By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

If you’re young, innovative – and perhaps a little strapped for cash – the Libra Future Fund wants to talk to you.

Supported by the Libra Foundation in Portland, the fund is looking for Maine residents 18 to 25 years old who have a creative plan, project or idea but little money to back it up. The fund will give winning applicants at least $3,000 to $5,000 to make their dreams come true.

The fund’s board of directors, all under 30, hope the new program will help stem the flight of Maine’s youngest and brightest to other states.

“I hope it inspires them to take a chance. And maybe stick around Maine a little longer,” said 24-year-old board President Robie Anson, who came up with the idea.

Several studies have shown that Maine’s young people are leaving for greater opportunities and higher-paying jobs. According to the state’s Web site, Maine lost more than 30,000 young adults in the last decade.

Officials have dubbed the phenomenon “brain drain.” They worry that the loss will deter prospective businesses from setting up in Maine because the young, educated work force they need won’t be here. They worry Maine will be left with an aging population and no way to replenish its talent and creativity.

Anson came to Maine from New York to attend Bowdoin College in Brunswick. He was working for the Libra Foundation, a private philanthropic group, when he started reading media reports about young Mainers leaving for greener pastures.

Last fall, he proposed a grant program to help those people create their own opportunities. The Libra Foundation approved the Libra Future Fund in December.

The group will give away its first grants this spring.

Applicants must have a plan for a program, project, internship, business and other venture that will also help Maine or the community. They can be for-profit or non-profit.

Applicants first detail their proposal in an application. Promising applicants will be interviewed by board members. Anson expects to award money three times a year, with approximately 10 ventures receiving grants annually.

He hopes the awards will ultimately help both young adults and Maine.

“I think that there’s a vitality to young people and that can help the state,” he said.

Gov. John Baldacci, who held a summit last summer to discuss the loss of young adults, said Thursday he had not yet heard of the Libra Future Fund’s grant program but supports such private efforts.

Several people involved in education applauded the new grants, calling them a step in the right direction.

“I think it sounds great. I think it has a lot of potential,” said Bob Pederson, director of the University of Maine at Farmington’s Center for Human Development.

Pederson works with students trying to find their first jobs. Although a large number of UMF graduates stay in Maine, he often sees students who leave for better opportunities and bigger paychecks.

“They’re moving out of state because the starting salary is $10,000 more,” he said. “They can get a job here, but the pay calls them away.”

The grants, he said, might give them that extra incentive, help create that extra opportunity to stay.

But others weren’t so sure the fund could help anything.

Peter Traill, head of Nason Mechanical Systems in Auburn, sees friends’ children leave and sees how hard other businesses have to look to find young, skilled workers in the area.

The answer isn’t giving those young adults money to start their own ventures, he said. The answer is to help the businesses that already exist and to encourage out-of-state businesses to move in.

“We’re working on this from the wrong end,” he said. “If there were enough good jobs, there wouldn’t be brain drain in Maine.”