To be eligible, applicants must be organizations meeting the following criteria:

• Organizations duly incorporated as legal entities in Canada and validly existing in Canada before receiving funding. This requirement can be completed after submitting the application but must be completed before any funding is received.
• Organizations in good standing with CMHC and not in breach of any terms and conditions under any previous project with the Demonstrations Initiative or other CMHC program. Applicants in breach of any terms and conditions or who fail to meet integrity requirements may be denied funding on that basis.

Note
Employees of CMHC and anyone connected with the evaluation of the applications for the National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative are prohibited from participating. This includes entering as an applicant, being a member of an applicant’s team or as a collaborator.

You can participate in the Demonstrations Initiative if you are part of a broad range of housing stakeholders (as applicants or partners), such as, but not limited to:

• community housing providers, affordable housing providers, non-profit affordable housing organizations and affordable housing cooperatives
• government agencies and corporations – provincial, territorial and municipal
• Indigenous organizations – First Nation, Inuit and Métis
• Canadian companies organizations and associations
• private and non-profit builders and developers and real estate agencies
• associations, networks or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seeking to demonstrate and scale new and innovative approaches
• agencies, associations and NGOs involved in National Housing Straregy priority area activities, including:
  • seniors associations
  • veterans associations
  • mental health advocates
  • homelessness hub
  • non-profit organizations
  • sustainability agencies
• academic institutions and innovation hubs involved in National Housing Strategy priority area activities and audiences
• end users, people with lived experience that can provide first-hand expertise to the demonstration, adaptation or  replication of the solution.

Note
International organizations and individuals may be collaborators or members of the demonstration team but not the applicant. They must partner as collaborators with a Canadian applicant.

Note
Eligible applicants must indicate any relevant project funding that they have applied to, been approved for or have received. Also, please indicate collaborators’ funding and include funding from other Strategy initiatives. For example: the Affordable Housing Fund – new construction, Affordable Housing Fund – repair and renewal and the Apartment or the Construction Loan Program.

Eligible activities include:

• developing new information, evidence and data related to the demonstrated solutions
• engaging in collaborative work with an expanded group of stakeholders to support greater adoption or scaling
• disseminating information and knowledge and transferring capacity and expertise related to community housing providers solutions
• developing adapted scaling approaches to expand impact of solutions meeting the specific needs of the Community Housing sector
• mobilizing stakeholders for scaling such solutions

Examples of funded activities include:

• Highlighting high-impact innovations already implemented in a real-world setting, to support greater sector awareness and appetite for adoption.
• Documenting its performance and benefits based on evidence, including outcomes for its expected users and adopters and National Housing Strategy outcomes. The goal is to increase interest in replicating or adopting the demonstrated solution.
• Showing potential adopters and replicators how to implement the innovation in various contexts through:
  • tools development
  • knowledge transfer
  • capacity-building
  • development and implementation of scaling models and approaches
  • adaptation and replication processes
  • collaborative approaches
  • partnerships/value networks development, networking and showcasing stakeholder engagement across diverse geographic, social, cultural, economic or regulatory areas and sustainable solutions.

Eligibility screening

• All complete applications will first be processed by CMHC for eligibility and integrity screening. CMHC will only contact you to tell you if your application is ineligible to move to the evaluation committee.

Evaluation

• CMHC’s evaluation process is supported by internal and/or external reviewers with relevant experience and subject-matter expertise and/or people with lived experience, who will assess the quality of the applications by reviewing and scoring them. Only applications scored at 80% or higher by reviewers will be considered for funding.
• Evaluation criteria include:
  • innovation details
  • readiness and sustainability
  • sector appetite
  • stakeholders’ engagement in demonstrations activities
  • affordable housing sector impacts
  • innovation in relation with housing units
  • project objective
  • statement of work (SOW) and knowledge mobilization (KM) plan
  • partners
  • team members
  • project costs and funding contributions
  • bonus: National Housing Strategy priority groups
  • risk assessment and mitigation

Prioritization

For proposals reaching the minimum 80% threshold, CMHC will prioritize the following:

• Solutions that focus on meeting the specific needs of one or more of the National Housing Strategy priority groups.
• For solutions focusing on Indigenous housing or Indigenous populations, projects will be led by an Indigenous organizations or group or they should have a substantial role in the demonstration project.

CMHC also aims to ensure a diversified portfolio of solutions for the community housing provider sector. Therefore, we may consider additional prioritization criteria among proposals that reach the minimum 80% threshold, such as, but not limited to:

• diversity of funding recipients
• diversity of National Housing Strategy priority population groups
• diversity in geographic/regulatory representation (to see how solutions might require adaptation in different contexts)
• diversity across types of solutions where limited demonstrations have taken place

The Demonstrations Initiative follows a continuous intake process. This means that additional prioritization criteria may be applied over time, such as alignment with emerging federal housing priorities. If new criteria are introduced:

• The prioritization criteria will be updated on this web page.
• Any new prioritization criteria would only apply to applications submitted after the updated criteria, to ensure fairness.

• Integrity Declaration Form
• Glossary
• CMHC Brand Guidelines

External resources:

• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – Guidelines for Effective Knowledge Mobilization
• Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans – TCPS 2 (2018)
• Women and Gender Equality Canada – Resources for applying a Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) lens to your work

2021 Successful Projects

2020 Successful Projects

2019 Successful Projects

2018 Successful Projects