Maine Community Foundation
- Founded in 1983, MaineCF is a nonprofit charity that receives, manages and distributes charitable funds from individuals, families, businesses and other private charitable organizations.
- The foundation’s mission is to strengthen Maine by working in partnership with donors and community groups. We accomplish our mission by:
- Making effective grants
- Providing leadership to address community issues
- Connecting donors to programs they care about
- Building philanthropic resources
Philanthropic Impact
- In 2006, the foundation awarded $18 million in grants and scholarships, including 700 scholarship awards totaling $1 million.
- Since its establishment in 1983, the foundation has distributed more than $100 million in grants and scholarships throughout the state.
- MaineCF holds more than 800 funds with a total value of more than $200 million.
Programmatic Highlights
- 2006 marked the 20th anniversary for the foundation’s Aroostook, Piscataquis and Washington county committees. These committees oversee three of our county and regional funds that provide grant support for community-based projects. Additional counties with their own funds include: Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Hancock, Knox, Oxford, Somerset, Waldo and York.
- The foundation recently selected three nonprofit organizations to participate in its Nonprofit Effectiveness grant program. The $45,000 cash award over three years is supplemented with business management assistance provided by Common Good Ventures. The awardees include: Southern Maine Agency on Aging, United Way of York County and Washington County Children’s Program.
- The foundation is a recent recipient of a $399,000, three-year grant award from Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc. to support efforts to increase the post-secondary educational attainment levels of Maine people. Working with our partners the Maine Development Foundation and the Maine Compact for Higher Education, we will be working directly with large and small employers throughout the state to support their efforts to encourage their workers to pursue higher education.
- MaineCF is a partner with 29 other community foundations throughout the U.S. in an Atlantic Philanthropies-funded project to increase the civic engagement of baby boomer retirees.
- Supported by a major grant award from Surdna Foundation, with matching funds from our donors, we recently launched the Maine Arts Teachers Fellowship Program designed to invigorate, inspire and rejuvenate public school art teachers by giving them an opportunity to immerse themselves in the art form that inspired them to enter education.
- MaineCF recently completed a survey to measure the levels of “social capital” in the Lewiston-Auburn area. This Harvard University-sponsored study involving eight other community foundations nationally followed up on a survey conducted in 2001.
- Recognizing the state’s growing demographic diversity, the foundation has been awarded $1 million from a Maine-based private foundation to launch a new People of Color fund.