TD Charitable Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The TD Charitable Foundation is the philanthropic vehicle of TD Bank. This funder’s grantmaking addresses housing, but it also supports economic opportunity, education, arts and culture, public health and the environment in states where its parent banking company does business.
IP TAKE: More than half of TD’s grantmaking supports affordable housing initiatives and the development of housing for homeless individuals and families. Through a separate program, it awards small grants for nonprofit professional development.
TD is a corporate funder that is uncommonly accessible in contrast from similar funders. It posts application guidelines, materials and regional contact information for its various funding programs on its foundation website. It also offers some corporate sponsorship opportunities you can read more about below.
Funding is limited to select counties in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
PROFILE: Established in 2002, the TD Charitable Foundation is the philanthropic arm of TD Bank, the U. S. subsidiary of the Canadian multinational Toronto-Dominion Bank. The foundation is on a mission to “support, respect and improve the quality of life in the diverse communities” where TD maintains operations. The foundation names Financial Security, a Vibrant Planet, Connected Communities and Better Health as its grantmaking initiatives.
Grants for Housing, Homelessness and Community Development
Housing has been the TD Charitable Foundation’s largest area of giving in recent years. The foundation sources its funds for housing grants from an annual Housing for Everyone competition, which awards grants ranging from $125,000 to $250,000 to promising development projects for affordable housing for vulnerable and homeless individuals and families. The program appears to focus geographically on the East Coast. In 2023, the competition’s theme addressed the protection of affordable rental housing. Recent grants support Connecticut’s Partnership for Strong Communities, Homeless Solutions of New Jersey, South Carolina’s Community Works and Virginia’s Wesley Housing.
Grants for Economic Development and K-12 Education
The TD Charitable Foundation names Financial Security as a focus of its grantmaking. As part of their initiative, they focus their grantmaking efforts on programs addressing income stability, financial literacy, and affordable housing. In particular, they support programs that support income stability through mid-career professional development, programs that “improve financial knowledge and skills in a digital world,” and programs and services that increase the supply of affordable housing units in a community, either by building or by renovating existing units.
Additionally, TD’s financial literacy grants overlap with K-12 grants due to a focus on supporting children’s K-6 education. In particular, the foundation strives to improve reading and mathematics outcomes for children who are “at risk of falling behind in school” by supporting initiatives that provide extra-curricular support in these areas at least once per week.
One grantee, the Senior Service Centers of the Albany Area used funding to run financial counseling programs for the elderly. In Portland, Oregon the foundation has supported SCORE, an organization that helps small businesses grow and thrive. Other grantees in this area include the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Regional Foundation, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling and multiple chapters of the national organization Junior Achievement, which helps young people up to the age of 25 develop workplace skills and financial literacy.
An example of TD’s recent education funding recipients, the Telling Room in Portland, Maine provides out-of-school reading and writing programs for students between the ages of 6 and 18. Another grantee, Achieve Hartford, mobilizes local businesses and community leaders to support and improve the city’s public schools. Other education grantees include out-of-school academic support programs run by YMCA and Boys and Girls Club organizations.
Grants for Arts and Culture
A significant portion of grants made through TD’s Connected Communities initiative broadly supports arts and culture projects and organizations. In this area, the foundation prioritizes opportunities and events that bring diverse people together and the creation of “dialogues in art and culture that are reflective of all voices.”
In particular, TD seeks to fund events and programming that encourages shared experiences through low-cost or no-cost experiences, and they particularly name public-facing music and ethnocultural events and festivals as an area of giving.
Additionally, in an attempt to increase representation of under-represented and diverse voices in arts and culture initiatives, the funder’s grantmaking in this area emphasizes “public-facing art and cultural events that reflect new, underrepresented and diverse voices.” They are especially interested in supporting those events that provide professional development opportunities for those working in the arts and culture sector.
Finally, the Connected Communities initiative works to support communities that are vulnerable to social isolation from the broader community at large. Supported programming in this area should create connections within and between communities that will last after the programming or event ends.
Recent grantees include educational and outreach programs at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, New York City’s Jewish Museum, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library and Building Bridges Across the River, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that brings arts and culture programs to public spaces on the Anacostia River.
Grants for Public Health
The TD Charitable Foundation names Better Health as a focus of its grantmaking, but has made only a few grants in this area over the past several years. This funding area seeks to “increase investment in research, technology, and innovative solutions that improve access to care for all” through three different areas of focus:
There is grant support for existing healthcare practices, such as early detection and intervention efforts or programs focused on reaching underserved populations.
Second, the funder focuses on adolescent health and healthcare, funding programs that support adolescents during the transition from pediatric to adult care.
Third, TD Charitable funds technology and AI research that can contribute to positive health outcomes, such as improving medical diagnostics, personalized care and medicine, or chronic disease management. Most of TD’s public health grants support hospitals and health care systems in the Northeast.
Grantees include the Maine Medical Center, New Jersey’s Englewood Health Foundation, the Metropolitan Jewish Health System of New York City and the Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, New Hampshire. TD has also supported the Ronald McDonald House of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts.
Grants for Environmental Conservation
TD’s Vibrant Planet funding initiative is its newest area of giving. The foundation has made an ambitious target of directing $100 billion in Canadian Dollars to support the development of a low-carbon economy by 2030. The foundation also names the development and maintenance of public “green spaces” as an area of interest.
Early environmental grants supported Columbia Opportunities, Inc., which helps low-income homeowners in Columbia County, New York with energy audits and sustainable home weatherization, and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy in New York City.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
The TD Charitable Foundation maintains a Non-Profit Training Resource Fund, which supports nonprofits with $1,000 grants, “for employees to attend approved training and/or conferences.” Through this program, the foundation seeks to increase capacity and skill sets for organizations that serve low- to moderate-income communities or people or that support diverse and/or historically underserved communities.
TD also supports nonprofit and for-profit organizations through corporate sponsorships that “are of mutual benefit to our community and the bank.” While the bank has a list of activities they will not support through sponsorships, including organizations that violate their anti-discrimination policy, organizations or events that are not open to the general public, and annual appeals or general operating support, their stated goals or criteria for sponsorship support focus primarily on networking and connection-building opportunities for bank associates and the need for the organization or event to “support the community in a positive way.”
Both programs run open on-line application programs via the foundation’s website.
Important Grant Details:
Grants range in size from about $2,5000 to $500,000, with an average grant size of about $10,000. Nonprofit training resource grants are awarded in the amount of $1,000. The TD Charitable Foundation makes over $10 million a year in grants.
This funder’s largest area of giving, by far, is housing. The TD Charitable Foundation limits its grantmaking to specific areas in the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
This funder runs open application systems for its foundation grants, Housing for Everyone grants, nonprofit training resource grants and community sponsorships. Each application begins with an eligibility quiz, and due dates and requirements vary by program. General inquiries may be directed to the individual senior regional giving managers, whose emails are listed in the foundations FAQ.
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