Since joining Maine Initiatives in 2018, I have been in awe of what I have witnessed and learned from the immigrant-led ecosystem in Maine. This is a diverse, robust, resilient, and tenacious network of organizations working across a wide range of sectors: farming, food security, health, housing, gender justice, community organizing, advocacy, and more. They […]

Two weeks ago today, I was sitting in a room in New Orleans with 20 other people on our last day of a three-day Undoing Racism training with The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB). The group included some individuals, but also clusters of staff members from justice-focused organizations and partnerships across the country, […]

Maine Initiatives is thrilled to announce the Immigrant-Led Organizations (ILO) Fund’s 2025 Grantee Cohort, ten immigrant-led organizations whose work advances immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker flourishing in Maine, unceded Wabanaki Territory.  The missions of the 2025 ILO Fund Grantee Cohort exemplify the diverse, robust, and highly-skilled immigrant-led ecosystem operating statewide, leading vital efforts across a […]

Maine Initiatives and the Nature Based Education Consortium are thrilled to announce the 2025 Outdoor Equity Fund Grantees, five community-based organizations dedicated to improving equitable access to nature-based learning opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in Maine. This is the third cohort of organizations supported through the Outdoor Equity Fund, joining 20 […]

My natural place is to be hopeful: holding fast to the faith that our work, though arduous, is rooted in a vision that a better world is possible.  “The arc of moral history is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This faith is certainly being tested in this period […]

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 […]

Maine Initiatives Senior Director Shima Kabirigi has led the Immigrant-Led Organizations (ILO) Fund and the Immigrant and Refugee Funders Collaborative since 2018. In our April 2025 interview, Shima shares reflections on opening applications to the 2nd year of the ILO Fund’s participatory program, the differences she sees now in attacks on immigrants’ rights compared to […]

Please join us in celebrating the 2025 Giving Project Fund for Community Organizing Grantees: Each of these organizations is doing important and inspiring work that shows how community organizing is a powerful lever for making change from the bottom up. Their work is democracy in action led by and for their communities, and focuses on critical […]