Blog
What’s possible through collective effort
This month I’m sharing an open letter with you. My thoughts are addressed to an amazing group of eighteen people who said yes to being the first cohort of donor organizers in Maine Initiatives’ inaugural Giving Project. Since 2010, Giving Projects across the country have trained thousands of donor organizers and moved over $20 million to grassroots community organizing, donated from over 22,000 donors. Maine Initiatives launched its first Giving Project in September 2024 and through this process made grants to important community organizing efforts in March, 2025.
If you are in need of some hope and optimism, please read and share. If you’ve been asking yourself and others, ‘What can I do?’, you might find some inspiration here.
To the first Maine Initiatives’ Giving Project cohort of donor organizers –
You did it! We did it!
We did together something none of us could’ve accomplished alone. You each committed six months to this journey. You gave your precious weekend days–about once per month from September through March–to create something that didn’t exist one year ago, namely a fund for community organizing here in Maine, unceded Wabanaki territory.
It was a big ask, to be sure. You are leaders in our communities, care workers, comrades, kindred spirits. You lead important organizations and projects and have many demands on your time and attention, and yet prioritized this 100-hour commitment.
You said yes to this journey for different reasons and with different intentions, but with a common goal: to resource the change we desperately need. Some of you were new to these conversations about community organizing and social justice philanthropy. Others of you are long-time organizers and said yes because you know that this is needed here in Maine: to build, support, and develop the infrastructure and networks to resource social movement.
Many of you have been to Maine Initiatives’ grantmaking retreats and we’re ready for deeper engagement with this work of resourcing social movements. None of us knew how transformative this process would be.
Each of you donated directly to this fund, often stretching what might have been comfortable to give. You had conversations with family and friends that maybe you haven’t had before, topics we usually shy away from: vulnerable conversations about race and class, or about our relationship with money and giving.
These conversations translated into 180 individual donations and together you raised $141,518.42, exceeding our goal of $115,000! You brought in dozens of people into this collective resourcing that may not have been engaged otherwise.
You shared vulnerably and listened deeply. We shared about the sounds and smells of the places we are each from. You honored each of our irreconcilable differences and foraged bonds with one another that are solid and sure. Building on this, you leaned into conversations that felt sticky or charged. We met in the park in the height of tourist time and reclaimed this public space, sharing your visions for our collective liberation.
We honored our ancestors and the legacies we’ve inherited from history. We wrestled with racial capitalism and lifted up the imperative of land back efforts. We learned from the magic of seeds and the live-giving nature of water. We touched into what grounds and steadies us, perhaps even finding freedom from just slowing to be with each single breath.
We laughed and cried. We played games and were enraged by the political catastrophe taking place around us. But as the country was hurled into chaos and uncertainty, we had purpose and a plan. Some of you started this process with great apprehension around fundraising and are now bona fide fundraisers.
You devoted hours to careful reads and reviews about applications. You faithfully championed organizations and community organizing efforts we learned about through this process. You spoke up. You humbly listened and learned. And we finally, gracefully coalesced around the organizations to fund for the first year of this program.
We ate together. We sang. With the community we’ve strengthened through this, we celebrated.
We did a beautiful and powerful thing together. You’ve given me a new optimism for what’s possible through collective effort.
With love and gratitude,
Julian
Giving Project 2024-2025 CohortAnna DiazCharlene SwiftChristina RichardsonCourtni JeffersEmily PollockGenius BlackIvory MillsJacqueline GomezJennifer MelvilleJessica SheahanJulia SmithKatie GoodmanLeslie HillLindsay ConradMarion KnoxMeadow DibbleSamaa AbdurraqibWillie Hurley*with invaluable leadership and support from Frankie Tran & Jessie Spector
