I’m struggling to understand if this is because we aren’t the strongest grant or because the people making the decision don’t understand the unique space our team/work occupies - aka it’s different from traditional methods 2/9

Our team uses credible compassionate, equitable communication, paired with a conversational tone and social community listening. We’re young adults communicating with young adults. 3/9

Even prior to our recent growth we had higher content engagement, followers and reach than public health units. We are doing the work, and have been doing the work, for over a year now. Unpaid, some full time- like myself-(for about a year I worked for free on just this) 4/9

It’s just so defeating to keep doing the work, and not have it validated with money/funding. 5/9

Initiatives like @ScienceUpFirst came after us, and are funded bc of the names and connections of the people affiliated with the org And this isn’t meant to throw shade at them, just to point out the truth. 6/9

If I was in a official leadership position, and I saw the work of orgs like ours I’d reach out and ask - how can I help, how can we work together? And then actually use the privilege that comes from their jobs to actually help us succeed. 7/9

We have had meetings with really nice people from PMO and PHAC, etc, and everyone is really impressed with us but not enough to help us get paid. Their “hands are tied” but what does that mean? To be in that position and not be able to act? Why is the system like this? 8/9

Anyways, @oncanadaproject will continue to do our work. I’ll leave you with this, if the project can do this much as volunteers - *imagine* what we could do if we were paid, imagine the impact we’d make? 🤷🏽‍♀️ #socialenterprise #grassroots #cdnpoli #cdnhealfh 9/9

@SamKrish_ @oncanadaproject @GovCanHealth This is so disappointing, but another important sorry to tell. Thank you for your unfailing commitment to truth.

@SamKrish_ @oncanadaproject @GovCanHealth As a SciCommer, an intersectional member of multiple marginalized grps & a reviewer of SciComm grants (not this one in particular), my experience w/ grants reviews has been that the submissions are all so so strong, the difference b/w what gets or doesn’t get 💵 is very small! 1/