$100,000 OTF Seed Grant from the Ontario Government Makes a Difference for SEC
June 13, 2025
Newmarket, ON – On Friday, local MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy took the opportunity to meet with representatives from the Social Enterprise for Canada (SEC) to hear how a six-month, $100,000 Seed grant from the provincial government’s Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) has been such a positive for the group’s work. The SEC has put the grant to work to help it strengthen its cybersecurity by addressing cyberthreat prevention, ensuring that it has uninterrupted and secure service provision.
“I am proud of our government’s investment of $100,000 through the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Seed grant to help Social Enterprise for Canada protect their critical data systems as this is what helps inform the services they provide every day to community members,” said Dawn Gallagher Murphy, MPP for Newmarket—Aurora. “Whether it’s supporting newcomers, families, or children, this funding ensures that programs remain secure and reliable. Digital transformation must be accompanied by strong cybersecurity to ensure public confidence.”
The OTF grant will enable SEC to enhance its cybersecurity posture to ensure the secure and resilient delivery of our community services. In order to strengthen SEC’s defenses against cyber threats it will implement Cisco Duo Advantage and Secure Access Advantage to adopt a Zero Trust Network methodology.
Cisco Duo provides comprehensive identity verification, device health checks, and adaptive access policies, ensuring that only authenticated users with trusted devices can access its applications, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. By integrating Cisco Duo, SEC will protect sensitive client data, maintaining confidentiality and trust. Cisco Secure Access Advantage complements Duo by offering secure access to applications through advanced threat protection, secure web gateways, and cloud access security brokers. These tools enforce strict access controls, continuously monitor user activity, and respond to threats in real-time, ensuring its services remain uninterrupted and secure.
Implementing these technologies will allow SEC to deliver programs with greater resilience and security. The enhanced cybersecurity measures will directly benefit the community by safeguarding client information, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of its services, and creating a secure environment for both staff and clients. This will enable SEC to continue providing high-quality, reliable services to our community members.
Social Enterprise for Canada (SEC) is a people-centred, agile, and innovatively responsive not-for-profit Ontario corporation with charitable status serving York Region, Simcoe and surrounding areas. We focus on identifying and implementing innovative and collaborative solutions to pressing issues in order to contribute toward forging a society in which everyone belongs and is empowered to contribute. SEC’s programs focus on families, children, and newcomers, serving over 95,000 clients annually through programs such as Foreign Credential Recognition Services, Supervised Access, Welcome Centre Immigrant Services-Newmarket, EarlyOn Child and Family Centres and several Before and After School and Licensed Childcare Programs.
The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) is an agency of the Ontario government with a mission to build healthy and vibrant communities across the province. Last year, OTF invested nearly $105M into 732 community projects and multi-sector partnerships. Projects aim to enhance economic well-being, foster more active lifestyles, support child and youth development, provide spaces for people to come together and connect, and create a more sustainable environment. Visit otf.ca to learn more.