The Crime Prevention Community Grant is a community-oriented crime prevention initiative designed to support pro-social, youth-directed, and collaborative crime prevention programming throughout Nova Scotia. The program provides annual funding up to $12,000 to community organizations that develop, deliver, and maintain effective recreational, educational, cultural, life-skills, and after-school programming for youth.

The program emphasizes sustainable partnerships among youth, police, government officials, and the community to create healthy and safe communities. Successful projects meaningfully involve youth in decision-making and delivery, ensure interagency collaboration, promote inclusive and innovative pro-social programming with crime prevention mandates, and strengthen social infrastructure to facilitate the growth of youth and communities.

Program Criteria

Proposals must demonstrate five key elements:

• Strong focus on crime prevention: Projects must directly or indirectly address youth crime and crime prevention issues. Using evidence-based data where applicable, proposals should detail how the project addresses regional or local crime-related issues.
• Community and interagency collaboration: Projects must make full use of relevant private and public facilities and services already established in the community. Collaboration with police and justice stakeholders is required throughout the project duration.
• Inclusiveness: Programs must be relevant to and respectful of all cultures and communities, maintaining inclusivity while meeting unique needs of program participants.
• Educational opportunities integrated with recreation: While recreational activities must be attractive to ensure youth participation, programming should facilitate learning through creative approaches and turn activities into teachable moments.
• Strong commitment to program evaluation: Effective evaluation methods are essential for program development and delivery. Proper reporting and evaluation provide a substantive base for future applications, as the grant is available annually but subject to departmental review.

Eligible Expenses

The program supports expenses including:

• Equipment and supplies (sports equipment, incentives)
• Honoraria, stipends, or fees for service and training (guest speakers, workshops, first aid training)
• Program administration supplies (office supplies)
• Communications and marketing (public relations, advertising)
• Events and activities (sporting events, museum tours)
• Salary
• Professional fees (lawyers, accountants)