Celebrating 2022: Thank You for Supporting Baltimore's Young People from Cradle to Career
Dear Friend of Baltimore’s Promise,
We close 2022 with a special kind of gratitude for our partners, our board, and our staff. Baltimore’s Promise is preparing to mark our 10th anniversary in 2023, a milestone that would not be possible without a fierce collective commitment to our city and to the young people growing up within it. As an organization, we have come a long way — and have a long way yet to go!
This was a year of change and learning for Baltimore’s Promise.
We launched the Youth Grantmakers initiative, growing our BP family and then learning so much from the young people who co-developed and co-led this innovative philanthropic effort.
We worked hand-in-hand with the Mayor and the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools to pass legislation enabling the Baltimore City Youth Data Hub, a landmark system that BP will manage as it integrates and links data across youth-serving organizations.
We rolled out a second phase of Grads2Careers, expanding the pathways open to graduates of Baltimore City Public Schools graduates interested in career-track jobs in growing industries.
We recruited new partners to the Summer Funding Collaborative, increasing the investment by $2 million dollars and creating thousands of new opportunities for older youth in Baltimore.
We created a new community advisory board structure through the adoption of new bylaws, deepening the connections between our Board and local community leaders.
And Strive Together, the national collective-impact movement, recognized our decade of unwavering commitment to producing results for youth in Baltimore, by noting our progress along their Theory of Action framework. (We were designated as reaching the “systems change” benchmark.)
Many of these efforts point to vital and sustainable policy changes, within our own organization and on the city and state levels. The moves we are making now will shift the pathway of Baltimore’s Promise and our collective-impact work over the next decade and beyond.
This work is challenging and constant, and we recognize the toll it takes on our staff and our partners. We recently gave each of the Youth Grantmakers a care package that included Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey, who founded the Nap Ministry. If you are looking for some winter reading, join the Youth Grantmakers as they continue to explore liberatory approaches. Just as we will encourage our staff to slow down and take care of their own needs as we close the office next week, we hope you will find time to rest.
When we return from a restful break, 2023 will be another milestone year for Baltimore’s Promise. We look forward to sharing more stories on the impact of the collective work that you and others make possible … more data that you can use to take action and effect policy change that benefits Baltimore’s young people … and more opportunities to come together, including at the party we’ll throw after moving into our new home next spring!
Check out this short video on our work, and stay tuned for more on our anniversary celebrations and how you can join in. Thank you for everything you are doing to support Baltimore’s young people from cradle to career.