ROSC believes having active relationships with organizations in our community is key to effective organizing. See the list below to learn about some of the groups we partner with.
ETR Mutual Aid
ETR Mutual Aid is a wealth redistribution project rooted in the values of community care and mutual aid. We move money to resource-deprived people in ways that promote dignity and remove barriers through direct cash transfers for basic survival needs like housing, food, medicine, utilities, transportation needs, and more. We also connect people with other resources and support outside of the scope of what we can offer. The money we move is gifted to us from people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth who have decided to redistribute their resources rather than hoard them. We are not a 501(c)(3) charity; we are just individuals with extensive lived experiences of poverty who are moving money in a trust-based way to people who are struggling to survive under end-stage capitalism. No person sharing their resources with this project gets any kind of tax benefit for doing so - they are doing so because wealth hoarding is wrong, and it's killing people. We consider what we do an act of mutual aid because it's built on trust, relationship-building, and mutual education between the people giving and the people receiving. Recipients often support one another as well.
For Us, By Us Fund
The For Us, By Us Fund (FUBU Fund) is a flexible funding and organizing initiative that seeks to support the creative and organizing efforts of people of color (PoC) in Maine. The initiative started after the election in November 2016, and was the brainchild of two Portland-based Black women organizers. The fund was started in response to the needs the founders heard in their communities. After the election, PoC in southern Maine expressed a need for funds, space, and opportunities to connect, collaborate, create, and organize. The founders are committed to keeping the fund flexible to respond to these needs.
The FUBU Fund is a collaborative project. Since its initial days, the FUBU Fund has sponsored a variety of organizing, growth, and skill-building opportunities for PoC in southern Maine.
Land in Common
We are a nonprofit community land trust (CLT) and land justice advocacy organization. We enact land justice through education, movement building, and collective forms of landholding and land redistribution. Since 2008, we have been working to build a multi-generational land base for sustainable livelihoods that supports diverse communities working for just, cooperative, and resilient futures in Maine.
Recognizing the deep inequities in land ownership, we strive to create secure access to life-sustaining land for people and communities who experience exclusion from land ownership due to economic and racial injustice. Our priorities include advancing the work of land return to Wabanaki communities and collaborating with Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC)-led organizations to secure permanent land tenure, which allows communities to meet their needs for housing, food, recreation and community connection.
Maine Coalition for Palestine
We are a broad and growing coalition of organizations and individuals sharing a commitment to justice for Palestinians. We are all volunteers. We have no paid staff.
Maine Environmental Education Association
The Maine Environmental Education Association (MEEA) builds environmental awareness, accountability, and action by centering equity and advancing systemic change. We create systemic change in environmental education through five impact areas: Fostering Youth Leadership, Supporting Educators, Prioritizing Research and Evaluation, Shifting Culture, and Advancing Transformative Policy. MEEA envisions a Maine where interconnectedness with the natural world is the root of environmental and social responsibility of all individuals, institutions, and communities.
Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition
Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition is a statewide group formed in 2007 to improve conditions for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, their families, survivors of harm, and others impacted by the criminal legal system.
MaineShare
MaineShare’s mission is to provide significant support to organizations doing progressive social justice and root cause work in Maine and to raise public awareness of their work. Values As an organization, MaineShare values integrity/ethics/fairness/truth, compassion, justice, inclusiveness, commitment, community, stewardship, respect, diversity, and fostering tolerance. These values correspond to how we do our work everyday, and how our members do their work.
Maine TransNet
MaineTransNet is a community based organization led by transgender people for transgender people. We provide peer-to-peer support groups, social and community events, advocacy for the transgender community across Maine, and training for medical, mental health, and social service providers. We engage transgender people and our allies across Maine in the practice of community building and organizing for mutual liberation. Our work is rooted in a deep desire to care for one another which informs how we build systems of mutual support centering accessibility, inclusivity, and hospitality; we view structures of power and oppression as interlocking.
Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine
The mission of the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine is to support and link groups and individuals concerned with peace, justice and a sustainable environment. The Center promotes its mission through mobilizing and organizing, educating and sharing resources, and celebrating the power of connections.
Peace and Justice Group of Waldo County
The mission of the Peace and Justice Group of Waldo County is to promote peace, justice, a clean environment, and good government; to become part of a caring community; to take constructive action locally to create a better world; and to be part of statewide and national efforts working for social change. They sponsor weekly peace vigils, monthly film showings, and send regular email notices of events in Waldo County to group supporters. They also meet each first Tuesday of the month to plan events and projects.
Pine Tree Youth Organizing
Pine Tree Youth Organizing (PTYO) is an alliance of young activists who collaborate with experienced organizers to build a truly independent, community-based, youth-led organization. PTYO doesn’t work for the government, the school system, the church or the military – they work for each other, helping other young people gain access to resources and organize meaningful projects. PTYO is a grassroots organization that acts as a youth organizing resource hub by offering trainings and workshops, matching people up with mentors, and by providing funding and network opportunities.
Portland Outright
Portland Outright is a youth-led, membership organization building the power of LGBTQ+ young people in Maine (aged 14-25) through intersectional organizing for LGBTQ+, racial, and economic justice. Our work is led by young, queer, trans, people/of color, and their allies from low-income communities in Maine who address homelessness, criminalization, racism, and health issues from the seat of personal experience. Our mission is to provide resources to alleviate the day-to-day struggles of our young participants while actively seeking long-lasting systemic change within our communities.
Presente! Maine
Presente! Maine works toward “empowerment and integration of the Latino community in Maine through education, community organizing, civic engagement, and direct support and services.” Some of their projects include the Food Brigade, which is delivering hundreds of pounds of food rations a week to undocumented people and poor people all over Maine, no questions asked, and The People’s Emergency Fund, which purchases basic survival goods (food, medicine, etc) and distributes those goods and money during the COVID-19 crisis to people *most* marginalized in this crisis, with the *least* access to other forms of aid.
Showing Up for Racial Justice – Central Maine
Central Maine SURJ organizes white Mainers in and around the Lewiston-Auburn area for racial justice through community organizing, mobilizing, and education. The violence communities of color experience due to their race is largely coming from white-controlled institutions and white communities, therefore it is our work to organize our communities to work for racial justice. Central Maine SURJ is dedicated to racial justice world-wide and specifically in our region. We know that even though we live in the whitest state in the country, racism and colonialism are present here just as they are elsewhere. Some examples of this are the governor’s racist and false comments linking drug problems in Maine to people of color, the state’s recent decision that the Penobscot Indian Reservation does not include the waters of Penobscot River, attacks on general assistance for asylum seekers, and the governor’s efforts to block refugees from coming to Maine. We are dedicated to stopping this oppression.
Southern Maine Workers’ Center
We’re a grassroots, member led organization working to improve the lives, working conditions, and terms of employment for working class and poor people in Maine.
Survivor Speak, USA
Survivor Speak USA (SSUSA) is a Maine-based, survivor-led organization working to end sex trafficking and sexploitation through centering the experiences, healing, voices, and leadership of survivors.
War Resisters League
The United States’ oldest secular pacifist organization, the War Resisters League has been resisting war at home and war abroad since 1923. Their work for nonviolent revolution has spanned decades and has been shaped by the new visions and strategies of each generation’s peacemakers. Through education, organizing, strategy, and direct action, the War Resisters League works to sow and grow seeds of peace and liberation in our time.
WERU
WERU Community Radio is an independent, noncommercial, educational media organization. The WERU mission is to engage with the community to provide diverse music, entertainment and alternative news and public affairs programming, with emphasis on local people, issues and cultures. WERU is a voice of many offering a wide variety of people an opportunity to share their experiences, concerns, and perspectives with their neighbors over the airwaves at 89.9, and on the Internet. One of ROSC’s former board members, Larry Dansinger, hosts a weekly think piece on WERU every Tuesday at 8:30am, called Outside the Box. To listen to archived episodes online click here.
Thank you for helping us grow a strong grassroots movement in “Maine”!
ROSC is a proud member of MaineShare