With New Grant Writing Skills, Students Raise $8,000 for Portland Nonprofit

The gift was the culmination of the students' participation in a monthslong program as Denning Fellows, a fellowship endowed by the Forest Foundationand named in honor of alumna Hanley Denning '92. Established by Mike Poor '64, the Forest Foundation provides nonprofit leadership opportunities for college students and also directly funds and supports nonprofits in the greater Boston area.

Each summer, the McKeen Center partners with the foundation to award a dozen or so Denning Fellowships to rising seniors, enabling them to work with a nonprofit over the summer on an issue related to their academic interests.

An optional part of the fellowship is the grant-writing workshop. This year, six Bowdoin students participated, meeting with Forest Foundation staff to learn about best practices for grant writing. They then collectively chose a Maine-based organization, wrote a grant application on its behalf, and presented their appeal to the foundation's board. The nonprofits can be granted between $5,000 to $8,000 from the Forest Foundation.

The fellows selected Hope Acts, a Portland-based nonprofit focused on helping asylum seekers transition to life in Maine. Their application received the full amount of $8,000, and seniors recently presented the check to Martha Stein, the executive director of Hope Acts.

"It's always very humbling and exciting to be nominated," Stein said. She qas invited to the McKeen Center to meet with students and receive the grant. "To be chosen is even more exciting because we rely on individual people, grants, [and] community members. We have to raise all of our funding every single year."

Fellows Eli Mears '26 and Eden Zumbrun '26 said the group selected Hope Acts after deciding the organization's mission was timely and required funding now more than ever.

Mears said the choice became clear to him after he visited Hope House-one of the resources offered by Hope Acts where asylum seekers can live and receive support-and saw the impact it has on people in the community.

"When I went in to visit, it was really incredible. ...I learned that they got thousands of work permits here for people, which are so important, and they offer language classes. Everything was bustling."

Mears said the experience of learning grant writing was useful practice for the real world and gave him a taste of the hard work that goes into it. He said he was left feeling inspired by the difference that contributions to philanthropies can make.

Zumbrun echoed that she was grateful to have real-life experience that she can point to in the future when applying for jobs.

Tom Ancona, the associate director at the McKeen Center who is responsible for overseeing the Denning Fellowship, said this year's fellows were some of the most "polished presenters" he had seen in the over a decade-long history of the Denning Forest Foundation program.

He was excited that the fellows opted to present the check to Hope Acts in person, stating that it "demonstrates how meaningful the experience was for them."

Zumbrun said the group was convinced that each individual Hope Acts helps sees their life improve. "It feels like every single person you see who goes through this organization genuinely has had something remarkable change for them," she added.

Ancona said the McKeen Center was deeply grateful to the Forest Foundation "for investing their time and resources into our students and into our Maine-based nonprofits each year."