Musagetes Funds

at The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation and The Guelph Community Foundation

Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum’s charitable work is dedicated principally to arts and culture. As well as being the founders and generous benefactors of the Musagetes Foundation, they have established endowment funds at the community foundations in Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph, Ontario. These donor-advised funds allow Michael and Louise to recommend specific organizations that they wish to support, to the Boards of Directors of each community foundation. Applications for funding to these two community foundations should address the interests of the benefactors, namely integrating the arts into every facet of our society by provoking creative and artistic interventions. Michael and Louise believe that the arts are integral to healthy, progressive communities. They also believe that there is a strong connection between creativity, social justice, environmental issues and inter-cultural relationships. While the Musagetes Foundation addresses these issues at the global level, the Funds at the community foundations support collaborative local and regional creative projects that address these issues as well.

Charitable organizations who are interested in applying for financial support should visit the websites of either the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation and the Guelph Community Foundation.  Each organization’s website outlines the granting process and includes the required application forms, deadlines and contact information.  

Some organizations that have received funding from the Musagetes Funds:

MT Space — MT Space connects people and encourages communication through theatrical productions that reflect the realities of the Waterloo Region community. Through performances that combine music, movement, improvisation and translation, MT Space aims to create an understanding of our true Canadian culture – a culture of diversity.

CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum/Kitchener & Area) — CAFKA presents innovative art of high artistic quality within civic spaces in Waterloo Region.  It invites the public to encounter and engage with artists and the art they create. CAFKA is dedicated to artistic growth and offers opportunities for regional, Canadian and international artists.

Open Ears Festival — Recognized as being one of Canada’s most diverse and adventurous musical events, the Open Ears Festival of Music & Sound is an innovative event which celebrates the act of listening. It reinvestigates the way people experience sound and music-making from guided sound walks to performances in concert halls. The Festival has close ties to the community and works in collaboration with other local arts organizations, as well as university and public school students.

The Museum (formerly the Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum) — The Museum, located in downtown Kitchener, was launched by a leadership gift from Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum in 2000. The Museum provides a playful, creative and spontaneous environment to awe, inspire and enlighten through art, science and technology.

rare Charitable Research Reserve — The rare Charitable Research Reserve exists to preserve—intact in perpetuity—a 913-acre (and growing!) land reserve along the Grand and Speed Rivers. It is not only a beautiful cultural landscape in one of the fastest growing areas of the country but includes trees more than 230 years old and provides over 24 habitat types—including 6 of 8 pre-settlement landscapes—that are home to a diversity of organisms some of which are species at risk regionally, provincially, nationally and globally. Located within the designated Blair-Bechtel-Cruickston Environmentally Sensitive Landscape, rare’s lands provide a natural laboratory for scientific study, research-based education programs, archaeology and trails.

Spark of Brilliance — Spark of Brilliance is a community-based mental health initiative located in Guelph, Ontario that promotes healing through the arts. Workshops are open to people experiencing mental health issues and their supportive allies including family members, friends, mental health workers, etc.