2021 forecast for Maine's nonprofit sector: More need, more challenges in year ahead
Photo / Courtesy My Place Teen Center
My Place Teen Center staff member Evan Jewell with the mobile food pantry.
After a bumpy ride for many Maine nonprofits during COVID, the head of the Maine Association of Nonprofits predicts a challenging 2021 for a sector that employs one in six Maine workers.
Organizations tested during the pandemic include Auburn-based Good Shepherd Food Bank, which distributed 2 million more meals year-over-year in 2020, and numerous groups that switched to virtual fundraisers or performances when in-person events were impossible.
“Like businesses, the nonprofits that faced the toughest challenges were those meeting emergency essential needs or centered in providing services in person,” Hutchins says.
In 2021, she says that social service agencies expect demand for food and shelter will keep rising, while organizations supporting those with mental health problems will continue to face unprecedented demand. “And our arts and cultural organizations that power many Maine downtowns will still be wondering how to survive without knowing when they will ever be able to fully open again.”
She also notes there is uncertainty about what communities will need as the pandemic continues, what will happen to the economy, whether donors will continue to step up and whether the government will be in a position to help.
In spite of all that, she says that nonprofits are flexible and resilient even in the toughest times, adding, “If we work together to value and support the critical value of our nonprofits, the sector will innovate, transform and come out stronger than before.”
Donna Dwyer, president and CEO of My Place Teen Center, is determined to steer her Westbrook-based nonprofit on that very course. It plans to open a second location in Biddeford in 2021 and raise $1 million to make that happen.
“Our mantra is, ‘Find a way. There’s always a way,’” says Dwyer, a 2015 Mainebiz Woman to Watch honoree. “When kids are in jeopardy, we’ll knock down brick walls just to keep kids safe, fed and shown a different path.”
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