REGION — On Monday, Feb. 1, the month-long voting for nonprofits to receive grant money from Community Matters More, a program of the Bangor Savings Bank Foundation, opened up to communities throughout Maine and New Hampshire.
The foundation has distributed $1.5 million in grants between the two states for 14 years by annually collecting online votes that are cast in favor of specific nonprofit organizations.
“The program originally began as an opportunity for the foundation to ask our community to have a voice in deciding where these grant dollars will be given to, local nonprofits, in a way that’s most meaningful to them,” Jaclyn Fish, Vice President of Community Relations at Bangor Savings Bank, said in a phone interview.
Three nonprofits are chosen per geographical region to be featured on the online ballot. The foundation takes nominations throughout the year for featured nonprofits and puts the nominees through a vetting process that assesses past awards and the organizations’ geographical scope.
Fish said that the foundation aims to feature a diverse spread of nonprofits from organization size to their initiatives. She added that the ballot allows for a write-in option as well.
“If they don’t see a nonprofit that they want to vote for, they can certainly use the write-in option and write in the name of the nonprofit that is important to them,” Fish said.
Franklin County is grouped with Androscoggin and Oxford Counties and this year’s featured nonprofits on the ballot for that region are Mahoosuc Land Trust, Museum L-A and Tree Street Youth.
Past recipients in the Franklin County region of the foundation’s grant awards include Maine Huts and Trails, Tri-County Mental Health Services and Community Concepts.
Maine Huts and Trails is a nonprofit working on the establishment of 180-mile network of trails from the Mahoosuc Range to Moosehead Lake. Grant funding awarded by the Community Matters More program helped with trail maintenance. File Photo
“When we received it…COVID hadn’t taken over our world yet and at the time, our winter was really focused on engaging the community and bringing our volunteers together underneath the organization,” Maine Huts and Trails Director Wolfe Tone said in a phone interview. “So it helped with keeping our huts open last winter, helped volunteers, helped keep our trails groomed so people could get out and be active and cross country ski and mountain bike when it got warm again. So it was really deployed on doing everything we could to keep our facilities accessible and our trails open for people to enjoy.”
The foundation will distribute $140,000 this year with grants ranging from $5,000 to nonprofits with the most votes in their region to $4,000 for second place, $3,000 for third place and $1,000 for fourth place votes. The ballot allows people to cast a vote for up to five organizations from any region they choose.
“These funds are used in turn to do everything from build shelves at local food banks to purchasing food for local humane societies and even including helping local nonprofits with their overhead costs,” Fish said. “They can truly use these funds received in a way that is most impactful to their organization.”
Tone expressed how impactful every dollar to nonprofits is right now during a time of halted fundraising due to the pandemic.
“I think it’s an amazing opportunity that the bank makes possible and particularly nowadays with everybody really trying to position themselves on the other side of COVID, this kind of funding can make all the difference to bridge to that point in time,” he said.
The online ballot can be accessed at https://www.bangor.com/community/community-matters-more and voting is open until Feb. 28.
The foundation has also developed a resources page for nonprofits to access promotional material to spread awareness about their participation in Community Matters More. These resources are available at https://www.bangor.com/community/community-matters-more/non-profit-resource-center.
Fish said to be potentially featured on next year’s ballot, visit a local Bangor Savings Bank branch manager to nominate their organization.
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