ALL IN FOR
PROGRESS
Investing in Maine’s long-term progressive future.
The Maine Democracy Collaborative (MDC) works to build lasting power through year-round investments in strategic progressive infrastructure organizations in Maine.
WHY MDC
WE BRING TOGETHER THE POWER OF MANY to win smarter, bigger and for longer.
WE ARE AN ACTIVE INVESTOR working in partnership with grantees and taking a leadership role to connect key political partners.
WE CREATE AND SUPPORT COLLABORATIONS that connect all these efforts, making them stronger and more effective and helping everyone to win big.
WE ARE NIMBLE and able to direct and shift resources in the rapidly changing political environment.
WE BUILD A SHARED VISION through planning with and funding organizations that share values.
What We Support
Data And Targeting
We partner with those who share data, best practices, and strategies to build relationships that create change.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
We craft and communicate a powerful narrative across all media platforms in a language that resonates with Mainers.
LONG-TERM PLANNING AND COLLABORATION
We work to make sure short-term electoral plans align with our long-term plans and vision for Maine’s future.
YEAR-ROUND ORGANIZING
We build lasting relationships with people across Maine, from rural areas to cities to our coast.
Policy Development
With our partners, we have research-backed policy proposals at the ready for our elected leaders to turn into reality.
Leadership and Candidate Development
We support organizations engaged in candidate and staff recruitment and training, keeping the pipeline filled.
Our Team
Katie Mae Simpson
Executive Director
Katie is a political and non-profit professional, She has led campaigns and helped train dozens of women to run for public office. Interested in power structures, privilege, hierarchies, and how to break them down, she is committed to the broad themes of equity and justice, and being part of those ongoing movements for change. She’s spent her career organizing groups to fight for their collective rights, and subsequently training pockets of those people in the skills necessary to run for office and win, thereby building more equality into the public institutions we all rely on. She has worked in various field organizing roles, as a campaign manager and completed a tour of duty as the Executive Director of the Maine Democratic Party.
Climate change and a thriving planet have been her chief career motivation for almost two decades; politics is the tool she has chosen to use to push for that goal. She is currently the director of the Maine Democracy Collaborative, raising funds for progressive political movements in Maine. Katie Mae works closely with both in-state and national infrastructure partner organizations, and other funding organizations, and is generally in charge of ongoing external relationships and landscape analysis.
Katie Mae grew up in Washington County and spent almost a decade in Boston before moving home to Maine in 2010. After eight years in Portland, Katie Mae, her partner, and two kids moved to Cumberland in 2019, mainly for the trees & trails. Besides parenting (and working), Katie Mae is a runner, baker, and home gardener.
Sarah Skillin Woodard
Deputy Executive Director
Sarah has over fifteen years of political, policy, and advocacy experience. She serves as the Deputy Director of the Maine Democracy Collaborative, the only organization in Maine using strategic philanthropy to advance the state’s progressive political and policy movements. Before working with MDC, Sarah championed the nonprofit sector while both the Advocacy and Public Affairs Director for the Maine Association of Nonprofits and the Maine Philanthropy Center. As Executive Director of Emerge Maine, she helped elect record numbers of women to office culminating in the first majority of women seated in the state legislature. She’s worked numerous election cycles, most notably for Shenna Bellows’ US Senate and Secretary of State campaigns, Brownie Carson’s State Senate races, and Jackie Sartoris for District Attorney.
Sarah lives in Freeport with the smartest man in any room, award-winning journalist and best-selling author, Colin Woodard, and their two fun and not terribly well-behaved children. She’s a music and comedy nerd and loves spending time in beautiful Stonington, Maine.
Sarah handles all things membership and recruitment and advises MDC members about their giving.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
Together, let’s advance Maine’s progressive movement.
