This is an annual event organized by the Maine Association of Nonprofits where legislators have the opportunity to learn more about the essential work that nonprofits do to keep our state healthy in every sense of the word: physically, economically, culturally, and more.  There are so many ways that you can get involved right from your desk.  Be sure to check out the Maine Nonprofit Day page on MANP's website to find out more: http://www.nonprofitmaine.org/advocate/nonprofit-day-at-the-state-house/.

One of the things that Maine Archives and Museums has done to participate is to finalize its new Economic Impact Statement. This statement is the result of a survey we conducted of our institutional members in 2013/14, so we have solid data to back up our assertion that Maine's collecting institutions are important economic drivers and that the big picture is one of dedicated, serious-minded organizations that serve the statewide community and give far more than they receive.  Please use this statement in any way that you can think of to support, promote, and advocate for all that our industry does for Maine: put it on your website and social media pages, share it with your trustees, include it in fundraising requests and grant proposals, put a stack on your front desk.  You helped to write it, so this is your statement, too.  Here it is (click on "Economic Impact Statement"):

The Association of

Maine Archives and Museums

Economic Impact Statement 2014

If you represent one of the institutions that responded to the survey, thank you especially for helping MAM to pull this together in time for Maine Nonprofit Day as well as National Museums Advocacy Day, which is also coming right up!  Don't forget that you can use your own answers to the survey to create your own individualized Economic Impact Statement--feel free to use MAM's as a model and cut-and-paste to your heart's content.  That's what it's there for!  Need to dig up your original answers?  Just contact MAM's president, Jessica Routhier (and survey master) at jsrouthier@gmail.com.

Finally: if you haven't yet connected with MAM on social media, now's the time!  There will be lots to share this month.