Maine businesses are hungry for additional resources. Maine’s unemployed (and underemployed) population includes many talented experienced professionals eager to find their next job. These idled workers want to help businesses grow and create jobs. Work it UP is a new and innovative business that connects Unemployed Professionals (That’s what the “UP” in Work it UP stands for) with valuable short term projects for Maine’s businesses, municipalities, and non-profit organizations. Unemployed Professional workers participating in the Work it UP program perform projects for business clients. Work it UP maintains a skills assessment database of the participants and coordinates project management, project leadership, and teambuilding training. Project team members are selected from the resource pool of participants in the Work it UP program, typically unemployed or underemployed workers from a variety of professional backgrounds comprising a diverse range of professional experiences, skills, talents, and capabilities. These short term, pro bono project teams manage and execute the project targeted to the specific business needs of the client. Participants in the Work it UP program enjoy the following benefits: • By participating in projects they have an opportunity to showcase their knowledge, skills and abilities for prospective employers. • They gain real time project management experience and skills development. • They develop professional business contacts via networking within client businesses with other client employees. • They obtain current high value project work experience for their resume. • Since the projects are short term and may only require part-time participation, they are still able to continue their job search and receive unemployment benefits. Work it UP business client benefits include: • Access to experienced and skilled professionals and project teams customized to specific project specifications. • Design and delivery of targeted project work which they may not otherwise be able to resource or fund. • An opportunity to strengthen their competitive advantage or jump start a critical new program. • Opportunity to see potential employees in action. Work it UP incorporated in June 2009 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Our mission is to put Unemployed Professionals back to work faster than by conventional methods. In August, Work it UP’s 4-person staff became the Professionals-in-Residence at the Maine Center for Enterprise Development (MCED) and opened our offices at MCED’s business incubator on the USM campus. We are social entrepreneurs. We’re passionate about our mission, but we operate on the solid business principle of self-sustainability. Our goal is to be a state-wide program, staffing over 100 projects annually, and serving over 300 participants each year. The Work it UP program will inject an annual economic stimulus of over $2.5 million to Maine businesses. Reducing the duration of unemployment for program participants will generate another $1.5 million in earned wages in the state. This $4 million total annual benefit to the state will be produced by talent and experience that is currently left on the sidelines, or worse, exits the state for better job opportunities. Maine’s Unemployed Professionals want to get back in the game and produce valuable results while they search for jobs. In this difficult economy Maine can’t afford NOT to have a program like this. For more information: www.workitup.org