In its second year of grant making, the Maine Community Foundation’s Start Up/Scale Up Grant Program is providing $225,000 to 11 Maine nonprofit organizations that are helping new ventures start and grow through shared workspaces and incubator and accelerator programs.

MaineCF donors and partners made an additional eight grants totaling $183,141.

The local 2021 grantees include:

• Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Farmington, to create a maker-space within its downtown retail store so that youth can strengthen skills and engage in entrepreneurial ventures;

• Main Street Skowhegan, to create a business accelerator program and entrepreneurial facility to assist rural entrepreneurs and small business owners in Skowhegan; and

• Town of Lisbon, to support the Digital Advertising Bootcamp, a training and tailored consulting for entrepreneurs in Lisbon and throughout the state.

The Start Up/Scale Up grant program is now closed. A complete list of both 2020 and 2021 grants is available at mainecf.org. Questions about the grant program should be directed to Senior Program Officer Maggie Drummond-Bahl at [email protected] or 207-412-0839.