Organization List

Maine

** Changing Maine Directory – this is a curated searchable database of organizations working on social justice in Maine and needs updating  – could be a great volunteer project!!  

• https://www.maineresists.com/resources
• Nonprofit Member Directory - Maine Association of Nonprofits
• Our Members | Maine Philanthropy Center
• Volunteer Maine helps individuals connect with volunteer opportunities across the State  

MULTI-ISSUE GROUPS / Education

• ACLU of Maine – Civil liberties advocacy statewide.
• Activate Maine – Activism across issues
• HHRCMAINE - promote universal respect for human rights
• Maine Initiatives – Participatory grantmaking platform supporting smaller community groups, focus on Racial Justice
• Maine Library System (including State Office, Augusta) – Library services and support.
• Maine People's Alliance: Home - Political education and issue organizing / member
• MaineShare – Collaborative funding platform offering support to a wide range of nonprofits.
• Mindbridge - Training on implicit bias, hate crime prevention, etc
• Prevention Action Change –  Training for empowerment self-defense and bystander intervention
• Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC) – Community organizing skill building, with a focus on rural low income Mainers, and mutual aid

Grassroots / Rapid Response

• AudacityCat – Midcoast Maine protest and immigration policy advocacy.
• Activate Maine: Home
• Indivisible 

•  Greater Portland Indivisible – Local Indivisible chapters providing training.
• Indivisible Team Southern Maine (ITSME) –  York County chapter. (info@indivisiblesm.org)
• Indivisible Bangor – Civic action network based in Bangor.
• Saco Bay Indivisible – Community organizing in the Saco Bay region.
• INDIVISIBLE MDI – Home of the resistance on Mount Desert Island …
• Indivisible Mid Maine
• Other Maine Indivisible Groups (list from Jo Midcoast Indivisible)
• Other Indivisible Actions

• Midcoast Solidarity – Mutual aid and solidarity organizing midcoast.  
• March Forth – Member-driven political engagement group in Greater Portland.
• Suit Up Maine – Legislative alert platform on Maine policy issues.
• Visibility Brigade Portland/Falmouth - portland.me.visbrigade@gmail.com 
• Visibility Freeport
• About Maine DSA - Maine Democratic Socialists Of America

Abolition / Prison Justice

• Freedom & Captivity
• Maine Inside Out
• Reentry Sisters

Arts Activism 

• ARRT (Artists’ Rapid Response Team) – Creates protest banners and projection art.
• LumenARRT! – Projection art collective for activism.
• Hinge Collaborative - Waterville Based Social Justice Art
• Ideal Maine Band
• Sea Change Chorale 

Civic Engagement / Voting Rights

• Democracy Maine Home Page | Democracy Maine
• JustME For JustUS (rural youth organizing)
• League of Women Voters Maine – Voter education and civic engagement.
• Save Maine Absentee Voting Coalition – Promotes absentee voting access.
• MAINE YOUTH POWER

Climate Justice - see Maine Climate Action NOW!: MCAN and Environmental Priorities Coalition - Maine Conservation Alliance for lists of smaller and regional orgs to work with

Disability Justice

• Disability Rights Maine – Advocacy and legal support for disability rights.

Economic Justice

• Greater Bangor Houseless Collective – Supports unhoused residents in Bangor.
• Maine Center for Economic Policy - Statewide Legislative work
• Maine Equal Justice – Legal advocacy for low-income individuals
• Southern Maine Workers’ Center – Labor organizing and support in southern Maine.

Funding/Mutual Aid

• ETR Mutual Aid (ROSC)
• Support the Maine Solidarity Fund!
• Maine Needs – Statewide mutual aid and community support.
• Project Relief – Emergency support and relief services.

Gender Justice / Feminism 

• Hardy Girls Healthy Women – Girls cause a ruckus!
• Maine Boys to Men
• Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault – Statewide coalition - volunteer opportunities here, and with coalition members (search within site for regional orgs)
• Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence – – Statewide coalition - volunteer opportunities here and with coalition members (search within site for regional orgs)
• Maine Women’s Lobby - Legislative action and civic education

•  ERA for All – Coalition Campaign for an Inclusive State ERA
• Maine Paid Leave Coalition

• Wounded Healers International | Survivor-Led Healing & Justice
• YWCA Central Maine

Gun Violence

• Maine Gun Safety Coalition
• Moms Demand Action - ME - Facebook

Immigrant Rights : Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition – Enhancing Immigrant Lives for … - Use this coalition list to find specific orgs!

• Capital Area New Mainers Project (CANMP)
• Community Organizing Alliance – Civic engagement and racial justice focused in Lewiston/Auburn.
• Mainers for Humane Immigration
• Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) – Pro bono immigration legal services.
• Immigrants Resource Center of Maine (Lewiston)
• I'm Your Neighbor Books 
• In Her Presence – Empowering immigrant Women and families 
• Intercultural Community Center (Westbrook)
• Land in Common – Land for life, livelihood, and liberation in … - helping immigrant farmers establish land as well as other restorative land / landback projects
• Mano en Mano  We provide immigrants and farmworkers with the support they need, ensuring equitable access to medical care, government aid, employment, housing, and other services. We promote leadership development and provide resources and support to cultivate community engagement and positive change.
• Neighbors in Need
• Presenté Maine – Grassroots mutual aid / food justice and advocacy for Latinx people

Indigenous Justice

• Wabanaki Alliance – Advocacy for Wabanaki tribal sovereignty and rights.
• Wabanaki REACH – Indigenous-led education, restorative justice, and truth-telling.
• Abbe Museum
• Wabanaki Women’s Coalition – Responds to domestic and sexual violence within tribal communities, advocacy for owomen’s health

LGBTQ Gender Justice

• EqualityMaine – LGBTQ+ advocacy and resources.
• MaineTransNet – Transgender advocacy and peer support
• Out in the Open – Multiracial, majority working class, grassroots, movement and capacity building organization based in Wabanaki territory throughout the states of Vermont and Maine that connects rural LGBTQ+ people to build community, visibility, knowledge and power.
• OUT Maine: Maine LGBTQ+ Youth Programs, Support & Resources
• Portland Outright
• Equality Community Center

Racial Justice

• Atlantic Black Box –
• The Greater Bangor Area Branch NAACP
• Samuel James Substack: Banned Histories of Race in America – Newsletter/project focused on historic racial narratives.
• SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) – Portland / Biddeford Saco Area Regional SURJ chapter.and other chapters focused on racial justice (search site for regional chapters, or use national resources to start your own)
• See Maine Initiatives list of racial justice grantees for smaller orgs & projects

Repro Justice / Health / Abortion

• Mabel Wadsworth Center – Provides reproductive health services in northern Maine (Bangor).
• Maine Family Planning – Reproductive health provider across Maine.
• Planned Parenthood of Northern New England – Regional reproductive health services.
• Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund (activist/poltical)
• SAFE Maine - Abortion access fund

Restorative Justice

Palestine

• Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights – Advocacy for Palestinian human rights.
• Jews for Palestinian Right of Return – Jewish-led support for Palestinian return rights.

Peer Health & Recovery

• Bangor Area Recovery Network (BARN) – Peer-led recovery support in Bangor.
• Food AND Medicine –
• Hope Squad – Peer support and mental health outreach.

? Not really SJ focused

• Maine Historical Society – Statewide historical preservation.
• Greater Portland Landmarks – Historic preservation in Portland.
• Archives & Special Projects, University Library System – Archival and special collections.
• Consumer Council System of Maine – Peer-led consumer advocacy statewide.

New Hampshire

• Lovering Reproductive Health Clinic (Greenland) – Reproductive health provider.
• Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire – Financial support for abortion access.
• NH Mutual Aid Relief Fund – Volunteer-run aid providing essentials like food and hygiene
• New Hampshire Mutual Aid Relief Fund (local group highlighted with direct action efforts).
• NH Bridge Brigade – Visibility brigade for democracy in New Hampshire.

Rhode Island

• AMOR (Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance) – Immigration defense, legal support, and anti-state violence organizing.

Massachusetts / Boston Area

• Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) – Largest anti-poverty, human services provider in New England.
• Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) – Accompaniment for immigrants in court/ICE check-ins, legal referrals, bond support.
• Boston Workers Circle
• Community Resources for Justice (CRJ) – Criminal justice reform and prisoner reentry advocacy.
• Immigrant Justice Mass
• Jewish Voice for Peace
• Refugee Immigration Ministry (RIM) – Interfaith support for asylum seekers and detainees.
• Roslindale Is for Everyone (RISE)
• W. Roxbury/Roslindale/JP Progressives
• Reclaim Roxbury — Housing justice reform and anti-gentrification/anti-displacement advocacy in Roxbury/Boston

Additional Massachusetts Resources from MA Organizers

SURJ - can engage via chapters or through their circle program

https://surj.org/

Solidare Network

https://solidairenetwork.org/

Resource Generation

https://resourcegeneration.org/

Working Families Party

https://workingfamilies.org/

Massachusetts

SURJ Boston - https://www.surjboston.org/

Progressive Mass - chapters across the state and growing. Focused on electoral/legislative process but their legislative agenda is in alignment with movement orgs

https://www.progressivemass.com/organize/chapters/

MCAN - Massachusetts Climate Action Network statewide chapter network

https://www.massclimateaction.org/

Neighbor to Neighbor

https://www.n2n.org/

Act on Mass - focused on transparency on Beacon Hill

https://actonmass.org/

LuceMass - immigrant defense/rapid respond

https://www.lucemass.org/

Homes for All -

https://www.homesforallmass.org/

BIJAN  - Immigrant support

https://www.beyondbondboston.org/

Families for Justice as Healing - decarceration of women and girls

https://www.justiceashealing.org/

Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance - public ed advocacy

https://www.massedjustice.org/

Trans Emergency Fund -

https://transemergencyfund.org/

OUT MetroWest (LGBTQ+ youth org)

https://outmetrowest.org/ 

Jewish Voices for Peace Boston - I’m sure there are other chapters

https://jvp-boston.org/

Muslim Justice League -

https://muslimjusticeleague.org/

Repro Equity Now

https://reproequitynow.org/

Alternatives for Community & Environment

Asian American Resource Workshop

Boston Ujima Project

City Life Vida Urbana

The City School

GreenRoots

Haymarket People’s Fund

I Have a Future

Matahari Women Workers' Center

Neighbors United for a Better East Boston

New England Community Project

Stories Inspiring Movements

The Youth Justice & Power Union

Reclaim Roxbury

For Donors:

Eastern Mass Abortion Fund

https://www.emafund.org/

Mass Bail Fund

https://www.massbailfund.org/

Resource Organizing Project -

https://sustainmovements.org/resource-organizing-project-who-we-are/

Vermont

• COVER Home Repair & Store – Local home repair support.
• Cover to COVER Books – Bookstore serving Upper Valley region.
• Vermont Racial Justice Alliance – Racial equity advocacy across VT.
• Vermont Workers Center – Labor organizing and workers’ rights.
• Vermont Democratic Disability Caucus – Disability advocacy within Democratic Party.
• Rights and Democracy – Social justice advocacy in VT.
• NAACP of Rutland – Civil rights advocacy.
• NAACP of Windham County – Civil rights advocacy.
• Vermont Human Rights Commission – State human rights enforcement.
• Out in the Open – Multiracial, majority working class, grassroots, movement and capacity building organization based in Wabanaki territory throughout the states of Vermont and Maine that connects rural LGBTQ+ people to build community, visibility, knowledge and power.
• Outright Vermont – LGBTQ+ youth support.
• Land Access Opportunity Board – Land equity work.
• Vermont Student Anti‑Racism Network – Student-led anti-racism organizing.

Pennsylvania

• Abolitionist Law Center – Court watch and anti-prison abolition advocacy in PA courts.
• Philly Children’s Movement – Philadelphia-based children’s justice organizing. Link

Indiana

• INDIVISIBLE NWI – Northwest Indiana Indivisible network (member since 2017).

Online / National

Ways to Learn About Movement Building (a very non-exhaustive list)

Online and in person trainings and classes

• Donor Organizer Hub - everyday fundraising skills
• Generative Somatics - practices for healing /SJ
• Interaction Institute for Social Change : Interaction Institute … (Boston)
• Nerdy Movement / Power Labs (next online course starting 10/9)
• Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership – Offers accessible social justice education.
• Training For Change | Movement and Capacity Building at the …
• Women's March - Our Feminist Future (webinars, etc)

Books and websites /newsletters with resources for self & group learning

• Beautiful Trouble - strategy and tactic bank
• Let This Radicalize You | HaymarketBooks.org - perfect for a bookgroup!

• Organizing My Thoughts - Kelly Hayes newsletter
• Prisonculture | Substack on organizing

• Meditations in an Emergency -Rebecca Solnit
• Movement Strategy Center
• The Commons Social Change Library - big searchable database
• Social Change Ecosystem Map - Building Movement
• Up With Community – Moving from Ideas to Action (based in Maine, works nationally)
• Waging Nonviolence

Podcasts

• Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams 
• How to Survive the End of the World - Adrienne and Autumn Brown
• Movement Memos | Kelly Hayes

Technical Assistance, workshops, etc.

• Braver Angels - tools for talking across political differences
• Everyday Democracy - tools for bringing conversations about civic life into community
• The OpEd Project - writing and placing op-eds, focused on underrepresented voices

Free SJ art downloads

• Amplifier Art  free downloads of SJ art
• Justseeds - free downloads of SJ art

Issue

Abolish Slavery National Network Working to end slavery and involuntary servitude for all people in all cases in the US

Resources for choosing what to do

Sometimes, the challenge is not that we don’t know what’s going on, it’s that there is so much it is overwhelming and hard to choose.  If you’re just getting started, or restarting, here’s a hand-out with more links.

If you’re already pretty well connected and volunteering what you can, but feeling helpless or hopeless in the face of bad news, reflect on:

• Are you working on the right goals and strategies for this moment, or is it time to shift priorities?

• How do we keep from being consumed with “busy work” that is not strategic?
• How do we also allow there to be strategic and tactical experiments - not everything we try will “win” and that does not mean it’s not worth doing
• How do we celebrate multiple kinds of “wins” along the way?

• Are you in community with others working on other issues and goals, so that the big coalition effort is visible to you (none of us can carry this alone!)

• What else could we do as a movement “sector” to make all the work visible?
• How could we better build coalitions and collaborations

• Are you able to grieve, or otherwise process the fear and loss we are experiencing?

• Work That Reconnects Network
• Generative Somatics

What advice can we give ourselves and each other when we are working our hardest and it doesn’t seem to be enough?

For more resources see this hand-out on sustainable activism Sustainable Activism Handout 3/20/25

Questions to reflect on and consider sharing your answers for crowdsourcing insights!

What do you need to strengthen your effort and commitment to working on a better collective future?

What would you most like to offer?

What would make the effort sustainable for you?

What barriers are in your way?

Send your answers to Feminist Activism Workshop to help us create resources to support a more vibrant and effective grassroots organizing sector in Maine!  

Find your place for Immigrant Rights

An example of how to match skills, interests and strategy

Human Rights ~ Children’s Rights ~ Immigrant Rights

“I argue that you only have four choices right now. You fight, which to me means practicing small, daily acts of resistance. You have flight: If you have an exit plan, you activate it — and most folks do not. You freeze, and you pretend that everything is normal and that you pretend you can't do anything. Or you fawn: You bend your knee and you kiss the ring and say, “I support this administration.”  History

I'm telling people, choose to fight and practice small, daily acts of resistance.”

~ Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, in 19thNews 

• Fund - Maine’s New Solidarity Fund  
• Buy a book for a child targeted by ICE via Print: A Bookstore

• Learn To Observe:  Immigration Court Observation & Awareness Project |

• LEGISLATE Keep pressure on to pass LD 1971 and write / call the Governor to ask her to sign it.  Send thank you notes to your rep if they voted + and ask the to stick with it for the next round, and send an extra thank you to Rep Dhalac who is an incredible leader.

• Attend a protest event - every day more are being added

• Communicate: Plug back into Resist.Bot or 5Calls and remind all of our elected officials we refuse to live in a police state.

Susan Collins: (207) 618-5560‬

Angus King: P: (207) 245-1565

• Reflect This art is beautiful and can be used to create postcards, share online, etc.  — the images open up a different kind of response

• Read  I’m Your Neighbor Books is sharing #SanctuaryStories and continuing to offer free resources for schools, libraries and community groups - introductions are so helpful !  YA books are great for all of us.  There is tons of adult fiction too. Or, for non-fiction, host a bookclub and discuss The Cost of Being Undocumented

• Learn More Movement Memos podcast shares a unique vision / information about organizing, the institute for Othering and Belonging has fantastic big picture videos https://belonging.berkeley.edu/   More podcasts here: https://goodauthority.org/news/good-playlist-immigration-podcasts.  

• Donate  Start with Maine’s newest Solidarity Fund.  Also consider Maine Initiatives’ Immigrant Led Fund .   Presente! Is raising money specifically for their own farm, as is La Finca .   ILAP needs more lawyers!  MIRC needs everything.  Nuna is offering incredible healing / movement/ outdoors programming that will resonate with so many of you.  Hosting small fundraisers is pretty easy and does wonders!

• Volunteer  In Her Presence needs volunteers to work directly with women learning English, looking for work, and becoming new mothers.  Welcome The Stranger matches individuals as mentors.  Prosperity Maine is looking for mentors for college students, and for folks with financial questions.Cultivating Community uses volunteers for farming. However you like to spend time, there is a volunteer opportunity to connect with :)

• Know Your Rights and help others know theirs: https://ilapmaine.org/know-your-rights/   Know Your Rights | ACLU of Maine

Printable cards: Red Cards / Tarjetas Rojas - ILRC

• Care for community members - there are so many groups helping build networks for supporting everyday needs - Hope Acts , Neighbors in need 

and your own local community are good places to start.

• Post Carefully - disinformation abounds and it can be hard to get good info - ‘Panic benefits Ice’: local newsrooms fight back as immigrants face misinformation

• Visibility Brigades need more helpers - here’s 1, let me know if you’d like to be connected to a different one  portland.me.visbrigade@gmail.com (standing on overpass in Falmouth with signs)

Feminist Maine links

Shay - just sharing these as additional examples of what’s going on and how people can find things - I think there is a huge problem with big orgs having 1-off events but not real volunteer or member driven programs but there are a lot of events!  

FeministMaineLinks2025

Feminist Events / Social Justice  2025