Proposal development · Grant writing · Training delivery
The project your community already wants. Funded, delivered, reported.
We scope the project, write and manage the funding application, and deliver the training in community — on real infrastructure work rather than in a practice yard. You finish with certified operators, a completed asset, and the reporting that closes out a contribution agreement.
Dominion is active and in good standing, with filings and taxes current — the first thing a funder's due diligence checks, and the reason the company exists in this form.
Southern interior British Columbia — access road, thinned stand, an old burn on the ridge, and the valley economy below.
What we do
Three things, end to end
Most organisations can find a funding program. Fewer can scope the project, write the application, run the delivery and produce the reporting a funder needs afterwards. We do all of it, in sequence, on one file.
Proposal design & development
Needs assessment, project scoping, partner and employer engagement, budgets, letters of support, and the evidence base funders ask for.
How we scope projects → Step twoGrant writing & project management
Matching community priorities to live federal, provincial and trust programs — then writing, submitting and managing the funded project to schedule and budget.
How we secure funding → Step threeTraining delivery & reporting
Field-based instruction on real community projects, certification, employer connection, and the outcome reporting that closes out a contribution agreement.
How we deliver →Have a project that needs funding?
Tell us the community priority and we will tell you honestly whether there is a program that fits, what it would take, and what the timeline looks like.
What we work on
Four pillars — and only four
Everything we take on falls under food systems, land and forestry, infrastructure and civil works, or aviation. If a community's priority sits under one of them, we can help.
One model behind all four
Every program runs the same way — the community picks the project, the training happens on it, and the asset stays when we leave.
The pillar only changes three things: the equipment, the certifications the work requires, and which funders are the right door to knock on.
Food systems & food sovereignty
Community-controlled growing, processing, food safety, storage and distribution — and the food enterprises that keep the value at home.
Explore this pillar →
Land & forestry
Fuel management, hazard-tree work, trail and corridor construction, post-fire recovery, and the certifications land-based work requires.
Explore this pillar →
Infrastructure & civil works
Roads, pads, drainage, water and site servicing — heavy equipment training delivered on the community's own capital project. Our deepest record.
Explore this pillar →
Aviation pathways
Community-owned aircraft, charter revenue through a licensed operator, and pilot and maintenance training by certified partners. In development.
Explore this pillar →Students train on the community's own project
Excavator, dozer, wheel loader, articulated rock truck, motor grader, skid steer and backhoe — on a road, pad or site the community already needed built.
Photograph from the project archive, 2009–2018.
Track record
Training delivered on real community projects
The model puts students on an actual community project rather than a practice yard. Communities finish the program with roads, pads, drainage, cleared land or park infrastructure completed — and trained members who helped build it. The engagements below were led by our principals between 2009 and 2018, before Dominion was formed.
“Training Heavy Equipment Operators”
A provincially funded heavy equipment operator program in West Kelowna, British Columbia, filmed on site. Cohort of 16.
Produced, funded and published by the Government of British Columbia. Reposted here with the province's credit intact; this is not our film.
“We started with 12 students and ended with 12 students completing the program and graduating. Currently, 11 of these 12 students are working for our band business.”
Tracy LaboucanCEO, Economic DevelopmentWoodland Cree First Nation · September 2011
What a project leaves behind
- Certified operators who trained in their own community
- A completed piece of community infrastructure
- Members with the certifications employers actually ask for
- Graduates positioned to form their own contracting businesses
The track record covers engagements delivered between 2009 and 2018 across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and the Yukon, led by our principals before Dominion was formed. Signed letters of reference are available on request.
Certification
The tickets are part of the program, not an afterthought
A graduate who can operate an excavator but has no ground disturbance ticket is not employable on Monday morning. Every program we scope budgets for the certifications the work actually requires, schedules them so they are in hand before the crew reaches the site, and reports completion as an outcome.
For land-based and trail work in this region that typically means chainsaw and brush-saw safety, bear awareness, ground disturbance, fall protection, first aid and WHMIS — alongside the equipment hours themselves.
What the certification plan in an application sets out
- Which tickets, and why — tied to the specific work the project involves, not a generic list padded to look thorough
- Which require an in-person practical under provincial regulation, and how that is scheduled and paid for
- When each one is taken — before the crew reaches the site, not in the final week when the funding is nearly spent
- What it costs, as a line in the budget rather than an overrun
- How completion is evidenced in the reporting that closes the agreement out
Where the certification comes from
Our principals also operate an established online safety-certification business, so the catalogue, the pricing and the administration are familiar ground rather than something we have to go and find.
That is a separate business, not part of Dominion. It is set out on our About page, because a funder assessing a related party should not have to discover it.
The Thompson Okanagan
The landscape is the economy here
Trails, forests and backcountry access carry the visitor economy — and carry the wildfire risk. The work that protects one supports the other.
Tell us the community priority. We will tell you honestly whether a program fits.