How The Competition Works

Create an idea that will make a positive change in your community. Enter it in our competition and get your friends to vote for it. The most popular ideas will have a chance at being funded with the $500,000 Aviva Community Fund.

How does the competition work?

It all begins with the Idea Entry phase when you enter your idea for making a positive change in your community. Canadians registered with the Aviva Community Fund can vote on your idea (along with other ideas submitted to the fund), and the most popular ideas will move on to the Semi-Finals when voters will show support for their favourites. The top 25 ideas will move on to the Judging phase, when our team of impartial judges will score the ideas, and the highest ranked ideas will be funded. Don't want to enter an idea? You can still participate by voting for your favourite ideas, and encourage your friends and neighbours to do the same.

Submitting your idea is simple
We give you all the tools you need to submit your idea on this site. In order to qualify, you simply need to do a few things.

1. Tell us your idea: Remember, people will vote for your idea based on your ability to describe it. While all you need to enter an idea is a short description, really creative ideas that include photos or video are more likely to get support from the Canadian public.

2. Ballpark the cost: We also ask you to estimate how much your idea will cost to implement. It's okay; we don't expect you to be exact. We've made the estimating part easy by simply asking you to select the range of anticipated cost for your idea; is it a Small Idea: Under $10,000 (such as building a wheelchair ramp), Medium Idea: $10,000 - $50,000 (setting up and providing supplies for a community art class), or Big Idea: $50,000 - $250,000 (building a baseball diamond with floodlights)?

3. Promote your idea: We encourage you to promote your idea by asking family, friends, and neighbours to vote for it. You can generate even more votes by posting it on Facebook, Twitter, and all your favourite online communities.

What kind of ideas can qualify?

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You know better than anyone what improvements are needed in your community, so we've made it easy for you to create positive change. Simply enter your best ideas on how to make a difference in your community into the Aviva Community Fund competition, and have a chance to see it happen.

• Ideas that qualify for our competition will have positive impact in your community by meeting a need or improving people's lives. (Learn more about the eligibility criteria.)
• Your idea is something you think is important. It can be to help improve your neighbourhood, assist people in need, clean up the environment, bring culture or educational programs into the community, benefit kids or get them involved, be sports-related-anything that will benefit the community at large.

We encourage you to enter your ideas today!

Be a change-maker in your community and enter your idea now.

How do ideas get chosen?

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The Aviva Community Fund competition is held in 3 phases to determine which ideas get funded: Idea Entry, Semi-Finals, and Judging.

First, you can enter your idea for positive change or vote for your favourite ideas during the Idea Entry phase from October 13th through November 29th. After 3 opening rounds of voting, the 60 most popular ideas, along with 2 "buzz worthy" ideas, will move on to the Semi-Finals. (See the rules for supporting ideas for full details.)

Then, people will vote for their favourite semi-finalist ideas from December 2nd through December 16th. At the end of the Semi-Finals, votes will be tallied and the most popular 25 ideas will become finalists and move on to the Judging phase.

Now comes the best part! Judging will take place from December 17th through January 25th, after which the top ideas to improve our communities will get funded and we'll get to see positive change start to happen!

The Aviva Community Fund has a total of $500,000 to fund the top ideas. Our panel of judges will review all of the finalist ideas and rank them based on our pre-determined criteria to determine which ones will be funded. (Learn more about the Judging process.)

How do the phases work?

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The Aviva Community Fund competition is held in 3 phases:

1. Idea Entry
2. Semi-Finals
3. Judging

PHASE 1: Idea Entry
Here's your chance to enter your idea for positive change in the Aviva Community Fund competition. We'll have 3 opening rounds in the Idea Entry phase held from October 13th through November 29th when you can enter your idea or vote for your favourites.

• This is when anyone who meets the eligibility criteria can submit an idea of their very own and compete for a spot in the Semi-Finals. So send us your best idea to improve your community, and tell all your friends to vote for it! (Learn more about eligibility.)
• During the opening rounds, anyone registered on the site can vote for their favourite ideas every single day. After each round in the Idea Entry phase, the 20 most popular ideas will move on to the Semi-Finals, so you'll have up to 3 chances to make it.
• At the end of each of rounds 1 and 2 in the Idea Entry phase, ideas that don't make it to the Semi-Finals will have their votes reset to 0 and will be automatically entered into the next opening round giving them another chance to make it to the Semi-Finals.
• Ideas that have not made it into the Semi-Finals at the end of the 3rd opening round in the Idea Entry phase will unfortunately not compete in the Semi-Finals or Judging phases.
• After the 3 rounds, a total of 60 ideas will move on to the Semi-Finals.

What are buzz worthy ideas?
Want to improve your chances? Get people talking! We'll invite 2 bonus ideas to compete in the Semi-Finals based on how much buzz they've generated, so we encourage you to promote your idea on Facebook, Twitter, and all your online communities.

PHASE 2: Semi-Finals
People will vote for their favourite ideas during the Semi-Finals, which are held from December 2nd through December 16th.

• At the beginning of the Semi-Finals phase, all Ideas will have their votes reset to 0
• At the end of the Semi-Finals, votes will be tallied and the most popular 25 ideas that get the most votes will become finalists and move on to the Judging phase.

PHASE 3: Judging
Judging will take place from December 17th through January 25th, after which the top ideas to improve our communities will get funded and we'll get to see positive change start to happen!

• The Aviva Community Fund has a total of $500,000 to fund the top ideas.
• Our panel of judges will review all of the finalist ideas and rank them based on our pre-determined criteria to determine which ones will be funded. (Learn more about the Judging process.)
• We'll assess the top-ranked idea to figure out exactly how much it's going to cost to make happen. Then, we'll allocate the appropriate amount of funds to execute the idea. (Learn more on how the funds will be allocated.)
• Whether the ideas are Small ($0-10,000), Medium ($10,000-$50,000) or Big ($50,000-$250,000), we want to see the Aviva Community Fund bring to life as many great ideas to create the greatest impact possible. So, after the first idea is funded, we'll keep funding additional ideas until the entire Aviva Community Fund of $500,000 has been allocated.
• Winning ideas will be made public on January 25th, 2010.

What are buzz worthy Semi-Finalists?

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Want to improve your chances? Get people talking! After the Idea Entry phase, we'll be inviting 2 bonus ideas to compete in the Semi-Finals based the amount of conversation they've managed to generate online. So we encourage you to promote your idea on Facebook, Twitter, and all your online communities. We'll announce the buzzworthy qualifiers when we announce the complete list of semi-finalists.