MAINE TIES, SPRING 2024

Your Voices, Our Focus

Connected. Collaborative. Engaged. Resilient. Hardworking. Scrappy. These adjectives are among words used to describe Maine people and communities by participants in the Maine Community Foundation’s Statewide Needs Assessment and Issue Identification project.

The project, conducted in partnership with Elkin Consulting, began in May 2023 with the goal of answering the questions: What are our communities’ strengths? Challenges? What emerging opportunities are there? How can MaineCF help? What MaineCF learned will help inform the foundation’s focus and strategies for years to come.

After a literature review to gather existing state data, more than 1,550 individuals and organizations from all regions of the state participated in the project through four formats: a grantee survey, focus groups, community conversations and a public input survey.

While MaineCF has been working locally for 40 years and has extensive connections in all 16 counties, the needs assessment will help staff better understand strengths and challenges in Maine communities, regional and statewide trends, potential solutions and opportunities.

Through this broad and deep process, MaineCF heard perspectives from Maine people across the state that provide invaluable context on how the foundation can engage its resources – from grantmaking to donor and community partnerships, investments and advocacy – to make the biggest impact.

What was validated through this process is the strong sense of community respondents experience – no matter where in the state they live. Neighbors help neighbors. Nonprofit organizations, businesses and local governments offer services and all lend a hand when they are able. This is collaboration for the greater good.

But despite these strengths, communities face common challenges. Affordable housing, health care access, racial, geographic, and economic equity, mental health and substance use disorder, early childhood development and climate change are among shared concerns across the state. This spring, MaineCF’s Board of Directors will decide on the foundation’s focus areas informed by the needs assessment findings, as well as existing state and national data, surveys of donors and agency fundholders and conversations with potential donors, partners and volunteers.

These strategic initiatives will have the full weight of the foundation behind them, as MaineCF leverages its expertise, finances, partnerships and resources toward positive change. The effort will be inclusive – built by all of us and for all of us.

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Grantee Survey:
Facing Challenges

A total of 644 nonprofit organizations that applied for or received MaineCF funding within the past three years responded to an online survey. This group shared optimism about the work being accomplished by colleagues in the nonprofit sector, but shared concerns about housing, health care access and education.

"A huge challenge is a lack of affordable housing for all kinds of wage earners - extremely low, low-middle and upper-middle class." -MaineCF grantee

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Focus Groups:
Equity

The lack of equity in the workforce, economy, health and housing were the main challenges identified by focus groups. These discussions included 68 participants from workforce development, philanthropy and local government sectors as well as representatives from immigrant and refugee, LGBTQ+, tribal, women and youth populations.

"One of the major challenges I perceive is that there are very different experiences in Maine, whether for those who live in rural or urban areas, southern or otherwise, between those who have financial privilege and the rest of Maine." -Philanthropy professional

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Community Conversations and Public Input Survey:
Collaborative Communities

The public was invited to participate in five virtual community conversations and a public input survey. Common themes among 857 participants included concerns about climate change and affordable housing, mental health and substance use disorder treatment access. Many respondents focused on the need for collaboration at all levels, since these challenges are frequently interconnected.

"The cycle of homelessness, addiction and incarceration is bigger than a single category. Supporting families that are on the margins is part of this. These issues need a systemic approach rather than our current silo model." -Public input survey respondent

Invest in Maine Fund

Information gathered through this project will be used to inform the foundation’s next focus areas. The Invest in Maine Fund is designed to respond to changing needs and allows the foundation to direct support where it’s needed most.

In 2020, the Invest in Maine Fund granted $75,000 to organizations supporting those impacted most severely by the COVID-19 pandemic. Soon after the Lewiston mass shootings, MaineCF directed $60,000 from this fund to support organizations leading the recovery effort. Contributions to this flexible fund enhance individual philanthropy and allow MaineCF to be nimble and proactive in times of great need.

Pictured is Kingfield Kinder Care, one of dozens of child care centers that blossomed from Coastal Enterprise Institute’s Child Care Business Lab. MaineCF support helped grow the program to address critical child care needs across the state and develop economic opportunity for child care professionals.

Kingfield Kinder Care photo.

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