The Sewall Foundation works with our partners to create a thriving, healthy, and resilient rural Maine where communities envision and guide their future. We support collaborative backbone infrastructure and partnerships that co-create solutions to structural problems with the communities closest to the issues at hand and achieve outcomes beyond what any single organization could achieve on their own.

2025 available funding: $2,885,000

Program Contact: Tom Boutureira, Community Partner

Photo courtesy of Women for Healthy Rural Living

Priorities

For over a decade, the Sewall Foundation has focused on place-based rural grantmaking in the Katahdin Region and Washington County. Over the next three years (2025-2027), we will continue to prioritize work in the Katahdin Region and Washington County while also exploring ways to expand support by 2027 for additional regional, statewide, and cross-sector partnerships.

Priority work supported in the past includes:

  • Affordable housing

  • Broadband expansion

  • Climate change planning and adaptation

  • Community development

  • Economic development

  • Food systems

  • Human health and social service systems change initiatives

  • Natural resource-based economic opportunities (ex. regional trail systems, industrial mill site cleanup and redevelopment)

  • Regional visioning or planning initiatives

  • Two-generation (2Gen) approaches

  • Wabanaki partnerships (land back, habitat restoration, economic development)

  • Workforce development and training

Grantmaking

2025 Available Funding: $2,885,000

Generally, grant funding levels in this program area are:

  • Individual organizations: $10,000 to $60,000 per year

    • Increased funding amounts may be available to organizations that are acting as a hub for federal grants or that have special capital, operating, or project needs.

  • Collaborative efforts involving multiple organizations/groups: up to $200,000 per year

    • Occasionally, organizations may apply for both organizational and collaborative funds

  • Transformational opportunities: variable funding levels

    • These efforts address critical community and regional priorities and create sustainable, systemic changes. Generally, funding is limited to one to two years.

 

2025 Application Information

Applications are due by February 13, at 5pm. Grant decisions will be announced by the end of April, 2025.

2025 Rural Partnerships Grants Fact Sheet

We recommend reviewing the 2025 Sewall Grant Application Guide prior to starting an application, which includes guidelines, instructions, application questions and a description of attachments. For your reference, a word document of the application questions can be found here.

If this is your first time applying to the Sewall Foundation, we recommend following our Creating an Account Guide for step by step instructions.

Click on the button to start a new application, or return to an in-progress application.

Grantee Stories

We’re pleased to present this series of articles on our inspiring grant partners.

Our Katahdin has received six Healthy People Healthy Places grants since 2017. Read to learn how Our Katahdin’s collaborative volunteer movement is breathing new life into the former mill town of Millinocket, Maine, and bringing jobs back to the region.

Sunrise County Economic Council (SCEC) has received 10 Healthy People Healthy Places grants since 2013. Read to learn how SCEC is bringing together businesses, nonprofits, municipalities, and citizens to create jobs and prosperity in Washington County.