Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation

What Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation does

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation (TOTF) is a provincially registered non-profit society incorporated in 2017 in British Columbia, Canada, with CRA-registered charitable status granted on April 1, 2019. The foundation is industry-led and governed by an elected volunteer Board of Directors representing tourism interests across the Thompson Okanagan region. Its mandate is to nurture, preserve, and enhance recreational trail systems and rail trail corridors connecting communities across the region; over 7 years of activity it has contributed more than 1M dollars toward trail development, executed over 10 large-scale trail tourism projects, served more than 15 communities, and stewarded over 1,000 km of regional trails. Operating headquarters are at 2280-D Leckie Road, Kelowna, BC.

The foundation's core offerings center on the Thompson Okanagan Regional Trails Stewardship Program, supported by the Kettle Valley Rail Trail Master Plan: Midway to Glenfir (a strategic planning deliverable produced by external consultants McElhanney and RC Strategies + PERC, recommended to the Minister of FLNRORD for adoption) and the BC Rail Trails traveller-facing trip-planning website. There is no proprietary technology platform; the digital surface is a Squarespace-hosted informational website with donation, contact, and content pages, and no APIs or partner integrations are offered. The Master Plan establishes priorities for a world-class export-ready trail experience, recreation conflict resolution, non-recreational use integration, trail tread and maintenance improvements, and mitigation of environmental and tenure-holder impacts.

TOTF's business model is donation- and grant-funded rather than commercial. Primary revenue streams are tax-receipted charitable donations — collected via a Zeffy-powered donation form on the website — and government or institutional grants, including a $250,000 award from Pacific Economic Development Canada in October 2024. There is no product pricing, subscription model, or transactional revenue; the foundation's "pricing interaction" is a donation CTA rather than a commercial price list. Its go-to-market is community-led, mobilizing donations, volunteer governance, and partnerships with municipalities, tourism operators, and tenure holders across the Thompson Okanagan region rather than executing a traditional sales motion.

Name

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation

Legal name

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation

Website

https://totfbc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation is a Kelowna, British Columbia non-profit foundation that stewards over 1,000 km of regional trails across 15+ communities in the Thompson Okanagan, funded by tax-receipted donations and government grants to invest in trail development and preservation.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Non-profit Trail Stewardship and Tourism Development

NAICS

Nature Parks and Other Similar Institutions (712190)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro primary industry

Guided Tours & Interpretive Services (Ranger-Led, Naturalist, Cultural Interpretation) (THAAAGAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Cultural Heritage & Indigenous-Led Visitor Services (Tribal Tours, Heritage Sites, Co-management) (THAAAGAL)

Keywords

• Trail stewardship services
• Rail trail development
• Regional trail planning
• Tourism foundation funding
• Community trail partnerships

Headquarters

HQ city

Kelowna

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Markets served

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations and charitable giving: Primary funding mechanism for the non-profit foundation, captured via a public donation CTA powered by Zeffy ("Donate to Support the Regional Trails"). Funds trail development and stewardship initiatives.
2. CRA-registered charitable status revenue: Foundation operates under CRA-registered charitable status (granted April 1, 2019), enabling tax-receipted donations and grants as core funding streams for trail investment, preservation, and enhancement activities.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Core offering

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation (TOTF) is a non-profit society that nurtures, preserves, and enhances recreational trail systems and rail trail corridors across the Thompson Okanagan region of British Columbia. Its core offering is the Thompson Okanagan Regional Trails Stewardship Program, which channels donations, grants, and volunteer effort into trail investment, master planning, and community partnerships spanning over 1,000 km of regional trails across 15+ communities. It also produces strategic planning deliverables such as the Kettle Valley Rail Trail Master Plan and operates the BC Rail Trails traveler-facing trip-planning website.

Product overview

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation (TOTF) operates as a single non-profit organization rather than a platform-plus-modules product architecture; its offerings center on one core stewardship program — the Thompson Okanagan Regional Trails Stewardship Program — supported by a flagship strategic planning deliverable (the Kettle Valley Rail Trail Master Plan: Midway to Glenfir) and a companion traveller-facing website, BC Rail Trails, which channels users onto the regional trail network. Together, these offerings translate TOTF's mandate of nurturing, preserving, and enhancing recreational trail systems and rail trail corridors into both community-level investment/stewardship and visitor-facing wayfinding.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA): Industry-led tourism association in the same Thompson Okanagan region. TOTA produced the Regional Rail Trail Tourism Strategy 2016-2022 and commissioned the Kettle Valley Rail Trail Master Plan that TOTF stewards; the two organizations share governance overlap and overlapping donor/funder networks.
• BC Recreation and Parks Association: Provincial non-profit supporting parks, recreation, and trail stewardship across British Columbia. Directly comparable in mandate (community recreation, trail stewardship) and non-profit funding model, operating at a provincial scale that TOTF could emulate.
• BC Trails Society: Non-profit advocating for and coordinating trail stewardship across British Columbia. Directly comparable non-profit mission, charitable-funding model, and community-led trail advocacy footprint.
• Rail Trails Canada: National non-profit dedicated to the development and preservation of rail trails across Canada. Highly comparable in focus on rail-trail corridors, charitable funding model, and stewardship mandate that overlaps directly with TOTF's Kettle Valley Rail Trail work.

Broad incumbents

• Trans Canada Trail (now The Great Trail): National charitable organization that connects and stewards Canada's vast trail network, including rail trails. Operates at a much larger scale but follows the same charitable, donation-funded, multi-jurisdiction stewardship model that TOTF applies regionally in the Thompson Okanagan.
• Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC): National umbrella for the Canadian tourism industry, representing operators and regional associations including TOTF-adjacent bodies. Comparable in advocacy and industry-coordination role, though operating federally and with broader scope than TOTF.
• Banff & Lake Louise Tourism: Destination marketing/management organization for Banff & Lake Louise with a major focus on outdoor trail-based tourism. Larger and more commercially funded than TOTF, but a useful comparable for how regional trail stewardship can underpin destination competitiveness.
• Destination British Columbia: Crown corporation responsible for tourism marketing for the province of British Columbia. Operates a provincial destination strategy that TOTF's regional trail stewardship directly feeds into via the BC Rail Trails wayfinding site.

Regional players

• Kootenay Rockies Tourism Association: Regional destination marketing and stewardship organization serving an adjacent BC region. Similar industry-led governance and tourism foundation/association hybrid structure; comparable donor/funder ecosystem and rail-trail assets in the Kootenays.

Others

• Super, Natural BC (HelloBC): Provincial consumer-facing tourism brand linked directly from TOTF's website as a traveller wayfinding channel. Functions as a marketing-distribution partner that channels visitors onto TOTF-stewarded trails.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/totfoundationbc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/totfbc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Thompson Okanagan Tourism Foundation