When asked about the work she does in and for Maine, Jan Anderson Kearce quoted founder of Outward Bound
Kurt Hahn: “There is more in you than you think.” She added, “There is more in me than I know today. There is more in all of us working together than we can possibly imagine.” Kearce is the executive director of Lift360, a Portland-based organization that offers consulting services to nonprofits to help drive their missions and impact forward. The organization has worked with more than 200 nonprofits that in one year serve 50,000 people in Maine and New Hampshire. Lift360 also facilitates leadership programs to help all businesses—public and private. Kearce became the executive director of the Institute for Civic Leadership and maintained that role when the nonprofit merged with Common Good Ventures to form Lift360. Her work has included partnering with the Portland Public Library on the Choose Civility Initiative, a platform to discuss societal change and to position the library as a community center, and TEDxDirigo to produce Engage, a conference designed to highlight the contributions of Mainers to their own communities.