Grassroots and NonProfit Support
...helping people shape the future of western Maine.

Western Mountains Alliance provides coaching, technical assistance and facilitation services to grassroots groups and organizations in the region. 

Our staff can help focus your group’s work, get a project off the ground, connect you with resources, or assist in developing solutions. Give us a call to talk about your group’s needs.

• Facilitation
• Strategic Planning
• Fundraising
• Organizational Development
• Network Development
• Convening

We are currently working with the following organizations

The Washburn-Norlands Living History Center (Norlands) in Livermore Maine is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the former family home and farm of the Washburns, one of the great political and industrial dynasties of the 19th century.  Of the ten children born to Israel and Martha Washburn, seven sons rose to serve as governors, congressmen, a United States senator, Secretary of State, foreign ministers, a Civil War general, and a Navy captain. 

Today, Norlands is a nonprofit multifaceted museum offering in-depth educational experiences in 18th and 19th century rural life.  The visitor is an active participant in daily and seasonal farming and housework, and becomes involved in the social, political and educational activities of the times. 

Washburn-Norlands Living History Center’s Board of Directors and staff are engaged in a strategic plan for development and sustainablility.  Western Mountains Alliance’s staff Kathleen Beauregard is an active Board member, facilitating planning and project meetings.

“Katheen Beauregard's work with and for Norlands may very well have made the difference between the survival of our organization's public serviceprograms, and their demise.  Her pertinent advice, drawn from a depth and breadth of practical experience, and her tactful guidance have helped our board to develop plans and to undertake specific initiatives that are fostering our progress toward sustainable stability.”

– Mitchell Clyde Thomas, President of the Wasburn-Norlands Living History Center Board of Directors

Mt Blue Community Access TV was a project of Western Mountains Alliance beginning in 1996, as one priority resulting from a region-wide strategic planning process called Sustain Western Maine.  From that point until 2005, WMA provided facilitation, coaching and fiscal sponsorship for the fledging organization.
 
“Our mission,” says JP Fortier, Director of MBTV, “is to have a center rich in technology and to use it as a medium to communicate with the rest of the community.  …We're able to tape the legislative caucus breakfasts, Selectman’s meetings for Farmington and Wilton, [and a wide variety of community forums.]  [People can] get a good look at what's actually going on inside of local government, which in turn is empowering the community.  I think that's really big."

“WMA connected us with resources like the college and the non-profits of the area.  It all started when I had a meeting with a member of the University of Maine at Farmington and members of the community and we all worked together to form what Mt. Blue TV is today.…I have a lot of pride because what the station is today came from that foundation, from all these connections.”

“One of the things that I was inspired to do through WMA was to put Mt. Blue TV on the map because Community Television Association of Maine is a southern Maine organization and I wanted to bring western Maine in and let them know, hey, we have a community access TV station up here.  I have [developed] an informal regionalization of all the western Maine Community Access TV stations.  So now we have [a network] with stations from Canton to Madison, Skowhegan, Bethel, Norway and South Paris…that we share programming with. 

“I think of WMA as starting these seedlings and when they get to a certain point they plant them and let them go.…[When the] station was flourishing and we finally cut the ties with WMA, we were our own non-profit 501C3 organization and I think we're a great success.  It was a huge asset that WMA supported us [as a fiscal agent and helped us] to access resources.…That's definitely very big.”

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