Group plans to use gift

WHITING – Much of Maine Community Foundation’s $6 million gift from an anonymous donor will go to programs and recent college graduates in Washington and Aroostook counties, a spokesman for the statewide foundation said Tuesday.

The foundation is a statewide public nonprofit organization with offices in Ellsworth and Portland that works in partnership with charitably minded residents to improve the quality of life in Maine.

The foundation manages charitable trust funds, awards, grants and scholarships and provides leadership on state issues. In 2000, Maine Community Foundation awarded $5.6 million in grants and scholarships from trust funds that totaled $96 million.

Elizabeth Banwell said Tuesday that Maine Community Foundation’s Washington and Aroostook county funds will receive at least $1 million each over the next four years from the anonymous $6 million gift. Combined with existing funds, the donation will enable the foundation’s boards in each of those counties to award more than $70,000 annually, she said.

The foundation will use an additional $1 million of the gift to seed a new fund in another as-yet-unnamed rural county and at least another $1 million to establish a loan forgiveness account, according to a foundation press release.

The forgiveness fund will allow recipients in the three rural counties to reduce their college loans if they return to their home counties to live and work and become active members of those communities.

Some of the donated money will be added to Maine Community Foundation’s annual grant-making budget to support the efforts of the state’s nonprofit organizations and some has been earmarked to support specific charitable interests of the donor.

Maine Community Foundation conducted a press conference on the gift at Tide Mill Farm in Whiting on Tuesday.

The donor, who is a woman, has lived in Maine for just two years and specifically marked her gift for rural communities, according to the foundation press release.

She made a conscious decision to give the money to the foundation with few restrictions because she wanted Maine residents to determine how the money will be allocated.

“I chose the Maine Community Foundation because the Foundation believes in giving at the ground level to make things possible,” she said in the press release. “The Foundation’s philosophy reflects my own confidence in people’s ability to make the best decisions for themselves at the local level.”

Describing herself as coming from “humble beginnings,” the donor said when she came to Maine she wished she’d been born here.

“There is an integrity in Maine communities that is worth preserving,” she said. “It is a dynamic way of life with generations of value.”

Foundation President Henry Schmelzer said staff “are deeply touched by the selflessness and profound generosity of the $6 million gift.

“A donation of this magnitude to the state’s most rural counties makes a strong statement about the inherent value of Maine communities and the importance of investing in the next generation of community leaders,” he said.