ROCKLAND — OUT Maine has received a grant from the Onion Foundation to fund three learning cohort groups in 2025 with the goal of developing best practices around the implementation of inclusive programming in the arts and culture sector. The cohorts will be offered in April, August, and October of this year.

The cohorts will begin with an in-person training day covering foundational best practices, a self-assessment, and goal setting for each organization. After the in-person training day, cohort participants may attend regular virtual follow-up meetings to check in on group progress towards goals and cover specific topics more in depth. OUT Maine encourages 2-3 members from each participating organization to attend, which can include leadership, board members, or programming staff.

This is the second year that the Onion Foundation has partnered with OUT Maine for educational cohort programs, but the first in which the cohorts are open to any organization in the arts and culture sector, and not limited to existing partners.

“We’re really excited about these cohorts, and the personalized and sustained support they allow us to offer,” says Maggie Hirshland (they/she), Youth Engagement Coordinator with OUT Maine, in a news release. “With group-based shared learning, more organizations, communities, and individuals will have the resources and skills to support their LGBTQ+ participants and staff. It'll also serve as a great opportunity for those organizations to build community and work together to create more affirming and welcoming environments all across Maine, which is more important now than ever before.”

To learn more about the OUT Maine x Onion Foundation cohorts, email info@outmaine.org, or visit OUT Maine’s website.

LGBTQIA2S+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning, intersex, and two-spirit. Allies are folks who do not identify as LGBTQIA2S+ but have camaraderie with the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Cis or cisgender means a person’s gender identity and sex-assigned-at-birth match. If gender identity and sex-assigned-at-birth do not match, a person may identify as transgender. For more definitions of LGBTQ+ terminology, visit www.outmaine.org/resources/terminology.

OUT Maine has an ambitious goal: to create more welcoming and affirming communities for Maine’s diverse queer youth in all their intersectional identities by changing the very systems that serve them. For more information, please visit www.outmaine.org.