Current Opportunities

Supporting Community Solutions

Interested in discussing collaboration or support for a community-led project? Send us an email! You can also sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on future grant opportunities.

You can read about some of our current and past grant programs below.

Social Capital Grant

Strong communities are built through connection, trust, and mutual support. These relationships, often called social capital, play an important role in health and wellbeing. When people feel connected to one another, they experience lower stress, improved mental and physical health, greater stability, and better access to the resources they need to thrive.

Through the Social Capital Development Grant, a one-time investment funded by the Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan (MJRP), we supported nine community-led organizations across Maine. Each developed programs rooted in cultural knowledge, lived experience, and local leadership that strengthened community connections and shaped the everyday social factors affecting health and quality of life.

• Maine Council on Aging: Built connection among Black elders by organizing the Making the Invisible Visible: A Maine Black Elders Photovoice Project.
• Cultivating Community: Worked with New American communities in Portland to build community and expand food access through creative programs and activities.
• YMCA Southern Maine: Expanded access to culturally appropriate swimming classes for Black women in Cumberland and York Counties.
• ProjectHOME: Built community with mother-led households through peer support networks, monthly gatherings, and shared opportunities for connection.
• Maine Inside Out: Scaled programming that supported people navigating reentry after incarceration through art and theater.
• Pihcintu: Organized a choir for immigrant and refugee communities in Southern Maine to promote the musical arts.
• Khmer Maine: Built connection and community across Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in Maine.
• Mano en Mano: Supported wellness activities for farmworkers and immigrants in Washington County.
• Healthy Acadia: Organized creative community-building activities rooted in Passamaquoddy culture and provided culturally relevant food to Latine and immigrant families in Washington County.

 

Intergenerational Community Building Grant

Thriving communities are built when people of all ages have opportunities to connect, learn from one another, and share their experiences. The Intergenerational Community Building Grant supports projects that bring older adults and younger generations together to grow mutual understanding, lifelong learning, social connection, and community resilience. These ten organizations are creating spaces where people of all ages can learn from each other and build lasting relationships.

First Cohort (April 2026 – December 2026)

• Nibezun: Bringing Wabanaki elders, adults, and youth together to share traditional experiences and languages.
• Niweskok: Engaging Wabanaki youth, elders, and community members in harvesting materials and building a traditional birch bark canoe.
• Somali Bantu Community Association: Connecting Kashekee youth and Somali Bantu elders through cultural identity, wellness, traditional arts, and community gatherings.
• Passamaquoddy Indian Township: Collaborating with First Light to bring youth and elders back to Kuwesuwi Monihq (Pine Island) through canoe and boat trips, overnight retreats, and education about the island's history and significance.
• Office of Economic Opportunity (City of Portland): Pairing older adults from Maine Council on Aging's BIPOC Elder Group with Portland High School youth for recorded intergenerational conversations about the civil rights movement and current events.
• Food for All Services: Connecting immigrant elders and youth through storytelling, music, language practice, and cultural exchange.

Second Cohort (August 2026 – March 2027)

• Maine Afro Yoga Project: Supporting immigrant elders, youth, and caregivers in Maine through movement, mindfulness, and storytelling circles that build connection and reduce social isolation.
• The Third Place and Maine MILL: A Living Table Soul Food Sunday strengthens social bonds by creating monthly, shared experiences where elders, adults, and youth gather around food, facilitated dialogue, and cooperative activities.
• Sunrise Economic Council: Building on an existing Passamaquoddy youth traditional food harvest program, youth and elders come together for a one-day, hands-on learning experience focused on moose or deer butchering, food preparation, and cultural teachings.
• Khmer Maine: Builds on a successful Khmer traditional dance program with a special six-week offering that brings together Southeast Asian communities and generations to learn traditional dances and share cultural teachings.

 

Narrative Change for Food Security

In early 2025, the Permanent Commission partnered with the Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF) to support community-led projects focused on changing how Mainers understand food insecurity and the systems that influence it. This grant helped organizations elevate community voices, share local knowledge, and shift narratives that too often place responsibility for hunger on individuals instead of the policy decisions and structural conditions that shape it.

• Cumberland County Public Health Department: Created a map of retail outlets in Cumberland County that accept SNAP and WIC dollars, helping people shop according to their nutrition priorities.
• Healthy Acadia: Expanded access to healthy, culturally appropriate produce at Folklore Farm through a farm share credit program for Latine and other migrant and immigrant families.
• Maine Food Convergence Project: Developed a food sovereignty zine that lifts up community stories addressing the root causes of hunger and highlights pathways toward food sovereignty.
• IFKA Community Services: Created a multicultural video amplifying personal stories of resilience and community-driven solutions to food assistance in Lewiston, and hosted a community meal to foster connection and belonging.
• Northeast Federation of Food Cooperatives: Highlighted the Maine rancher cooperative through storytelling about Black ranchers and farmers in Maine, using social media and newsletters to spotlight the role of Maine cooperative economics in advancing food access.

 

Juneteenth Collaborations

"We are grateful for the opportunity to create a gathering that centered wellness, connection, cultural reflection, and community."

Each year since 2024, the Permanent Commission has funded Juneteenth celebrations, educational events, and community gatherings across Maine. This funding honors Black history, creates space for connection and reflection, and uplifts Black leadership and creativity throughout the state. We continue to support new and emerging celebrations. If you're interested in funding or support for a Juneteenth celebration in your community, reach out to us using the link above.

• Maine Inside Out: Uplifting Black communities through art, celebration, and truth-telling.
• Intercultural Community Center: Celebrating Black freedom, local history, and culture through performances, speeches, and community activities.
• The Third Place: Promoting self-care and nature-based programming rooted in celebratory outdoor activities.
• NAACP of Greater Bangor Branch: Organizing regular Juneteenth Celebration Tables that celebrate Pride and Juneteenth together, building connections among Black and other LGBTQ+ communities of color.
• Juneteenth Downeast: Hosting annual Juneteenth celebrations in the Downeast area focused on resource sharing, celebration, and relationship building.

 

Health and Wellness Grant

This 2025 grant supported creative, community-led approaches to health and wellbeing in communities across Maine that have too often been underfunded. These initiatives reflected the many ways wellness is defined and supported locally. Many organizations created spaces where youth, older adults, and immigrant and refugee communities could gather to move, create, and care for one another.

• La Finca: Increased access to healthy, local produce for urban families by delivering food from their rural farm.
• United Youth Empowerment (UnitedYes): Provided Somali-Bantu youth with mindfulness workshops and culturally relevant healing circles to support mental health, stress management, and community healing.
• Maine Association of New Americans: Scaled programming that supports immigrant and older women in Southern Maine through multilingual wellness workshops, retreats promoting physical activity and mental health, and recovery nature walks for older women.
• Fitness Bridge: Supported wellness through group fitness classes, educational workshops, and sports and recreational activities for Muslim young adults in the Greater Portland area.
• Tree Street Youth: Responded to gun violence in Lewiston through mentoring and social-emotional group support that pairs community leaders with young Black men.
• Boys and Girls Club of Maliseet: Provided Indigenous youth with culturally relevant physical, emotional, and mental health activities and recreational trips to promote active lifestyles and cultural connection.
• Seeing for Ourselves and Generational Noor: Worked together to train immigrant and refugee community members in Lewiston and Auburn in participatory photography, sharing stories about Maine's vibrant and resilient immigrant communities through a short film and an open gallery exhibit.
• Gateway Community Services Maine: Created a support group for asylum seekers in transitional housing, using breathwork, yoga, and journaling to support mental health and build social connection.
• YWCA Central Maine: Built on a successful pilot to expand access to culturally appropriate swimming lessons and water safety training for youth from the New Mainer community in Androscoggin County.