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Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine

WHY IT STARTED

The Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine is a network of Maine-based organizations engaged in a public health campaign working to phase out the long-lived toxic chemicals that build up in the food web and thus in humans.

Formed by Amanda Sears and Mike Belliveau, the same two people that founded partner organization the Environmental Health Strategy Center, the Alliance was created to help accomplish their larger goals, to protect people’s health from unnecessary toxic chemicals. The founders knew that one single organization would not be able to phase out these chemicals alone and recognized the need to be a part of a larger network.

WHO IS INVOLVED

Comprised of organizations with knowledge in policy, public health, environmental issues and community development, all organizations within the Alliance are dedicated to reframing the issues of human pollution. These organizations have been identified as key players due to their commitment to the health of the people of Maine.

To fund the start-up of this network, the Alliance was awarded a seed grant from the John Merck Fund. This support allowed each partner organization, the opportunity to fully commit to participating in the network.

There are two categories of supporters within the network:

1. Steering Committee: Organizations that are at the table regularly participating in goal setting and decision making for the Alliance, these are generally funded partners responsible for execution of a specific workplan for the coalition.
2. Endorsers: Organizations and businesses that publicly support the work of the Alliance

HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER

Transparency, trust and accountability are priorities for the Alliance. From the beginning, ground rules were established, leadership roles defined and expectations developed for partnering organizations. There is a dedicated facilitator whose role is to be the eyes and ears of the network and to keep the group goal-oriented.

The Alliance is committed to maintaining the health of the network while working toward meeting their programmatic goals. It has dedicated significant time and resources to develop the leadership skills of the individuals within the network. For example, the Alliance invested in “The Art of Collaborative Leadership,” a training from the Rockwood Leadership Institute that focuses on developing healthy collaboration practices. Participants found this training to be extremely valuable for:

1. The individuals themselves. Each person attending the training developed skills as leaders.
2. The Alliance as a whole. Each individual brought his/her newly developed leadership skills to his/her work with the Alliance.

As a result of this training the Alliance changed its structure,expanding leadership opportunities for members, it developed work teams based around functions of the network and various campaigns. The training allowed trust to deepen among the partners who now had a greater understanding of the motivations for each participant.

CHALLENGES

The Alliance is challenged to find the right way to work together between monthly coalition meetings. A long successful division of labor among workteams organized around expertise (ie. communications, outreach, policy, etc) had grown increasingly siloed without enough cross pollination of ideas between the teams so that structure was dismantled this year in favor of campaign teams. This new structure has not encouraged as much participation and leadership so the Alliance is challenged to find the right balance for ongoing campaign team work.

PROGRESS TOWARDS GOAL

In 2008 the Alliance successfully passed the Kids Safe Products Act, a law aimed to protect the health of children and other vulnerable populations by ensuring that priority chemicals of high concern in consumer products are replaced with safer alternatives.

As a network the Alliance drafted the legislation, worked to get it passed and are now working to implement the requirements. This accomplishment would not have been possible had there not been a network to help plan strategically and set priorities.

The Alliance has also been instrumental in building momentum for federal reform of toxic chemical policies. The Safe Chemicals Act, a federal bill which incorporates elements from Maine’s law was introduced in Congress in April and is the first real opportunity to fix the nations broken chemical safety laws in 34 years.