Welcome to Real Time, a community building blog that seeks to provoke thought, encourage conversation, and help our friends and colleagues understand what goes on "behind the scenes" at the Maine Community Foundation.
Jun
23
Written by:
Meredith Jones
6/23/2009 11:31 AM
Four years ago the Maine Community Foundation and Maine Development Foundation created the Maine Compact for Higher Education, a broad-based coalition to increase the educational attainment level of all Maine citizens.
Educational attainment is a key predictor of community vitality. If we want to increase the number of Maine citizens who have education beyond high school, we need to get more high school students to college, for sure.
We also need to look at ways to get more adults back to the classroom since in the next ten years, 90% of all jobs in high growth sectors will require training beyond high school.
MaineCF has secured funding from two national foundations for the Employers’ Initiative, a program of the Maine Development Foundation, which asks employers to take one more step (52kB PDF) to encourage employees to think about college. It doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money.
We are one of 23 employers to sign on to the program, and we encourage your involvement. There’s no better gift you can give to your employees, your organization, or your community.
Contact Program Director Pat Hart at pathart@mdf.org for more information and sign-up materials. Help us reach our goal of having 500 employers commit to making Maine the best educated state in the nation.
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2 comment(s) so far...
Re: Calling All Businesses: Give the Gift of Education
You're right that educational attainment is a key to community vitality. United Way of America has recently released the "Common Good Forecaster," an interactive tool to explore the impact of education on Maine's communities. Although this is only in it's early stages, still lacking data from the lowest-populated areas, it's amazing to see what effect education levels can have not only on financial stability, but health, civic participation, and more. Check it out at www.liveunited.org/forecaster/
By Meredith Eaton on
6/30/2009 11:44 AM
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Re: Calling All Businesses: Give the Gift of Education
In addition to encouraging employees to continue or resume their educational growth, Employers' Initiative members can increase the number of Mainers who pursue higher education by partnering with local schools to reach their employees who are parents with college promotion and financial aid access information. Simply posting an announcement for Maine College Goal Sunday could encourage an employee to attend with her or his highschooler.
By Ray Cook on
7/7/2009 10:26 AM
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