“Is there another side of all of this, Phil?” A friend recently asked me this question. By “all of this,” she was referring to the suffering, sorrow, inhumanity, cruelty, violence, loss, death. All of this.  And there has been a lot of it lately. Now I know my friend to be a person full of […]

Maine Initiatives is raising $500,000 to provide general operating support grants next month to approximately forty (40) immigrant-led and immigrant-serving organizations.  Donate here to the Immigrant-Led Organizations Fund at Maine Initiatives.   Here in Maine, we can sometimes feel removed from the many crises we see on our daily news feeds. War. Pandemic. Climate catastrophe. Gun […]

I am going to be the bearer of bad news today. Normally, I am more of a “love-can-conquer-all-things” kind of guy. But today is not that day. Because I need to tell you: we have a lot of work to do. It is going to be painful and difficult. And it starts here: America is […]

A few words are all I can manage in moments like this.  We know these moments all too well.   And we know these attacks are not isolated moments, but the violent expression of a white-nationalist movement on the rise, the latest tragic expression of the systemic racism in this country.  We know too well that […]

Dear friends:
I am shocked and not surprised by the news today about the pending SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. My shock is an emotional reaction: it hurts my heart. And I shouldn’t be surprised…

Monday, January 17, 2022 is a day of remembrance when we come together to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It is also a day for looking forward, and re-dedicating and re-committing ourselves to the future we seek to build together: a future of racial, economic, and social justice.  Although normally we would be coming […]

2021 Grants for Change – Over $500,000 to BIPOC-led organizations in Maine Dec 23, 2021 – Maine Initiatives’ Grants for Change Program (G4C) is excited to announce thirty-four (34) grants totaling over $500,000 to organizations led by Black, Indigenous, and People/Communities of Color (BIPOC) advancing racial justice efforts in Wabanakiak (Maine). This year’s grants are […]

Immigrant-Led Organizations Pooled Fund Grantmaking Nov 12, 2021 – Maine Initiatives is pleased to announce a new round of grantmaking from the Immigrant-Led Organizations (ILO) Fund to respond to two critical and time-sensitive funding needs: Afghan refugee resettlement arrivals and a recent uptick in asylum seekers, mostly from central Africa, arriving in southern Maine.  Afghan […]