Grant recipients
ACLU of Maine
"The ACLU of Maine is grateful for the Abbagadassett Foundation’s continuing partnership and support in the further development of our intern and fellowship program. Together, we have created an opportunity for dedicated undergraduate students to develop and grow into the next generation of civil liberties and civil rights leaders in Maine. Your ongoing investment enabled us once again to provide paid, mission-based learning opportunities to several deserving students."
Maine College of Art & Design
"Funding for this proposal has allowed us to increase the number of paid internships in the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2024. Funding for paid internships enables students to have access to increased financial support and expand the number and quality of the internships we can offer. Demand from both students and employers is high and continually growing."
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
"In 2021, the Abbagadassett Foundation encouraged and supported us in increasing our intern pay rate to $15/hour. As a result, our intern positions became more appealing to candidates from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and attracted quality interns from around the country. Since the Foundation’s generosity has made this pay increase possible, many interns have explicitly cited the pay rate as integral to their decision to work at the Gardens. In 2022, thanks to continued support from the Foundation, we further increased our pay rate in 2023. We expanded our housing offerings to welcome all interns — something we were not previously able to do."
Spurwink
"Spurwink used funds to establish the Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership Internship (Next Gen) to enhance and diversify our current internship offerings. Next Gen will build a cohort of interns focused on nonprofit operations and mission impact. Funds from Abbagadassett enabled Spurwink to offer expanded opportunities to individuals who would otherwise not be able to take advantage of career- and experience-building internships due to lack of compensation."
Kennebec Estuary Land Trust (KELT)
"Funding from the Abbagadassett Foundation greatly enhanced KELT’s capacity to successfully host these three positions, and more specifically enable the outcomes of:
• Recruitment and hire of three seasonal, full time Steward positions for the stewardship, restoration, and education programs led by the KELT staff overseeing the positions.
• Support an increase in hourly pay of the three Stewards (including paid federal holidays) to remain competitive in recruiting candidates.
• Support KELT staff time to increase the frequency of interactions and training with the Stewards to enhance the internship learning experience."
Southern Maine Agency on Aging
"Southern Maine Agency on Aging (SMAA)’s mission is to serve as the focal point in York and Cumberland counties for resources, services, and information to empower older adults, adults with disabilities, and their caregivers to live to their fullest potential.
SMAA will used grant funding to expand and strengthen our current Nutrition intern program to provide a paid internship program for two interns per academic semester, or four interns per year."
Maine Public
"Every day, Maine Public connects the people of Maine and our region to each other and to the world through the open exchange of information, ideas, and cultural content.
The foundation grant helped fund The Emerging Voices Journalism Fellowship which is currently a 12-month, full-time, temporary, single position dedicated to mentoring underrepresented voices in the news industry."
Maine Women's Lobby Education Fund
Each year the Maine Women’s Lobby provides the opportunity for 8th grade girls and gender nonbinary students from across Maine to learn about state government through participating in Girls’ Day at the State House. Currently the program is both in person and on Zoom conferences.
Maine Community Foundation: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Fund
“The Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Fund supports organizations that are led by and serving people of Native American, Latino, African, Arab, and/or Asian descent. The goal of the grant program is to help Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color in Maine achieve greater equity by:
investing in existing, new, and emerging leadership and nonprofit organizations, changing policies and practices that negatively impact Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color, because of their race, and supporting efforts to alleviate the impact of race-based discrimination and disparities."
“… the Abbagadassett [Foundation] donation was significant in providing funds for BIPOC led projects in Maine. The BIPOC Fund received 21 more applications than 2022. The largest number of applications so far. There are many new BIPOC led organizations that are doing impactful and important work. This donation means we can fund many more of these new organizations!”