Receive up to $50 million in funding for your Indigenous organization to support your partnerships with industry employers and provide skills training for Indigenous peoples.
As a complement to the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training program, the Skills and Partnership Fund (SPF) is a project-based fund that supports partnerships between Indigenous organizations and industry employers to provide skills training for Indigenous peoples linked to economic opportunities at the local, regional, and national level. By increasing access to training that is demand-driven, the SPF plays a key role in directly linking training efforts and Indigenous peoples to specific jobs to improve their employment outcomes.
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Eligible recipients
Indigenous organizations are eligible recipients under the SPF program. This may include incorporated for-profit and not-for-profit Indigenous controlled organizations, Indigenous controlled unincorporated associations, Indian Act bands, Tribal Councils and Indigenous self-government entities. An organization may be eligible for multi-year agreements, based on the strength of the project proposal.
- Eligible activities
SPF will fund innovative Indigenous labour market development activities that:
- pilot innovations in service delivery and systems through partnership
- respond to economic and partnership opportunities with targeted labour force development initiatives
- address program delivery weaknesses and/or gaps in Canada’s network of Indigenous organizations that provide labour market services
- policy development/consultation in support of relationship-building, partnerships, consultation, and/or key Indigenous priorities related to increased employment and skills development. This may include development of proposals, position papers, strategies, dissemination of best practices and engagement in joint policy development and program initiative
Activities must demonstrate partnership with the private sector, not-for profit, and/or public sector organizations (for example, cost-sharing with employers, provincial/territorial governments, and/or other organizations)
Eligible activities could include:
- 1) Training-to-employment such as:
- job-specific education
- skills training and apprenticeships
- job retention counselling
- job supports including child care for parents participating in labour market programming
- financial incentives to encourage individuals to accept employment
- targeted programming (for example, youth, women, persons with disabilities, urban, rural, off-reservation)
- self-employment programming
- 2) Skills development such as:
- essential skills training for multi-barriered clients in partnership with organizations that serve multi-barriered clients
- training for youth on how to find jobs
- build skills, explore career options and plan for the future
- entrepreneurship training to help individuals start and manage their own business
- work experience opportunities
- 3) Service improvement such as:
- innovative business processes to improve service delivery to Indigenous clients
- innovations in client-focused service delivery and case management
- human resource training for service providers
- development of training tools and work support tools
- initiating and sustaining federal, provincial, municipal, not-for-profit and private sector partnerships
- coordination with and among ASETS agreement holders, sub- agreements, points of service and other service providers to identify opportunities for greater economies of scale
- Eligible expenditures
Eligible expenditures are those considered necessary to support the purpose of the funding.
Eligible project costs under SPF include:
- project administration and overhead costs such as wages and benefits, rental of office space, telephones, etc. that are directly related to the administration or delivery of the project
- equipment rental (capital asset purchases may be allowed where it can be demonstrated to be more cost-effective over the life of the project) such as computers, office equipment, etc.
- materials and supplies directly related to the project
- cost associated with printing, translation and dissemination of project reports
- communications activities and material including promotional material and activities, through print, web-based and other media
- costs related to clients such as counselling, mentoring, skills testing and needs evaluation, pre-employment training, post-secondary training, apprenticeship training, technical training, on site training, literacy, essential skills training
- income support for clients such as allowances, wage subsidies, accommodation and transportation
- cost for the provision of food to participants in training activities where it provides nourishment that is considered to contribute to the participants’ successful completion of their training
- costs of client wages and the employer’s share of employment-related costs for clients
- professional fees related to audit, evaluation and assessment
- professional fees for expertise not available through the organization or partners (individuals receiving a salary from the sponsoring or partner organizations are not eligible to be paid as consultants). This may include fees for services provided by Indigenous elders
- travel within Canada that is directly related to the project activities
- other costs necessary to support the purpose of the funding, as approved by Employment and Social Development Canada
The total administration costs, including those of third party organizations, should not exceed 15% of the total contribution. Administration costs over 15% of the total contribution amount may be permitted in special circumstances, provided the justification is reasonable and the costs have been negotiated in advance and approved by Canada.