage conservation skills.
- Who can apply: Permanent residents of Alberta planning to attend an eligible course/workshop in heritage conservation work.
First Nations, Métis and Inuit Bursary
- Provides funding for students in the form of a non-repayable bursary in exchange for full-time employment in the north for every year of bursary support received.
- Who can apply: Indigenous students enrolled full-time in a post-secondary program.
- Provides funding for Indigenous students.
- Who can apply: Indigenous students enrolled full-time in a post-secondary school or First Nations College in Alberta.
First Nations, Métis and Inuit Languages Teacher Bursary
- Eligible applicants can get money to complete a post-secondary Indigenous language, culture or teaching development course.
- Who can apply: Residents of Alberta who are Canadian citizens, permanent residents or protected persons.
Northern Alberta Development Bursary
- Provides student funding of up to $14,000 over 2 years and is non-repayable if they agree to live and work in northern Alberta.
- Who can apply: Eligible students enrolled in a full-time post-secondary program in the fall.
- Students in a graduate or extended program in the heritage field working on an eligible research project may apply for a scholarship.
- Who can apply: Permanent residents of Alberta enrolled in a graduate or extended study program with a proposed research project at that level, in the eligible study fields.
Theodore R. Campbell Scholarship
- Recognizes the academic excellence of Indigenous students enrolled in an education program at the University nuhelot’ine thaiyots’i nistameyimakanak Blue Quills.
- Who can apply: Indigenous students who are Canadian citizens or Alberta residents and have completed first-year Education at Blue Quills with 24 credits and 70% attendance, show financial need and are enrolled full-time in second year.