The Inner Harbor Project was founded in 2012 with the goal of understanding and ameliorating the root causes of tensions between teenagers, police, retailers and visitors at the Inner Harbor. After two years of observation and research, the Project’s founder, working with Baltimore City high school students, determined that much of the tension and youth violence stemmed from young people feeling excluded and unwelcome in the Inner Harbor. In response, the Inner Harbor Project developed and implemented five youth-led programs to assuage tension and increase harmony in the Inner Harbor. Juvenile arrests in the Inner Harbor subsequently decreased 58 percent (from 2012-2015). This Management Assistance Grant provided funds for a strategic planning consultant to determine how the organization will grow in the future, including whether to expand its geographic focus to other public spaces in the city.

This grant supports The ASSOCIATED’s Jewish Community Services, which provides financial assistance to address urgent needs of economically disadvantaged clients, and the Jewish Community Center, which provides need-based scholarships to struggling families.

This grant supports the Baltimore Scholars Program, which offers full-tuition scholarships for Baltimore City public high-school students who are accepted to Johns Hopkins University. In 2015-2016, fifty-one scholarships were awarded. Since 1976, the foundation has awarded nearly $5.5 million towards 1001 scholarship awards at the Johns Hopkins University.

This grant supports the Goldseker Fellows Program, which provides financial assistance to graduate students pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees at Morgan State University. Since 1976, the foundation has awarded nearly $5.5 million toward 2,224 graduate fellowships. Fellows are selected by the University.

BENI’s mission is to foster an environment where residents, business owners, and stakeholders feel confident to invest their time energy and money. To do so, the organization offers pre-purchase education and one-on-one counseling; foreclosure intervention services; small business development and promotion; community organizing and outreach; neighborhood marketing; resources available through Baltimore Main Streets; and small grants for block improvement projects through Healthy Neighborhoods. This grant provided core operating support.

Bikemore was established in 2012 to increase and improve bicycle infrastructure, policies, and awareness to create a safer, healthier and more livable Baltimore through advocacy, education and outreach programs that seek to connect citizens to the benefits of bicycling. This grant was for core operating support.

Located in Downtown Baltimore, the Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District was established in 2012 to realize the area’s potential as a thriving downtown arts neighborhood. The Bromo Tower A&E District, anchored to the south by the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, stretches north to include the historic Lexington Market and up to Antique Row, just blocks away from Mount Vernon. The District builds on a significant collection of existing cultural assets, including large visual and performing arts venues and local artist-run spaces offering a professional, high-caliber of visual artistic production and display, performance art and theatre. This grant provided core operating support.

The Charles Village Community Benefits District (CVCBD) is a special taxing district located in a 100 square block area of north Baltimore. With a population exceeding 14,000 and with more than 700 businesses, it is home to four neighborhoods: Abell, Charles Village, Harwood, and Old Goucher (and parts of two others: Remington and Barclay) and three business associations: North Charles Business Association, Old Goucher Business Alliance and Waverly Main Street. The CVCBD provides supplemental sanitation and safety services, supports community events, recreational activities and the development of amenities such as green spaces, and promotes the district as a good place to live, work and play. This grant provided funding to support and expand public safety efforts.

The mission of Community Law Center is to provide legal services to community and nonprofit organizations throughout Maryland to promote stronger nonprofits and more vibrant neighborhoods. Community Law Center also develops self-help publications (e.g., The Community Association’s Guide to the Development Process in Baltimore City), workshops, and training programs for its clients, community leaders, and more than 500 volunteer attorneys. This grant provided core operating support.

Since 1983, CHAI has increased home ownership and economic stability in northwest Baltimore; increased neighborhood safety and strengthened community associations and public schools through community organizing; served the needs of low-income senior adults through the Senior Home Repair and Modification Program, Senior Friendly Neighborhoods, and Senior Community Engagement; assisted hundreds of people every year to become homeowners and renovate and upgrade their homes through its Homeownership Services program; produced or renovated 1,488 units of multi-family housing for low-income senior adults; enabled hundreds of low-income senior adults to stay in their homes safely and affordably; and provided foreclosure counseling to approximately 130 homeowners annually. This grant provided core operating support.

Since 1998, The Friends of Patterson Park has been instrumental in facilitating a renaissance of Patterson Park and its surrounding neighborhoods. In the 1990s, volunteer residents, historians, planners, and architects came together to work with the Baltimore City Department of Recreation & Parks to develop a Master Plan for the park that would lead to the renovation of the park’s Pagoda, Boat Lake, and Marble Foundation. Over the years, the Friends has continued to partner with BCRP and many neighborhood organizations and volunteers to create a safe and welcoming park and community for Baltimore families of a wide variety of economic and cultural backgrounds. This grant supported the Friends’ community outreach programs.

Hamilton Lauraville Main Street has been the neighborhood partner to the Northeast Schools Alliance since 2011, helping to market Northeast Baltimore’s great school options to families residing in or considering a move to Northeast. The original schools–Hamilton Elementary Middle School, City Neighbors Charter School, and St. Francis of Assisi School–are now joined by Garrett Heights Elementary Middle School in HLMS’ marketing plan. This grant provided funding for a marketing campaign for Garrett Heights Elementary Middle School, to be managed by HLMS.

Humanim is a human services and workforce development organization. Its Details program is an initiative focused on precision deconstruction of vacant structures and innovative material reclamation and reuse. Humanim views deconstruction as a growing industry with great potential for strong returns in social and environmental impacts, as well as financial sustainability. This grant provided funds for Humanim’s deconstruction social enterprise.

HEBCAC’s mission is to work with residents and other stakeholders to improve neighborhoods in the 220-block area bounded by Edison Highway, Aisquith Street, North Avenue, and Fayette Street. Since its founding, HEBCAC has implemented a series of programs that address both the physical infrastructure and human capital issues faced by residents of the neighborhoods within which it works. This grant provided funds to develop a new plan for a strategic market intervention to address the scattered and inconsistent real estate market currently operating in East Baltimore.

Baltimore Green Space, founded in 2007, is a land trust that partners with communities to preserve and support community gardens, forest patches, pocket parks, and other community-managed open spaces. This Management Assistance Grant provided funds for a strategic planning consultant.

Amanda Lipitz, a renowned documentary filmmaker and musical producer, is the director/producer of a new documentary film, STEP, chronicling the lives of a group of young women that attend the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women. One of the young women featured in the film goes on to become a Baltimore Scholar at Johns Hopkins University (the Goldseker Foundation is the largest private funder of the Baltimore Scholars Program). This grant provided project funding for the film.

In recent years, the PTO at Garrett Heights Elementary Middle School has grown from 20 to 47 members who have worked actively with the principal to develop a vision for how the school could improve both its student achievement and its reputation in the community. The school leadership and community rallied around a shared vision to transform Garrett Heights into a public Montessori school. This grant provided funds for program design and training in Montessori for public sector schools.

Francis Scott Key Elementary Middle School has a sizable and well-maintained facility in South Baltimore, with the capacity to educate up to 750 students comfortably. With support from the Goldseker Foundation for outreach activities, elementary school enrollment has been growing since 2013. This grant provided funds for middle school improvement and recruitment, to replicate success achieved at the elementary level in attracting enrichment partners and increasing enrollment.

Calvin Rodwell Elementary School is located in the Howard Park community of Northwest Baltimore, a Healthy Neighborhood. As a result of the Neighborhood-School Partnership funded by the Goldseker Foundation from 2009-2013, Calvin Rodwell Elementary developed an ongoing partnership with City Neighbors Foundation, which has been mentoring CRES staff in Project-Based Learning. This grant provides funds for training the after-school program staff to implement Project-Based Learning.

The Southwest Partnership consists of residents, business owners, workers, visitors, church members, and partners in the neighborhoods of Barre Circle, Franklin Square, Hollins Roundhouse, Mount Clare, Pigtown, Poppleton, and Union Square, building an awesome, cohesive community of choice where diversity is strength. Working closely with the University of Maryland, the University of Maryland Medical Center, and Bon Secours, the Partnership developed a strategic plan for community improvements designed to position their neighborhoods as a vibrant part of Baltimore’s future. This grant provided core operating support.

Jubilee is the housing and development partner to the Central Baltimore Partnership, staffing and co-chairing its Residential Development and Marketing Task Force and coordinating its Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative applications. Jubilee also administers the Healthy Neighborhoods program in Madison Park, Mount Vernon, Seton Hill, Charles North, and Greenmount West. Jubilee is the developer of City Arts, City Arts 2, and the Centre Theater—each of which is contributing to preserving affordability and creating space for creative people in Station North and Greenmount West. This grant funded general operating costs.

Ours To Own is a place-based community investment initiative raising and deploying long-term capital in cities across the country, developed by the Calvert Foundation, a nonprofit financial intermediary. The Ours To Own campaign mobilizes local residents to invest in the health of their own communities through Calvert’s Community Investment Note, an innovative fixed income product for financing community development activities. Launched in Baltimore in 2016, in just the first eight months of the campaign, over $4.1 million has been raised for Baltimore-based projects. This grant provided funding for advisory business services to help create and sustain small business pipelines for lending. Humanim is the local organizing partner for Ours To Own in Baltimore.

The Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies emerged out of the conviction that centuries of religious ignorance, fear, and hostility could be disarmed through sustained inter-religious study and conversation. Today, ICJS helps Baltimore-area residents to consider and use one’s theological perspective to open new avenues to discussion of difficult topics, such as “what is justice”? In recent years, ICJS has undergone multiple and significant transitions: adding a scholar of Islam and changing its name; the retirement of the founding Executive Director after nearly 30 years; and new staff and board leadership. This Management Assistance Grant provided funds to develop a new strategic plan for the organization.

The Johnston Square community in East Baltimore is strategically located within walking distance of Midtown and Penn Station, and in the center of a number of areas undergoing rapid change. Working with TRF Development Partners and Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), the community completed a comprehensive redevelopment plan that was ratified by eight community organizations and more than 130 local residents. Before the planning efforts in Johnston Square, TRF DP and BUILD had already redeveloped more than 140 formerly vacant homes in East Baltimore. The Goldseker Foundation is also partnering with other local philanthropies and TRF DP on a Program Related Investment to acquire and redevelop 43 abandoned properties in East Baltimore into affordable housing. This grant supported a new venture proposed by TRF DP and BUILD–a Path to Homeownership program intended to address the longer-term needs of many low and moderate income families.

Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD) is a broad-based, non-partisan, interfaith, multiracial community power organization rooted in Baltimore’s neighborhoods and congregations. BUILD is dedicated to making the city a better place for all Baltimoreans to live and thrive. For more than 35 years, BUILD has worked to improve housing, increase job opportunities, and rebuild schools and neighborhoods. In the wake of Freddie Gray’s death, the foundation awarded BUILD a grant for community organizing in the Sandtown-Winchester community, where BUILD partners with another foundation grantee, No Boundaries Coalition. BUILD currently has two professional community organizers working in West Baltimore doing door-to-door canvassing, identifying potential residential leaders, delivering trainings, convening local businesses and non-profits, pursuing meetings with public officials and government agencies, and accomplishing necessary follow-up work to address resident concerns. This grant provided continued support for that organizing work.

Through the reclamation and renovation of the Patterson Theater on Eastern Avenue, the Creative Alliance has become a vital economic and community building force in Southeast Baltimore. The Alliance has found that building relationships through arts programs is an effective way to connect with underrepresented communities and invite them into community life. Its free community programs and events are designed to build a sense of connection and community and foster cultural and racial tolerance among diverse groups in the city, as well as attract new residents and businesses to Highlandtown in Southeast Baltimore. This grant support its community outreach programs.

Impact Hub Baltimore (IHB) is a co-working space, community center and innovation lab for social impact designed to enable organizations, entrepreneurs, community members, and partners to connect and collaborate in 8,600 square feet of flexible space in the renovated Centre Theater on North Avenue. Through programming, support services, and community building, IHB connects change makers to the people, resources, and ideas they need to make a tangible impact in Baltimore and beyond. IHB’s goal is to attract and retain talent, create jobs, improve access to resources, and build visibility for Baltimore’s visionary social innovators across the city, region, and the world. This grant provided core operating support.

Invested Impact is a Baltimore-based nonprofit consulting and philanthropic advisory organization that partners with foundations and other interested stakeholders to invest in diverse leaders, innovative ideas, and local economies. The Invested Impact team has expertise in community economic development, corporate citizenship, social innovation, and strategic grantmaking, and views and manages its work through a racial and gender equity lens. This grant provided core operating support.

Southeast Baltimore residents are actively working to improve their neighborhoods through cleaning and greening projects, and as they do so, they increasingly turn to the Patterson Park Audubon Center for support and advice to soften streets, alleys, and patios with greenscapes that invite birds and butterflies, while improving quality of life for people. The Patterson Park Audubon Center has also become a local leader of nature-based education–Audubon’s education programs offer a unique experience in a neighborhood park, enhancing school children’s learning and positive relationships with green spaces. This grant provided support for community engagement activities.

For poor working families, diapers alone can account for up to 12% of gross income. Diapers and baby gear are not allocated through federal or state assistance programs. The only funds that can be used for diapers are from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which must also be used to cover rent, utilities, transportation and many other essential family costs. ShareBaby provides diapers, clothing and gear to highly effective community organizations- working to ensure Baltimore’s young children get the best start in life. ShareBaby estimates that there are 25,000 children of diaper age living in poverty in Baltimore City. This grant provided core operating support.

Strong City Baltimore organizes its work in alignment with three main goals: (1) building stronger neighborhoods, (2) developing quality schools, and (3) increasing collective impact through partnerships. To build stronger neighborhoods, Strong City promotes new investment in targeted areas to improve the image, physical condition, and aesthetic appeal of neighborhoods. To develop quality schools, Strong City uses the community school model, and long standing partnerships with higher education. During fiscal year 2016, Strong City also provided back office services to nearly 100 projects through its Nonprofit Business Services Program. This two-year grant provided core operating support.

Since its inception, CHAI has employed conventional practices for its neighborhood development and planning work, including surveys, direct face-to-face contact with individual residents and other stakeholders, focus groups, facilitated community meetings, collaborations with neighborhood associations, and analyzing data from multiple sources. Community development and urban planning have progressed over the last five years with the availability of more accessible and affordable technologies coupled with a growing interest in harnessing digital communication to reach a larger group of residents. This Management Assistance Grant provided funds for consulting services to provide instruction and training in the design, creation, and deployment of an interactive online forum for soliciting community input and engagement in planning processes.

GEDCO provides affordable housing with supportive services and assists in meeting emergency needs of community residents. In 2013, GEDCO underwent an executive leadership transition. The Board of Directors has also since brought on several new members. The organization has also developed new revenue generating lines of business. Now 3+ years into new leadership, staff and board leaders are ready to evaluate all of GEDCO’s programs as a whole, their financial sustainability, and the organization’s structure. This Management Assistance Grant provided funds for a consultant to assist with developing an overall methodology for program evaluation and sustainability.

The Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools is a non-partisan group that serves as a voice for charter school communities to (1) advocate for equitable and transparent conditions for public charter schools, (2) offer support to new and existing public charter schools, and (3) drive the discussion around innovative educational practices that lead to positive outcomes for students. The Alliance formed from the merger of the Baltimore Coalition of Charter Schools and the Maryland Charter School Network. Although the Alliance has member schools from Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s counties, 24 of its 26 members are in Baltimore City. This Management Assistance Grant provided funds for a consultant to assist with strategic planning.

Roberta’s House was created in 2007 in response to a community’s appeal for bereavement support for grieving children, giving them a safe place to heal and recover following the loss of loved ones. Roberta’s House now provides comprehensive grief support to children, families, and adults who have experienced traumatic losses. Roberta’s House has grown substantially in its brief history, and has provided free services to more than 4,500 individuals, primarily from under-served and vulnerable communities in Baltimore City. This Management Assistance Grant provided funds for a consultant for strategic planning in preparation for a capital campaign to develop a new facility.

The Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation (BARCO) is a nonprofit real estate development corporation with a mission to provide affordable, safe and sustainable facilities for contemporary artists, designers, curators, performers and creative ventures and nonprofit arts organizations. BARCO’s focus is the acquisition and development of properties that fulfill this mission in Baltimore’s three arts and entertainment districts. As of summer 2016, BARCO had invested over $1.9 million in two projects in the Station North area: the Motor House on North Avenue between Howard Street and Maryland Avenue, and Open Works at 1400 Greenmount Avenue. This grant provided core operating support.

Healthy Neighborhoods offers below-market financing, grants, and professional advice to home buyers and homeowners in neighborhoods across Baltimore, plus grants to community organizations working to strengthen resident engagement in their communities, organize block projects, and market neighborhood assets to build value in Baltimore’s middle-market neighborhoods. This grant funded general operating costs.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is an anchor of the cultural center of the City. As it celebrates its 100th anniversary, the BSO plans to contract with an architectural firm to conduct a planning study of the immediate neighborhood surrounding the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and Pearlstone Park. Although the Goldseker Foundation does not fund arts and culture initiatives, this Management Assistance Grant of up to $13,500 funded consulting costs associated with the development of a master plan. Grant funds are to be matched 1:1 outside of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Endowment Trust.

Baltimore Corps’ mission is to build the city’s next generation of leaders by recruiting, developing, and connecting outstanding young professionals to serve as fellows at effective nonprofits, social enterprises, and government agencies to scale solutions that work. Embarking in 2016 on its third cohort, Baltimore Corps has received approximately 600 fellowship and 100 Visionary Cause Leader applications, and is developing a corollary program to connect talented applicants to jobs outside of the fellowship given such high demand. This grant provided general operating support.

Baltimore Urban Debate League enriches the academic experience of students from Baltimore City’s public elementary, middle, and high schools through participation in team policy debate. In September 2016, the board of BUDL launched a national search for a new executive director to succeed the founding CEO, and in September 2016 promoted an internal candidate to the position. BUDL’s first executive leadership transition presents a prime opportunity to reflect on measured outcomes and past organizational performance to assess overall impact. This Management Assistance Grant of $10,000 funds executive coaching as the new CEO undertakes these activities.

Baltimore’s Promise is a collaborative focused on creating a deliberate continuum of care and services for all youth across their life span in hopes of improving outcomes. It is focused on building a culture of shared accountability and collaboration across Baltimore City. Baltimore’s Promise has five ambitious goals for the City’s youth: (1) Babies are born healthy; (2) Children enter Kindergarten ready to succeed in school; (3) Children and youth achieve at grade level in school; (4) Youth graduate high school prepared for the next step without remediation; and (5) Youth earn quality post-secondary credentials or receive training and are career-ready. This $75,000 grant provided general operating support.

Bon Secours Community Works operates an array of programs that address the social determinants of health, such as the economic circumstances of West Baltimore. BSCW’s primary service area includes the neighborhoods of Penrose-Fayette Street Outreach, Boyd-Booth, Mondawmin, Coppin Heights, Sandtown-Winchester, Druid Heights, Edmondson Village, Pigtown, Carroll-Camden Industrial Area, and Poppleton. Life expectancy in some of these West Baltimore neighborhoods is nearly twenty years less than in wealthier North Baltimore neighborhoods. Clients served by BSCW are among the poorest of the poor in Maryland. This $15,000 Management Assistance Grant funded costs for a consultant to help BSCW develop its first strategic plan.

The vision of Central Maryland Transportation Alliance is a thriving metropolitan area which boasts an array of convenient transportation options, including a coordinated system of highways and interconnected mass transit options providing access and opportunity for employment, housing, education, services and entertainment. By elevating transportation as a critical element of achieving an economically equitable and vibrant region, CMTA hopes to be a catalyst for achieving a high quality of life in Central Maryland. This $45,000 grant provided general operating support.

The Friends of Patterson Park’s mission is to ensure the park’s vitality as a treasured green space, and encourage use and appreciation by neighbors, visitors, and future generations. The Friends of Patterson Park attracts more than 10,000 attendees to free events every year in the park, has 5,600 subscribers to its newsletter, and provides 1,000 youth with free tennis, soccer, and other recreational programs. This $13,500 Management Assistance Grant provided funds for a consultant to assist the Friends as the group explores with the Baltimore City Department of Recreation & Parks whether a conservancy model makes sense for the park.

For more than 20 years, Ingenuity Project has worked with the Baltimore City Schools to teach gifted and advanced students in middle and high school an accelerated and challenging math, science, and research curriculum. In school year 2016-2017, Ingenuity will enroll 562 students in grades 6-12 at three middle schools (Hamilton, Mount Royal, and Roland Park) and one high school (Baltimore Polytechnic Institute). Given the Goldseker Foundation’s Neighborhood-School Partnership Initiative in Northeast Baltimore, this $30,000 grant funds program enhancements at Hamilton Elementary Middle School.

Roland Park Country School’s application to Baltimore City Public Schools to open a charter public school was granted in May 2013. The school, Lillie May Carroll Jackson Charter School, is the first charter granted to an independent school in the nation. LMCJS is led by a thirteen-member board of directors, three of whom have been involved over the eight year development of the public private partnership. After investing significant time during these formative years on both the planning and opening of the school, they are poised to transition from a founding board to one that operates in a more governance-oriented role. This $26,000 Management Assistance Grant funded a consultant to assist with strategic planning.

Live Baltimore’s mission is to accelerate Baltimore’s growth by promoting the city as a great place to live and by accentuating its thriving neighborhoods. Every $1 of funding for Live Baltimore returns approximately $13 to the city in the form of tax revenue from Live Baltimore customers’ home purchases. And these purchases take place citywide: Live Baltimore customers have purchased in 187 distinct city neighborhoods. This $100,000 grant provided $50,000 for general operating support and $50,000 for the Way to Stay marketing campaign, focused on family retention in Baltimore City.

The No Boundaries Coalition is a resident led advocacy organization building a unified and empowered Central West Baltimore across the boundaries of race, class, and neighborhoods. Since 2008, the Coalition has brought residents together from Sandtown, Druid Heights, Upton, Madison Park, Penn North, Reservoir Hill, and Bolton Hill to overcome the issues that have maintained racial and economic segregation for decades. This $60,000 grant provided funds for core operating support.

Pigtown’s proximity to the I-95 corridor, the University of Maryland, Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium, and downtown Baltimore, as well as access to public transportation, makes the area a prime location for new small business development and investment. Pigtown Main Street’s primary mission is to enhance the Washington Boulevard commercial corridor, Pigtown’s main business artery, by improving its aesthetics, promoting banded events, connecting community institutions and protecting the Pigtown identity. This $17,500 grant provided funds for general operating support.

In 2015, Southeast CDC was the largest employer assisted housing counseling provider for Live Near York Work benefits, and the second largest low/moderate income housing counseling provider within the city. The CDC completed $100,000 of placemaking projects in the Highlandtown Main Street District, and distributed $1 million in capital funds to ten projects in Southeast Baltimore under the State of Maryland’s Baltimore Regional Neighborhoods Initiative. The CDC is also the community school partner for Highlandtown #237 Elementary/Middle School. This $100,000 grant provides funds for core operating expenses.

The University of Maryland School of Social Work Community Outreach Service (SWCOS) runs the Neighborhood Fellows Program to add staff capacity to community development organizations working to build stronger neighborhoods in Baltimore City. School of Social Work graduate students, along with staff at the organizations where they are placed, receive training from SWCOS in a variety of neighborhood revitalization strategies. This $34,500 grant provides support for the Neighborhood Fellows Program.

This $30,000 grant supports City Neighbors Charter School’s Neighborhood-School Partnership with Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street, Hamilton Elementary Middle School, and St. Francis of Assisi School, to integrate school and neighborhood marketing in the Healthy Neighborhoods program in Northeast Baltimore.

This $30,000 grant supports Hamilton Elementary Middle School in its Neighborhood School Partnership with Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street, City Neighbors Charter School, and St. Francis of Assisi School as they work to strengthen the neighborhoods of Northeast Baltimore for families with children.

This $30,000 grant supports St. Francis of Assisi School in its Neighborhood School Partnership with Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street, City Neighbors Charter School, and Hamilton Elementary Middle School as they work to strengthen the neighborhoods of Northeast Baltimore for families with children.

This $30,000 grant supports the residential and school marketing work that Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street does in support of the Northeast Neighborhood School Partnership, with Hamilton Elementary Middle School, City Neighbors Charter School, and St. Francis of Assisi School.

The Medical Education Resources Initiative for Teens (MERIT) aims to support and mentor high school students from under-represented populations into health care leaders. After a rigorous selection process during high school sophomore year, MERIT Scholars participate in weekly Saturday sessions, summer internships in hospitals and laboratories, and a longitudinal mentoring program, which extends through college. Although the Foundation does not fund health care, this $14,500 Management Assistance Grant provided funds for consulting costs for strategic planning.

CPHA is a civic action organization that brings together people and neighborhoods to create innovative solutions to challenging, community-wide problems. In recent years, CPHA played a significant leadership role in the community outreach elements of the Opportunity Collaborative, a HUD program based at the Baltimore Metropolitan Council aimed at reforming regional planning organizations to move beyond transportation-focused work to integrate and address housing and workforce issues. The Opportunity Collaborative’ s resulting report has spawned new interest in supporting inclusionary practices as part of Baltimore City’s rezoning process. This grant provided general operating support.

In the fall of 2007, a small group of parents joined together to create a nonprofit organization to serve as a voice for the growing number of people who were choosing to raise families in downtown Baltimore. Their goal was to represent a new critical mass of residents in the city interested in developing family-friendly programming and public policy, enhanced public safety and environmental quality, and expanded recreation and cultural opportunities. DBFA’s annual School & Children’s Programming Fair attracts hundreds of families seeking information about public and private schools, arts programs and sports leagues, child care and family friendly businesses in the city. This grant provided general operating support.

FreeState Legal was founded in 2008 by a group of attorneys and law students that saw a need for direct legal services for low-income LGBTQ people in Maryland, to ensure that laws and policies protecting their rights are effectively implemented and enforced. Equality Maryland is a much older organization, established over 25 years ago, to organize LGBTQ Marylanders to secure comprehensive non-discrimination laws, marriage equality, and a host of policy changes that remove barriers for LGBTQ populations at the state, county, and municipal levels. In 2016, the boards of the two organizations decided to merge. This management assistance grant provided funds for strategic planning for the new, merged organization.

The Fund for Educational Excellence focuses on three key areas of work: supporting innovation in Baltimore City Schools; fundraising in support of district effectiveness efforts; and developing knowledge about and then advocating for policies and practices to serve city students better. The working relationship that the Fund has built with City Schools has enabled it to introduce innovative ideas and help identify the resources to pilot them. This grant provided general operating support.

Holistic Life Foundation is a Baltimore-based nonprofit with a mission of nurturing the wellness of children and adults in underserved communities, through programs that emphasize violence reduction, peaceful conflict resolution, youth engagement, high school completion, and employment opportunities. Core programs include yoga and mindfulness classes at eleven Baltimore City Public Schools serving 3,000 students every week, as well as classes at senior centers, drug treatment centers, and mental health crisis facilities. A workforce development program provides job readiness skills, individual on-the-job training, and job and career opportunities for underserved populations, which prepare future generations of HLF instructors and trainers. HLF is growing its capacity to serve Baltimore by recruiting, hiring, and training from the communities it seeks to serve. This management assistance grant provided funds for strategic planning, including communications and branding.

LaunchCode is a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to economic opportunity and upward mobility through apprenticeships and job placement in technology. They identify talented, driven individuals who lack the traditional credentials for a job in technology, assess them on their skill, aptitude, and drive, and offer mentorship and education programs to prepare them for full-time employment. LaunchCode then places candidates into paid apprenticeships with a broad range of employers. Once placed, companies mentor the apprentices and, if they determine that the candidate is a good fit, hire them full-time at the end of the program. This grant provided start-up support for a Baltimore office. Payment of the grant is contingent upon LaunchCode opening a Baltimore office.

Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church is located just north of Mondawmin Mall, and across the street from Parks & People Foundation’s new Auchentoroly Campus. From August 2010 to August 2012, the church served as a subcontractor to Saint Vincent DePaul to run a program in which 3,000 Head Start meals were prepared daily in the church’s commercial kitchen, and delivered to various Baltimore City Head Start sites. The program trained and certified people in culinary skills and food handling regulations. As demand for the program outgrew the Mt. Lebanon kitchen, the program moved to a larger site on the east side of the city. As a result, the workforce development program became less accessible to residents of the West Baltimore communities around Mondawmin. This management assistance grant provided funds to hire a consultant to perform a feasibility study on re-establishing a culinary workforce development program run entirely by the church.

Parks & People Foundation was founded in 1984 to leverage private donations against limited public funding to support the city’s Recreation and Parks department. Over time, the scope of Parks & People’s work evolved and expanded, to include programs such as after-school middle school sports leagues, SuperKids Camp, and neighborhood greening grants to support community-managed gardens and farms. Today, Parks & People’s mission is to support a wide range of recreational and educational opportunities; create and sustain beautiful and lively parks; and promote a healthy natural environment for Baltimore. In 2014, the organization’s longtime executive director stepped down, and a new executive took the helm in early 2015. During 2015, Parks & People also moved into its new headquarters on a 9 acre campus located between Druid Hill Park and Mondawmin Mall. Given the recent change in leadership as well as a need to plan for the opportunities presented by its new campus, this management assistance grant provided funds for strategic planning.

Over the course of 2015, a group of community partners came together to design a youth employment and engagement initiative that could be a model of what the City’s YouthWorks program could be if employers, nonprofits, and young people within a neighborhood worked together on strengthening the employment experience, from recruitment and training to mentoring and ongoing civic engagement with the youth and their families. Calling itself the Southeast Youth Jobs Collaborative, this group includes Southeast CDC, Banner Neighborhoods, Creative Alliance, Breath of God Church, The Intersection, Friends of Patterson Park, Living Classrooms Foundation, Patterson Park Audubon Center, and Patterson Park Public Charter School. The Collaborative aims to increase the number of youth that they employ among their organizations by one-third in the summer of 2016, to 76 youth, through a comprehensive program that provides work experience, skills training, educational, relational, and personal development and mentoring. This grant provided funds to five of the members of the collaborative to support their efforts to develop new ways of working together to make their summer YouthWorks employment programs more cost efficient in order to employ more youth.

Student Opportunities & Academic Resources (SOAR) is a nonprofit digital platform that showcases the academic needs, interest, and passions of local students. Working with their teachers, students create profiles on the SOAR platform. Donors view student profiles and can invest in available projects. This grant provided general operating support.

Venture for America is a nonprofit organization that aims to strengthen U.S. cities and promote job creation by directing highly-talented, recent college graduates into startups and growth organizations that would benefit from a significant increase in human capital. VFA focuses on cities that have a strong commitment to revitalizing the regional economy through entrepreneurship. VFA partners with startups and growth companies looking to hire and develop talented young people, fostering a new wave of future startup builders in each city. The grant provided funds for recruitment, training, and placement of fellows in Baltimore.

Wide Angle Youth Media provides Baltimore youth with media education to tell their own stories and become engaged in their communities. Through after-school programming, in-school opportunities, summer workshops, and community events, since 2000 WAYM has worked with over 4,000 youth ages 10-20 from across the city who have produced more than 200 videos about their lives and communities. WAYM has also launched a fee-for-service social enterprise called Wide Angle Productions. As the organization grows, WAYM is in need of a staffing review. This management assistance grant provided funds for a legal audit of the organization’s youth employment practices and consultant costs to develop a new strategic plan to accommodate any needed staffing and policy adjustments to meet long-term goals of expanding the number of youth served.

Bard High School Early Colleges are public schools that offer students two years of an accelerated secondary education in the 9th and 10th grades followed by two years of credit bearing college classes in place of the traditional 11th and 12th grades. Students earn both a high school diploma and an Associate in Arts degree. Because BHSEC Baltimore was approved to open and began recruiting rather late in the high school selection process in 2015, the foundation awarded a grant to help with outreach and recruitment efforts last year. BHSEC Baltimore opened in August 2015 in East Baltimore with 119 9th graders and 43 Year 1 (11th grade) students. This grant helped to subsidize operating costs until the school reaches full enrollment in the 2016-2017 school year.

The Center for Community Progress works to ensure that communities have the vision, knowledge, and systems to transform blighted, vacant, and other problem properties into assets supporting neighborhood vitality. As a national leader on solutions for blight and vacancy, the Center for Community Progress serves as the leading resource for local, state and federal policy makers and source for best practices that address the full cycles of property revitalization, from blight prevention, though the acquisition and maintenance of problem properties, to their productive reuse. This grant provided funds for CCP’s September 2016 Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference to be held in Baltimore.

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOPA) coordinates Baltimore’s major events including the Baltimore Book Festival, Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar, Artscape, and civic celebrations such as New Year’s Eve, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade, and the Fourth of July. In 2016, BOPA will launch the inaugural Light City Baltimore festival, designed to help brand the city as a hub of arts and innovation, building on burgeoning tech and music scenes. The weeklong festival will feature 50 attractions including 28 large-scale light art installations, performance venues, family-friendly activities, and a series of four, two-day innovation conferences focusing on a theme of “Powering Social Change.” Five city neighborhoods will each host an artist-in-residence to create public art projects featuring light. This grant provided funding for BOPA’s neighborhood engagement in the festival.