Our Story
Real community experience. Modern tools. An honest way to do grant work.
Grants Lab was founded by Stephanie Burton — a sales and consulting professional based in Barrie, Ontario — on a simple idea: serious grant support should be accessible to organizations that can’t afford traditional consultants.
Stephanie’s approach combines two things: a deep track record of identifying needs, organizing resources, and delivering real-world outcomes, and the use of modern tools to make the work faster and more affordable than it’s ever been.
That combination — lived community experience on one side, efficient workflows on the other — is what lets Grants Lab offer professional grant services at prices that make sense for small businesses and smaller nonprofits.
Case Study • 2009
The Cambodia Container Project
Stephanie co-led a grassroots fundraising and logistics effort that raised approximately $15,000 and shipped a full container of supplies from Barrie to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to help establish a newly opened orphanage. Working with one project partner and a rotating team of roughly 30 volunteers over several months, what began as an idea became a container full of beds, furniture, children’s clothing, diapers, blankets, and toys — the practical foundation of a working home for children on the other side of the world.
What this project demonstrated — the same competencies a strong grant application requires:
- Needs identification and problem definition
- Fundraising and stakeholder engagement
- Volunteer recruitment and project management
- In-kind partnership development
- Logistics and delivery execution
- Outcome reporting and long-term follow-through
Community Commitment • Ongoing
23 Years of Volunteer Service
Stephanie has volunteered with a local seasonal charity for more than two decades, contributing at progressively deeper levels as the organization’s needs evolved.
In 2021, when the program restarted after the pandemic under strict public-health limits of just five volunteers in the warehouse, Stephanie was one of those five. Together they organized the entire toy distribution operation — work that in a typical year requires hundreds of volunteers across November — running full-time from September through late December to make sure local families did not go without.
“This is the lived experience that shapes every project at Grants Lab — a track record of identifying needs, organizing resources, and delivering outcomes that actually reach the people they were meant to serve.”
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