Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) is proud to be among 34 organizations selected to receive a National Capacity Building Grant administered by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) through a process informed by national women’s rights organizations.
This investment comes at a critical time for organizations working to advance gender equality. Across Canada, women’s rights and gender justice organizations are responding to increasing demand, evolving public policy landscapes, and growing expectations for collaboration and systems leadership, often within funding environments that remain project-based and unpredictable.
For nearly 50 years, BWSS has worked alongside survivors in Vancouver and across British Columbia. Through crisis support, legal advocacy, prevention education, and systems advocacy, we have witnessed firsthand how gender-based violence is shaped by broader social, legal, and economic conditions. The expertise developed through this community-based feminist anti-violence work increasingly informs efforts to advance justice reform, public safety, and gender equality across Canada.
While BWSS remains deeply rooted in community-based anti-violence work in Vancouver and British Columbia, this investment recognizes and strengthens our growing role in national collaboration. Over the coming year, BWSS will enhance the governance, evaluation, strategic planning, and organizational systems that support cross-country partnerships, knowledge exchange, and survivor-informed contributions to efforts advancing justice, public safety, and gender equality across Canada. By strengthening the infrastructure that supports this work, BWSS will be better positioned to contribute to collective learning, foster collaboration across regions, and ensure that insights developed alongside survivors continue to inform systems change at local, provincial, and national levels.
At its heart, this investment is about strengthening feminist infrastructure. Strong movements require strong organizations. Community-based organizations working alongside survivors bring essential expertise to conversations about safety, justice, and equality. Sustaining that expertise requires investment not only in programs and services, but also in the organizational capacity that enables long-term leadership, partnership, and impact.
We are grateful to the Canadian Women’s Foundation for stewarding this process and acknowledge the investment of Women and Gender Equality Canada in strengthening organizations advancing gender equality. We also recognize the organizations that helped shape these investments through the Reference Group, reflecting the importance of collective leadership in building strong feminist movements across Canada.
BWSS is proud to stand alongside communities and organizations across the country working to advance justice, safety, and gender equality. Rooted in community and informed by the experiences of survivors, we remain committed to contributing to the collective work of creating a future where safety, dignity, and equality are realities for everyone.
Safety changes everything.
For more information on the Canadian Women’s Foundation website:
