Aviva Community Fund : Five days to go

Aviva Community Fund wants to support what's important to you by helping you make a positive change in your community. If you're interested in changing Canada for the better, you're in the right place.

How the Competition Works:

Create an idea that will have a positive impact in your community. Enter it in the Aviva Community Fund competition and get your friends, family and everyone you know to vote for it. The most popular ideas will have a chance to be funded with the $500,000 Aviva Community Fund

Ideas have come in that confront a variety of challenges.

• Rejuvenate Your Neighbourhood
• Support Youth
• Improve Education
• Encourage Healthy Lifestyles
• Promote Well-being
• Preserve the Environment
• Stimulate Culture

Competition Timeline:

The voting is over now, but it is worth noting how the process went. Ideas came in and have already competed for a spot in the Semi-Finals over 3 rounds of voting that took place from October 13th and November 29th. During those rounds, Canadians voted to select the semi-finalists. The most popular ideas from these 3 rounds competed in a Semi-Final round run up until December 16th.

The top ideas, as selected by you and vetted through the judges, will receive funding through the Aviva Community Fund.

How will ideas be evaluated?

The Judging panel will evaluate the 25 finalist ideas based on these criteria:

• Impact: How deeply are people impacted by this idea, and how urgent is the need? How many people will this idea benefit, and will it be compelling for a broad audience?
  
  
• Likelihood of Success: Is there a high probability of speedy and successful execution of this idea?
  
  
• Longevity & Sustainability: How long will the Idea's impact last? Will this Idea require regular funding beyond the initial request? If so, is there a plan to obtain additional funding? Note that regular funding beyond the initial request will result in lower scores unless there is a feasible plan to obtain ongoing funding from other sources.
  
  
• Originality: How novel is the idea?
  
  
• Submission Quality: How much effort went into the quality of the idea entry? Was it well thought through and clearly explained?

Winners will be announced on January 25th, 2010.

All of the ideas are wonderful, but only a handful can win. Our fingers are crossed for the Children's Storefront. The Children’s Storefront was originally conceived as a toy exchange and play centre and was Ontario's first Child-Parent Centre.

For over 35 years, it has distinguished itself as a space that brings parents and children together in a helpful and sustaining environment for them both. Since there were no scheduled programs and predictable daytime hours, families could come whenever they were able and stay for as long as they liked and needed to.

It was a vital community resource for families. Whether it was having somewhere to go on a rainy day that is free of charge to having a resource in the community that aids in preventing the isolation that many of us can feel - especially when our children are small. For parents and care givers, it was a place to find support, commiserate, socialize, share parenting ideas and stories, and hear each other’s strategies for raising our children.

On the morning of October 31st, fire broke out in the apartment building above The Children's Storefront, located at 1079 Bathurst Street in Toronto. As a result of structural damage caused by the blaze, the building was demolished. The Children's Storefront, which has provided much needed community support for families, children and care givers for over 30 years is now gone—forced to rebuild at another location or close its doors forever. This has been a devastating event for the whole community. It is our hope that this organization is one of the lucky ones selected by the jury for funding.

Sign up today and be one of the first to discover who gets funded.

The Aviva Community Fund is an awesome and innovative use of social media and online community building tools employed to the benefit of a social purpose. Have you seen or do you know of any other novel and innovative ways that individuals, companies, community groups and not for profit organizations are harnessing the power of social media and technology to fund important projects in your community?

Tell us about it. If we report on your story, we'll give you full credit and post a link to your story.