RPIRG gives out over $50,000 in funding each year to students for events, projects, or training opportunities that relate to social or environmental justice. Here is a list of our current grant categories:
1. Student Emergency Bursaries (formerly urgent personal and household need)
- Student Emergency Bursary Fund (formerly urgent health or legal fund)
- Racial Justice Fund Student Emergency Bursary (formerly BIPOC fund urgent health or legal fund)
***If our Emergency Bursary funds are not currently available, we suggest seeking out these similar funds on campus available from other organizations:
- URSU Emergency Bursary Fund
- UR Pride Funding and Bursaries (click on link to google doc at top of page)
- University of Regina - various bursary funds
2. Community service microgrants
- community service microgrants
- Racial Justice fund (formerly BIPOC fund) community service microgrants
3. Community service large grants
- large community service grants
- Racial Justice Fund (formerly BIPOC fund) large community service grants
4. Working Group Funding
Please read ALL information below BEFORE applying for funding from RPIRG
To compare all of our grants including eligibility, deadlines, and categories, please check out the RPIRG grant comparison chart
Please note: RPIRG operates and maintains a separate Racial Justice Fund for UofR students and Regina residents that are targeted by racial discrimination, to support initiatives specifically related to racial justice or community safety and wellbeing. You can learn more about our Racial Justice Fund (formerly BIPOC fund) and why we set it up here (updated May 2021).
Student emergency bursary or microgrants – accepted on rolling basis until funds run out
Large grants and working groups –Feb 1, Mar 1, July 1, Oct 1, Nov 1
Applications can take up to 4 weeks to process and approve. For urgent need and microgrants it is usually less than 2 weeks, but for large grants it depends on when the next board meeting is after a deadline. If you would like to attend a board meeting to discuss or make a presentation about your funding proposal, we would love to hear from you! Please contact info@rpirg.org to arrange.
Student emergency bursaries – to cover personal or household costs
- up to $100/individual and $200/household once per fiscal year
- To help cover unexpected or one-time costs, such as seeking legal advice, cost of legal documents, accessing gender-affirming surgery, having to take unpaid time off work for bereavement or family care support, etc.
Micro or large grants
- Projects, events, advocacy and legal actions, community surveys or similar feedback tools
- microgrant up to $200, large grant has no set maximum amount*
- Training, conferences/gatherings, professional development
- when applying for a large grant, up to $600/person or $2000 for 4 or more people in a group
- Grad research
- when applying for a large grant, up to $800 per research project
* Typically, if an application is requesting more than $1500 there is a good chance we will not be able to fully fund it, due to the volume of applications we receive. Please keep this in mind when you are deciding on how much funding to request in your application. When submitting your budget, please indicate which parts are of a higher priority, so that if we are unable to fully fund your application, we can more easily assess which parts need it the most.
Working groups
Working Groups are semi-autonomous groups of students and community members who work together on an issue, or towards a common goal. Working Groups may focus on research, events, actions, publications, and other diverse activities. They tend to have long-term goals with activities and membership that continue beyond the current academic year, and hold regular meetings or programming. Working Groups receive $1,500 per year, with the opportunity to re-apply each year. Working Groups may also use other non-financial RPIRG resources, and are eligible to apply for other RPIRG funding categories.
After being approved, a Working Group will receive the following supports:
- Funding of up to $1500 per year
- Space featured on the RPIRG website
- Access to office resources, such as photocopying and the button maker
- Networking access
- The opportunity to apply for other funding categories
Please note: we are a non-partisan organization and as such do not provide funding to political parties or their candidates/electoral campaigns. However, non-partisan educational events such as election town halls which will include all political parties may be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please contact us to discuss.
Please also note: Fundraisers are generally not eligible for funding. If your fundraiser fits RPIRG’s funding requirements and you believe it should be eligible for funding, you can bring your rationale to the RPIRG Board of Directors and we will make a decision on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any questions about funding including eligibility, reporting, and follow-up requirements, please contact our Executive Director: info@rpirg.org, or 306-337-2420
1. Student Emergency Bursary funds (formerly Urgent personal and household need funds)
2. Community service microgrants
3. Community service large grants
RPIRG student members – UofR students who have not opted-out of RPIRG membership including students at Campion College, Luther College, and FNU
RPIRG community/associate members – community members or groups who have opted-in to RPIRG membership by paying a $20/year membership fee.
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or Person of Colour) – grants that come from our Racial Justice Fund (formerly BIPOC fund) are only open to applications from RPIRG members or Regina residents who self-identify as being part of communities targeted by racial discrimination. They are meant to specifically fund initiatives that support:
- Racial justice organizing/advocacy/research/legal action being done individually or as part of groups, collectives, and organizations based in Regina (or led by UofR students in Saskatchewan more broadly)
- General health, wellbeing, and safety of racialized students and community members
For more information about why we have a dedicated BIPOC fund please visit here
Event is defined as a one-time activity with a particular goal. For example, hosting a workshop, rally, or speaker.
Project is defined as a series of activities or events coordinated to reach a particular goal with specific start and end dates. For example, organizing a campaign with multiple aspects over a number of days or weeks, organizing a community survey, a workshop series, starting a community garden, a campaign or advocacy work, etc.
Grad research funding – open to graduate students who are involved in research projects that help to address social and environmental justice issues. Funding in this category will prioritize research taking place in Regina and Saskatchewan, or primarily benefitting groups or communities living there. Applicants can only receive funding once per project, and cannot pair it with conference/research travel funding.
Maximum amount – one of our goals is for our funding to benefit the largest amount of students possible. Although RPIRG provides funding for all of the above, we have a limit for how much an individual or group can apply for. This limit is in place because we want to prioritize initiatives happening on campus or in Regina that will be accessible to more of our campus or community members.
Our large grants have very simple follow-up reporting requirements, which are explained in more detail when applicants are approved for funding. Essentially, we just look for an updated summary budget, a short update on how the initiative went/people benefitted, and any optional photos you can send along for our records. If you are already submitting a follow-up report for another funder/grant requirement, we are happy to accept a copy of these to save writing it all out again. We can also discuss alternative ways to report back that are a good fit for you!
If you have any questions about our grant programs, please do not hesitate to contact us using info@rpirg.org. We would be very happy to help find a grant that best fits your plans!