Community investments for healthier, better lives

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Our support helps make decisions easier, and lives better

As part of our Impact Agenda, we’re dedicated to advancing positive, measurable, social and environmental change to build a better business to better the world. Through our community investments, we work with organizations to foster healthier, more equitable communities.

We prioritize investments in the following areas:

Empowering sustained health & well-being

Make healthier behaviour easier and more accessible, with a specific focus on solutions that encourage small, everyday actions to promote health, and improve how well and how long people live.

Driving inclusive economic opportunity

Accelerate upward mobility and help make financial solutions accessible to everyone through financial capability programs that develop and sustain positive money habits, and targeted employment initiatives, particularly in fields related to Manulife's business and aligned to our DEI objectives.

Accelerating a sustainable future

Support the transition to a net zero economy and protect and grow the value of nature-based solutions through initiatives that enhance access to and stewardship of the natural environment and improve the livelihood and wellbeing of local communities.

Learn more about our Impact Agenda

Making a difference in our communities

Our goal is to help Canadians live longer, healthier, better lives. To accomplish this, we invest primarily in programs, initiatives and organizations that research, promote and provide access to physical and mental health to historically underserved communities.

These are some of our key partnerships:

Three women are engaged in a conversation.

CAMH Foundation

Supporting research to improve mental health care for women. 

Our funding supports the Women’s Health Research Cluster (WHRC), a part of CAMH’s womenmindTM initiative, which aims to close the gender gap in mental health.

Three medical professionals pushing a gurney.

St. Mary’s General Hospital Foundation

Providing better cardiac care.

We’ve invested in the St. Mary’s PREVENT Clinic powered by Manulife, a new and innovative program to help identify and modify cardiovascular risk factors to reduce the chances of an acute vascular event.

A girl in her late teens is crossing a slim rope bridge.

Diabetes Canada

Helping prevent and manage diabetes.

 Our investment is improving the lives of individuals living with diabetes through education and community support, including programs to promote healthy living (e.g., food planning sessions).

Three lab researchers working in a research laboratory.

CIFAR

Enabling groundbreaking health discoveries for our communities.

We support CIFAR’s research on the key issues that affect the health of populations at the individual and community levels. We do it through the Manulife CIFAR Population Health & Well-Being Grant Program, which supports catalyst grants focused on behavioural and social opportunities.

Two Indigenous females, a woman in her 50s and a 5-year-old girl are sitting in front of a laptop.

Douglas Foundation

Empowering young adults with mental illness.

We’re helping to expand Minds@Work, a program that empowers young adults experiencing mental illness to find and pursue careers, stay employed and function well in the workplace. With our funding, the Douglas Foundation is also piloting the program with a subgroup that focuses on the cultural nuances of serving the Indigenous community.

About 100 young girls in their teens have their arms raised straight up in a cheerful manner.

FitSpirit

Helping young girls stay active and maintain healthy habits.

We’re supporting extracurricular running clubs and events to create a running and fitness community for young women and girls. We’ve helped launch a pilot program that’s engaging and impacting Indigenous communities in Québec, where cultural nuances can create barriers to young Indigenous girls living a healthy and active lifestyle.

Four people are walking on a wooden trail, consisting of two couples.

Trans Canada Trail

Making nature more accessible to all.

We’re bringing people to nature and making it more accessible by funding the Trail Accessibility Mapping Program. This program hires trail mappers with diverse abilities to use new technologies to help discover barrier-free routes and identify existing barriers to be addressed. 

Two Afro-American women in their 70s are smiling while doing yoga in a park surrounded by trees.

TAIBU Community Health Centre

Empowering health equity in Black populations.

We’re helping expand TAIBU’s Black Health challenge (BHC), bringing it to more people in the Greater Toronto Area. BHC is a 12-week program offering a structured curriculum focused on nutrition education, stress management, and culturally motivating physical activity.

The landscape picture shows a mountain covered with pine trees.

BC Parks Foundation

Fostering connection to better health through nature.

We’re supporting PaRX, an initiative of the BC Parks Foundation, to expand Canada’s first nature prescription program. Physicians prescribe ‘time in nature’ as a simple, fun and effective way to promote better health.

How do we invest in these organizations?

We invest in several different ways including direct funding, volunteering, and employee giving and matching programs. We will consider funding strategically aligned projects, program-specific grants or general operating support to organizations whose missions are highly aligned with our investment focus areas.

Measuring our impact in the community

We track and measure the social impact of our investments, so that we can make an even bigger difference in the future. That’s why we’re a member of Business for Societal Impact (B4SI), the global standard in measuring and managing corporate community investment.

We use this framework to assess, understand, report and communicate our social contributions and investments. Learn more about how we’re measuring social impact.

Want to partner with us to build stronger communities?

We always seek to find new ways to help Canadians live longer lives, and in good health.

If your program, organization or initiative aligns with our focus areas, we’d love to hear from you. For more information, read the most frequently asked questions about applying for funding.

We host quarterly virtual open house sessions to offer a live walkthrough of our strategy and approach, and to answer questions from community organizations. RSVP for an upcoming session. Please make sure you attend a session prior to applying for funding.

Our prospective partners must meet the following criteria to be considered for support:

  • Work is aligned with our key focus areas
  • Organization is a registered charity or non-profit benefiting communities where Manulife operates
  • Committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and demonstrate it by hiring representative leaders and targeting their programming to historically underserved communities
  • Work is collaborative across sectors to create innovative, scalable community-centered solutions
  • Take (and demonstrate) a holistic approach to the many aspects of well-being, including mental health, to improve and sustain long-term positive outcomes
  • Use data to measure their impact using key performance indicators, and commit to reporting on progress

Generally, funding is not considered for:

  • For-profit organizations
  • Political, labour, fraternal organizations, or social clubs
  • Individuals, including those seeking scholarships/fellowship assistance or promoting individual pursuits/fundraising activities
  • Travel-related events, including student trips or tours
  • Private or corporate foundations
  • Faith-based groups, unless the group’s work is clearly intended to support a social service need and does not restrict persons of other faiths from receiving the service
  • Capital projects

We strive to provide funding to organizations that meet our values. For that reason, we would not provide funding to any organization that discriminates based on race, religion, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, veteran or disability status, or which espouses hate, nor would we support organizations whose stated missions or objectives go against our values.

Manulife accepts grant applications by invitation only.

Organizations seeking to be considered for an invitation to apply can complete a brief interest form and assess their eligibility.

We review interest forms and then invite a select number of organizations to formally apply. We do not provide feedback on all expressions of interest.

No, we accept applications all year round. To apply, organizations need to complete a brief interest form and assess their eligibility.

Once we review the application, we formally invite a select number of organizations to apply.

Interested in seeing our global impact last year?

Download the 2023 Environmental, Social and Governance report

 Download the 2023 report