The Giving Project Fund for Community Organizing is a participatory grantmaking program that provides unrestricted, general operating support to community organizing groups advancing justice (economic, environmental, racial, and social) and tribal sovereignty in Maine, unceded Wabanaki Territory.
Donor Name: Maine Initiatives
State: Maine
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/03/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 1 Year
Details:
The Giving Project at Maine Initiatives is dedicated to funding grassroots, community-based organizations across Maine that use community organizing as a core strategy to advance equity and justice. They recognize that there are many ways of making change happen and achieving important social justice victories.
Funding Priorities
To address and respond to the continuing impact of structural racism and colonization the Giving Project Fund prioritizes funding consideration for community organizing groups focused on Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty in particular, and frontline groups led-by and -serving Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, in general. Groups organizing in the LGBTQ+, working class, rural communities, and other historically targeted and marginalized communities are also encouraged to apply.
Funding Information
$20,000.
Grant Period
1 year.
Eligibility Criteria
- To be eligible for the 2025-2026 Giving Project Fund, applicant organizations must:
- use community organizing as a core strategy to advance equity and justice
- are a Maine-based organization or group or a coalition/ alliance of groups, working exclusively or primarily in Maine communities (we do not fund individuals or for profit entities):
- If your organization is a nonprofit with 501(c)(3) designation from the IRS, you may apply
- If your organization is fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, you may apply.
- If your group is – or is sponsored by – a Wabanaki Tribal government you may apply without additional IRS designation
- have annual operating expenses for the most recently completed fiscal year, including administrative and programming expenses, of under $1,000,000.
- The Giving Project at Maine Initiatives welcomes applications from organizations and groups (with 501c3 fiscal sponsor) who use community organizing to bring affected people together to use their collective power to win improvements in their community and change the power structure to advance social justice. The Giving Project Network has identified the following key components of community organizing that will be used as the criteria for evaluating organizations for this year’s grant awards:
- Constituent-led: led by the people most directly affected by the issues the organization is working on, promoting self-determination
- Systems change: works to change conditions by understanding and address the root causes of issues, not just addressing the symptoms
- Collective Liberation: Brings people together–across generations, issues, people–to build power they wouldn’t have individually and uses that power to create systemic change, which includes altering unjust power relations; effecting community wide change that impacts folks beyond the organizers or campaign
- Social Justice Vision: has a strong vision for social justice and sees itself as part of a larger movement for social change, and works towards strengthening that movement
- Building People Power: builds power/base-building: builds leadership from within its own membership, base, or community.
For more information, visit Maine Initiatives.
