Livelihoods Organizations

Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC)

AKFC partners with Canadians and communities in Africa and Asia to build better futures together. It works with communities, businesses, and governments to find innovative solutions to global challenges; invests in high-quality institutions and systems that anchor social, economic, and cultural progress over the long term; and promotes inclusive development that enables women and men to unlock their own potential, sparking transformative change.

Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCRW)

CCRW is a national not-for-profit organization that exists to promote and support meaningful and equitable employment of persons with disabilities. It offers job search assistance, employer incentives, accommodation assessments, consulting services, and a variety of workshops. It also provides a range of services for employers from consulting to hiring, retention, and disability confidence training.

Canadian Feed the Children

Canadian Feed the Children is a registered Canadian charity that envisions a world where children thrive free from poverty. It works with local partners to build capacity in communities so that they can achieve their own long-term sustainable change. It follows the best practices in development based on a formal Theory of Change, which includes monitoring, evaluation, and attention to gender and climate change as cross-cutting themes.

Canadian Institute of Tourism and Sustainable Livelihoods (CITSL)

CITSL is a nonprofit organization that responds to the devastating conditions of the world’s poorest and most marginalized people in developing countries in an effort to build and sustain livelihoods, while creating the healthy environment necessary for survival. It accomplishes this task in various sectors, from agriculture to entrepreneurship to healthcare. It currently operates in regions throughout Africa, as well as locally in the province of Alberta.

Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW)

CRIAW is the only national bilingual feminist organization in Canada dedicated to research. It researches and documents the economic and social situation of women in Canada using feminist, intersectional frameworks in research and analysis. CRIAW recognizes women’s diverse experiences and perspectives; creates spaces for developing women’s knowledge; bridges regional isolation; and provides communication links among researchers and organizations actively working to promote women’s equality.

Canadian Women’s Foundation

Canadian Women’s Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that acts as Canada’s public foundation for gender justice and equality by growing support for grassroots feminist action, partnering with communities and organizations to improve conditions, and building diverse leadership and knowledge for sustainable change.

CARE Canada

CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere) is a global confederation headquartered in Ottawa that is working to save lives, fight poverty, and achieve social justice in the world by investing in women and girls and advancing their leadership. It works alongside communities and with partners to understand the root causes of poverty and find innovative, locally led solutions.

Centre for Research on Work Disability Policy (CRWDP)

CRWDP is a transdisciplinary initiative to improve Canadian work disability policy to help all people access employment. Its objective is to identify how people, when disabled, can be retained and integrated into the Canadian labour market.

Centre for Sustainable Livelihoods (University College Cork, Ireland)

Centre for Sustainable Livelihoods is an organization committed to research, capacity building, harmonizing trade and agricultural policy, and policy development/advocacy. It aims to determine and address issues that affect people’s ability to maintain and sustain their livelihoods.

Co-operative Development Foundation (CDF) of Canada

CDF is a global social impact partner that collaborates with local communities to build their capacity to achieve sustainable economic and social development, leveraging the advantages of the cooperative business model. It takes a research-based and data-centric approach to its work. Its goal is to enhance knowledge and strengthen capacity while initiating dialogue with local governments to positively influence cooperative law and regulations.

Evidence for Development

Evidence for Development is a registered charity in England and Wales that seeks to make reliable quantitative information on livelihoods available to decision makers at local, national, and international levels so that policies to improve living standards and strengthen resilience among the poor are based on the best possible evidence.

Food for the Poor Canada

Food for the Poor is part of a strong network of international charities dedicated to alleviating poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean. It develops agriculture and small animal projects such as coffee farming, beekeeping, chicken rearing, plant husbandry, and fishing; establishes income-generation training workshops; and supports vocational training programs through scholarships and distribution of tools and supplies.

Future Skills Centre

Future Skills Centre is a Canadian organization dedicated to driving innovation in skills development to help individuals and organizations prepare for the future of work. It was established as part of Canada’s Future Skills Initiative, which aims to ensure Canadians can adapt to changing labour markets, technologies, and economic needs.

Guelph & Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination (PTF)

Based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, PTF works collaboratively, informed by diverse voices of lived experience, to drive local action and advocate for systemic and policy changes that address the root causes of poverty.

Human Concern International (HCI)

HCI is an organization with a livelihoods program that focuses on sustainability. It works with communities to develop long-term solutions to support communities and their families. By providing education and training in areas such as financial management, marketing, and product development, HCI helps individuals to build successful businesses that can provide a stable income for years to come. Its livelihood programs have been successful in various parts of the world, including in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Syria.

Humanitarian Coalition

Humanitarian Coalition brings together leading aid organizations to provide Canadians with a simple and effective way to help during international humanitarian disasters. Member agencies join forces to raise funds by mobilizing media, businesses, and individual Canadians.

Institute for Inclusive Economies and Sustainable Livelihoods (University of Toronto – Scarborough)

This Institute provides an intellectual environment for the exploration, development, and sharing of diverse economic solutions to the environmental, technological, demographic, and globalization changes that are producing increasing precarity, disruption, and loss of livelihood. It facilitates research and partnerships with community organizations in pursuit of its vision of sustainable and just economic futures in an age of degrowth.

International Development Enterprises (iDE) Canada

iDE is a global team of 1,200 changemakers across four continents that creates income and livelihood opportunities for poor, rural households. Over the last three decades, iDE has expanded its footprint to engage with local markets. It currently works in 10 countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Zambia. iDE creates business opportunities unique to the communities it serves.

Kenoli Foundation

This private Canadian foundation works to alleviate poverty and hunger by supporting organizations that build community self-sufficiency and advance human rights in four countries in Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. It focuses on the best practices that have been shown to make a difference in people’s lives and transform communities.

Live Work Well Research Centre

The Live Work Well Research Centre at the University of Guelph in Canada is committed to nourishing families, livelihoods, and living environments both locally and globally. We anticipate, learn, and respond to the changing needs of diverse families and kin, lives and livelihoods, and living environments through research, teaching, and accessible knowledge sharing, including policy-relevant and community-engaged activities.

Momentum

Momentum is a change-making organization that combines social and economic strategies to reduce poverty. Using a holistic approach, it covers everything from financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and skills training, to developing communication skills, building self-confidence, and establishing positive social networks.

Oxfam Canada

Oxfam Canada is an affiliate of the international Oxfam Confederation networked in 87 countries as part of a global movement for change. Its mission is to build lasting solutions to poverty and injustice, focusing on improving lives and promoting the rights of women and girls. It works directly with communities, partners, and women’s rights organizations to challenge the systems perpetuating inequality and keeping people poor.

Pacific Livelihoods Research Group

This Research Group is a collaborative, practice-based research initiative focused on enhancing the livelihoods of communities across the Pacific region. Their work emphasizes participatory methods, long-term field engagement, and partnerships with local stakeholders, particularly smallholder farmers and marginalized groups.

Results Canada

Results Canada is a grassroots advocacy organization that believes in mobilizing everyday people to generate the political will to end extreme poverty. It combines the voices of volunteers with strategic areas of focus to leverage resources for programs and improved policies that help realize people’s rights to health equity, quality education, and economic opportunity.

Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium

This Research Consortium is an eight-year global research program exploring livelihoods, basic services, and social protection in conflict-affected situations.

Sustainable Livelihoods Canada (SLC)

SLC is a national, not-for-profit social enterprise dedicated to promoting awareness and use of the Sustainable Livelihoods approach, a holistic, strength-based framework for building livelihood strategies and moving people out of poverty.

United Nations Refugee Agency Canada (UNHCR)

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), also known as the UN Refugee Agency, is a nongovernmental organization that engages directly with companies and other actors to design and implement innovative concepts and programs that contribute to refugees’ livelihoods, and that partners with private companies to increase the hiring of refugees.

World Vision

World Vision is a global relief, development, and advocacy organization that focuses on getting people the resources they need to survive today, while building toward a future where families are economically empowered with sustainable livelihoods to provide for their children and withstand the challenges to come.