News from Planet Maine…

The site that started it all! This classic html-based website evolved into an essential resource for Maine’s community of environmental professionals and activists. The news portion spun off as today’s Maine Environmental News site.

“The Maine Environmental Policy Institute’s web site, with its thorough coverage of breaking environmental stories and its excellent archive, has been an extremely useful resource to me and to my Bowdoin College students. Students in my environmental economics and policy course have been able to access up-to-the-minute news on several course topics, ranging from the forestry referendum to sustainable forestry certification, implementation of the Maine Toxics Use Reduction Act, the Wyman Power Station’s compliance with NOx reduction standards, and the Holtrachem plant shutdown.

I check the site nearly every day and have found dozens of relevant articles from newspapers that I do not read regularly. These have kept me up to date on an array of issues that relate both to my research on nature tourism and to my work as a Natural Resources Council of Maine board member and an Eco-Eco Civic Forum steering committee member.

Without meepi.org, I would be far less informed about environmental issues and I would have to expend far more time keeping myself minimally informed.”

– David Vail, Adams-Catling Professor

Dartmouth Properties manages 6 apartment buildings and over 70 units in Portland, Maine. They called on Planet Maine to help fill their units and to streamline the management process.

The site features rotating photos of the buildings and units, email forms for showing and maintenance requests, and a ‘staff only’ section that records tenant and maintenance records for each building and unit.

“Managing over 70 apartment units and twice as many tenants can be a real challenge. Planet Maine created an awesome website for us that makes our lives much easier and better organized! They even came up with ideas we had not even thought of to help manage our information flow, like an email form to request a showing, and another for reporting maintenance issues. These go to the right person quickly and cut down on the phone ringing! Another idea they implemented was having a ‘staff only’ section for each building and unit in order to track tenant information and maintenance history.

Another important goal for the site was that it bring in new business and help fill up our units. Planet Maine has taught even us non-progammers how to easily update our content. We can put up a new unit the day it becomes available, or take one down as soon as it is full. They also showed us how to present the units in an appealing way. We are very pleased with their work, and they continue to help us with everything from new features to marketing and Google adwords.”

– Cindy Lowry, Dartmouth Properties, LLC

The Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine is a diverse coalition of nine Maine-based organizations that have embarked upon a multi-year public health campaign to phase out the long-lived toxic chemicals that build up in the food web and humans.

This sharply designed website features rotating photos, newsfeeds, and a customized contact form, allowing visitors to check the group they wish to connect with. An email is sent to the person from that organization and the information is also stored in the website’s database.

“Planet Maine provided excellent support and guidance throughout our website development project. The staff at Planet Maine have extensive experience working with and understanding non-profit organizations. This was a big help to our process as we had many evolving ideas and changes of deadlines, and we needed to ensure that members of our diverse coalition were happy with the final product. Formatting and posting some of the content, like our featured report entitled Body of Evidence, was quite complicated and involved. Planet Maine presented all of the content in an attractive, legible and professional manner, projecting an image perfectly aligned with our campaign themes. The functionality and layout of the site is just right for our coalition of partners. Our constituents and the media also find it very easy to navigate and use, and we really like being able to change content whenever we want to. This project came together on budget and in time for the release of our big report. Planet Maine continues to monitor our website and provide detailed statistical analysis of visitorship. I really enjoy collaborating with the folks at Planet Maine.”

– Amanda Sears, Environmental Health Strategy Center

This site has custom features that help the foundation streamline its operation and organize their application process. Those visiting the site can review the guidelines of the foundation, download the application, and submit a concept letter and application online. The concept letters and applications can then be viewed, evaluated, discussed and ranked by board members online. The entire process is paperless!

“Planet Maine designed a website for our family foundation that is both visually appealing and very user friendly. When we began working with Planet Maine, Will Sugg gave us various websites to explore for ideas, made design suggestions, and then worked closely with us on the visual elements of the site.

In addition to the design he provided technical support on several occasions therefore simplifying the grant application process for the applicants and the review of materials by board members.

With his background in non-profit work, Will offered many recommendations that went above and beyond web site development that have helped us tremendously as we continue to improve the efficiency of our application process.

Because of Planet Maine’s web design and continued support, we are able to manage e-mail lists and data in an organized manner. We continually add new photographs to our site, and we have added a concept letter submission form and evaluation process that has been incredibly beneficial.

The website design and technical assistance all happened on time and even came in under budget!”
– Hannah Quimby, Project Manager, Quimby Family Foundation.