New beginnings | GrowSmart refocuses its mission with a new leader in a new city
“Charting the Course” is written by GrowSmart Maine, a Yarmouth nonprofit that promotes and encourages new ways of thinking about Maine’s future. This issue’s column is written by Christian McNeil, GrowSmart’s communications director.
Many Mainebiz readers are probably aware that last month, GrowSmart Maine was forced to send out a financial distress call to our members statewide. The response to that appeal was tremendous and humbling: We received dozens of contributions of all sizes, including a number from people who had never donated to GrowSmart Maine before, to exceed our emergency fundraising goals.
But we’re all too aware that our experience is by no means unique. In every sector — public, private and nonprofit — organizations are being forced to make tough cutbacks and reassess their capabilities. In the past year, GrowSmart Maine has trimmed expenses and put some programs — like our proposed “Governing Maine in the 21st Century” project, conceived as a sequel to the 2006 GrowSmart-Brookings report — on hold until fundraising conditions improve. But the constraints have also brought new opportunities to redefine our organization and recommit to our core values. We’ve taken on new leadership and refined our mission.
In the first regard, we’ve hired a new interim director, Maggie Drummond, who was formerly our representative in Augusta and the primary architect of our legislative victories in Augusta these past two years. In the second, our annual board retreat in June refocused our official mission statement on the core themes of our 2006 “Charting Maine’s Future” report: Promoting economic growth, conserving our natural and working landscapes, and revitalizing our communities.
Working together
In the new austerity, a critical part of our strategy will be collaboration with other like-minded organizations, to make the most effective use of our resources. Over the past two years, GrowSmart Maine has fostered a new Coalition to Revitalize Maine’s Towns and Cities. This coalition, which now includes dozens of economic development organizations, historic preservation advocates, architects, developers and other nonprofits, was instrumental in building support behind recent legislative victories like the streamlined state building code and the historic preservation tax credit.
The coalition filled a critical gap in Maine’s “quality of place” strategy. Traditionally, downtown and Main Street advocates haven’t had the same voice or funding resources as those who worked to preserve Maine’s rural and wild landscapes. In other states, there is a clearer relationship between preserving rural areas and focusing growth in existing towns and cities, and collaboration between advocates of the built environment and advocates of the natural environment is more advanced. Here in Maine, we hope to expand the constituency for downtown revitalization, while simultaneously growing our economy and easing development pressure on rural and working landscapes, by working towards a similar union between “greens” (environmental advocates) and “browns” (advocates for economic development in our towns and cities). We believe that by uniting our grassroots resources, the accomplishments of the coalition will be more impressive than the sum of what individual organizations could have achieved.
Ultimately, we’re working toward the goal outlined in the GrowSmart-Brookings report of 2006: A dedicated source of funding for investments in all of Maine’s varied “quality places,” whether they’re green or brown. Meeting this objective will help us preserve our valuable environment while growing Maine’s economy with new, talented workers and businesses, and promoting growth in our village centers, Main Streets and downtowns.
Moving forward
While we build organizational alliances, GrowSmart Maine will also renew its grassroots efforts statewide. Pending financial support from various nonprofit foundations, GrowSmart is planning a series of regional summits that would replace the day-long summit we’ve held annually in Augusta these past six years. Our goal is to attract and engage new advocates and strengthen networks among citizens working to protect this state.
We’ll also seek to help towns and citizens take advantage of some of GrowSmart Maine’s recent legislative victories, such as grant funding for downtown economic development through the newly formed Communities for Maine’s Future program. And we’ll begin to take the lessons learned from our “model town” project in Standish (featured in the June 15 issue of Mainebiz) to other cities and towns across the state.
Another change at our organization is a change in scene: GrowSmart Maine will soon move our offices from Yarmouth village to downtown Portland. The new, slightly smaller quarters will not only reduce our rental expenses, but the more centralized location will also reduce our staff’s annual commuting expenses by thousands of dollars. It’s an off-the-balance-sheet bonus we’re all looking forward to.
The last month has been hair-raising for GrowSmart Maine, but it’s also given us a number of new beginnings, accompanied by a sense of opportunity and optimism. Thanks to our supporters, we can look forward to many more years of working for positive change and prosperity in Maine.
Christian McNeil can be reached at editorial@mainebiz.biz.
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