Addiction and Health Equity
Tackled health disparities, particularly regarding drug use, to reduce inequitable outcomes for community members.
- Launched the Baltimore Buprenorphine Initiative, introducing a new evidence-based treatment for individuals addicted to opioids.
- Grew a local harm reduction movement that has spread across the state and greatly increased the availability of overdose prevention services.
- Led the Baltimore Equitable Vaccination Initiative, which reduced racial and socioeconomic disparities in COVID-19 vaccination rates by helping more than 61,000 residents get vaccinated.
Criminal and Juvenile Justice
Worked to achieve a fair and just criminal and juvenile justice system using a racial equity lens.
- Advanced policy and practice reforms that reduced Maryland’s jail and prison populations by 25%
- Created and supported networks of advocates who successfully achieved monumental police, parole, and bail reforms.
- Supported reentry programs to provide vital support services to returning citizens, including for individuals returning home after long incarceration periods.
Education and Youth Development
Worked to help youth feel that they are safe, welcomed, and supported in schools and have the resources they need to succeed in adulthood.
- Reduced school suspensions by 74% and school-based arrests by 95% by revising discipline and arrest policies and implementing restorative practices in Baltimore City Public Schools.
- Brought Bard Early College High School to Baltimore, enabling students to graduate with a high school diploma and an associate degree free of charge.
- Funded and advocated for efforts to ensure equitable funding for Maryland’s students, most recently through the implementation of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.
Baltimore Community Fellows
Provided funding to individuals, enabling them to address problems in underserved communities.
- Awarded fellowships to more than 200 dynamic social entrepreneurs.
- Enabled the creation of fellow-founded initiatives, with more than 65% continuing to thrive.
- Founded the OSI-Baltimore Community Fellows Collective to foster communication within the fellowship network.
Economic Justice
Directed capital to historically under-resourced communities.
- Provided catalytic funding to the Maryland Black Futures Fund that will provide financial support to Black power-building and movement-based organizations.
- Seeded exploratory investments to implement innovative strategies to close the racial wealth gap and transform Baltimore’s economic and financial systems.
- Strengthened the local infrastructure to deploy funds by addressing fiscal sponsorship challenges and testing innovative approaches through B’More Invested.
Strategic Communications and Narrative Change
Provided opportunities for community engagement and learning.
- Engaged community members in thoughtful dialogue by sponsoring more than 40 Talking About Race events that brought notable advocates and leading thinkers to Baltimore, as well as three Big Change events.
- Facilitated community involvement in the democratic process through the Solutions Summit, the Blueprint for Baltimore survey, and support for voter engagement organizations.
- Amplified the voices of grantees and community fellows.
