If you noticed the occasional fundraising email from CAGIS in recent months, it is because membership fees cover less than 30% of the monetary cost of participation, per person. 

CAGIS is committed to providing high-quality, engaging, and empowering programming with participation fees that are as low and accessible as possible.  We also waive participation fees for families experiencing financial hardship.

Until 2019, CAGIS was a 100% volunteer-run organization.  This meant that the costs of running the program were low.  However, it limited what we could do, including supporting our local clubs (chapters), starting new local clubs, responding to member emails, or even updating our technology (before 2019, families sent cheques by postal mail to join and renew)!

Over the past few years, thanks to a one-time grant to help us build capacity, we have greatly improved and expanded our offerings.  We hired a small team of professional staff to provide safe and secure online programming and to support volunteer-led local clubs (including new clubs). We also improved our administration to make it easier to join, renew, register for events, and communicate. 

As this grant winds down, as part of our financial sustainability planning, we are expanding into new streams of fundraising, including bringing you, our CAGIS network, into the process!  We are diversifying our sources of funding. This should reduce the likelihood of cancelling programs if a future grant is no longer available, or unsuccessful.

If you would like to donate to CAGIS, you can do so here.

If you would like to learn more about why we need to support STEM programs like CAGIS, learn more on our Research page and our Why CAGIS page.