Maine Women's Policy Center

Mission and Story

Our Mission

The Maine Women's Policy Center was founded in 1990 to improve the economic, social, and political status of women and girls in Maine through public policy and leadership development.

The Maine Women's Policy Center is committed to systemic change. For 20 years, we have organized, trained, and supported women to effectively participate in the policy-making process. We have consistently backed up women's real life experiences with research and facts, and partnered with our sister organization, the Maine Women's Lobby, to amplify their concerns in the legislature and develop policy solutions that address their needs. We especially seek to serve those women who are underrepresented in the formation of public policy - particularly rural women and women with low incomes.

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Our Focus

Here at the Maine Women's Policy Center, we are dedicated to creating equality for Maine's women and girls. Our motto is, and our focus continues to be, valuing women's lives.

We hold four main areas to be the focus of our goals: economic security, civil rights, freedom from violence, and secure health care and reproductive rights.

Our Programs

The Maine Women’s Policy Center is committed to systemic change. For 20 years, we have organized, trained, and supported women to effectively participate in the policy-making process. We have consistently backed up women’s real life experiences with research and facts and partnered with the Maine Women’s Lobby to amplify their concerns in the legislature and develop policy solutions that address their needs. While our constituency is all Maine women and girls, we especially seek to serve those who are underrepresented in the formation of public policy – particularly rural women and women with low incomes.

One of our major successes has been around welfare reform. In 1994, the Maine Women’s Policy Center (then known as the Women’s Development Institute) spearheaded a research and public education campaign that was designed to shift the debate surrounding welfare reform from stereotypes about women’s behavior to the status of women in the economy. The effort, carried out in cooperation with 14 other organizations and a steering committee of low-income women, played a key role in preventing popular but punitive welfare “reform” measures from passing in Maine. The Maine Women’s Policy Center developed and publicized Maine-based information on welfare receipt and the low-wage labor market. We also provided training to low-income women to organize and speak out. The Maine Women’s Policy Center laid the groundwork and created a policy-making environment where Maine has developed programs, such as the model “Parents as Scholars” initiative, aimed at providing real economic opportunity to women on assistance.

More recently, the Maine Women’s Policy Center lead the fight for Pay Equity by conducting the research, education, and advocacy necessary to force the implementation of Maine’s 1965 comparable pay law. Our publication of Fair Pay: Achieving Pay Equity for Maine's Working Families helped position pay equity not only as an issue of equality but as a strategy for poverty reduction. In 2001, we developed Maine's Unemployment Compensation System and the Full-Time Work Requirement, part of an education strategy that helped secure passage of unemployment insurance for those workers—predominantly women—who choose to work part-time.

Understanding that policy solutions cannot exist independently of women occupying positions of power, the Maine Women’s Policy Center also convenes several leadership development events to promote systemic change through the empowerment, advancement, and full participation of women and girls in society. Our leadership development programs aim to enable women and girls to become active leaders in their communities and have a far-reaching impact.

2008 Annual Report
Maine Women's Policy Center 990s

 
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