Helping out nonprofits in Maine

ABC-TV’s recent “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” episode featuring the construction of the new Ray-Smith family home in Milbridge is a great testament to the power of teamwork. Thanks to a group effort involving many local businesses, nonprofit organizations and more than 1,000 individuals, the project was successfully completed in just one week.

While we can’t deliver a dream home to every family in need, we can learn an important lesson from this “Extreme Makeover” achievement: Maine’s nonprofits can accomplish great things by working together. As we begin a new year, let us continue this spirit of collaboration and focus on what matters most: improving quality of life for Maine citizens.

By making a concerted effort to pool our resources and work together, we can build a support network that is stronger, more efficient and capable of effecting positive change in our communities.

There is a plethora of individual agencies throughout the state that serve individuals and families with special needs. However, the work of one agency alone is rarely enough to fully address the many complex issues they often face. When our nonprofits are challenged with decreased funding, it is more important than ever for organizations with related missions to pursue mutual goals. Through collaboration, funding shortages can be mitigated and many gaps in the needs of our residents can be filled.

Common Good Ventures is made up of staff and volunteer business executives who provide advice and support to nonprofits eager to identify ways to get more done. Facilitating collaborations between like-minded entities with complementary skills is an important part of finding solutions to pressing social challenges in Maine. Our advisers offer proven business practices to help these organizations set results-oriented goals and design measurement tools to track progress. The efficiencies established help more Mainers receive the assistance they need to thrive.

Over the past year, Common Good Ventures and Maine Community Foundation have been working with the Washington County Children’s Program to identify ways of enhancing services to the children and families of Hancock and Washington counties, including the Ray-Smith family. This work through the MaineCF Nonprofit Effectiveness Program has included identifying community partners that can complement the strengths of the agency and address unmet needs.

As a result, new relationships with local schools and colleges as well as an expanding network of collaborators focusing on youth at risk are in a position to enhance the program’s prevention, early intervention and community awareness efforts.

The Autism Society of Maine is another example of an organization that has found strength through links to others. The society started as a small support group for parents with autistic children. Through network building, it has evolved into an autism information referral service for the entire state. By involving support groups from other regions, proactively securing grant funding and building alliances among organizations with shared goals, it has filled a void for families living with autism.

When it comes to collaboration, it’s all about finding a good match. A nonprofit should seek affiliations that provide mutual benefits and a strategic fit with its mission, vision, and values. Collaboration can simply involve sharing of resources and knowledge, combining programs, or potentially a full-on merger if two organizations with a history of working well together determine that joining forces is the best path.

In today’s resource-constrained environment with rising community needs, proactive collaboration with a goal of improving delivery of services is the only solution for Maine’s nonprofit community. In fact, establishing networks and partnerships has proven very beneficial when seeking funding from outside sources. Government agencies, foundations and corporations look favorably on results-oriented nonprofits that think creatively about increasing impact and efficiency.

To find out more about what we do and how our process works, visit www.commongoodventures.org or contact us at 207-373-9290.

Kristin Majeska is president of Common Good Ventures in Brunswick, a statewide philanthropic organization bringing together experienced business people to help strong nonprofits address social challenges that directly affect the Maine economy.