Roundtable on Community Change

Baltimore

Baltimore

Between 2005 and 2006 ten Baltimoreans have participated in the Roundtable's Racial Equity and Society and Racial Equity and Youth Development Seminars. In 2005 the first set of participants included the President and two trustees of The Baltimore Community Foundation. As a result of the seminar, Baltimore Community Foundation leadership took on a specific racial equity focus and made the decision to infuse diversity goals through each of their nine grant-making areas.

In 2006, seven additional Baltimoreans attended the seminars, coming from a range of organizations:

• The After School Institute
• Baltimore Community Foundation
• Center for Applied Research and Technical Assistance (CARTA)
• Community Law In Action
• Emerging Women's Program
• Living Classrooms Foundation
• National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship
• Safe and Sound

This group connected with the 2005 participants and all have continued to meet at the Baltimore Community Foundation. Together they are working on a number of equity-oriented projects:

• A Request-for-Proposals to attract middle-class African Americans to Baltimore and to promote increased civic engagement in Baltimore's most pressing social issues and opportunity areas;
• An initiative to increase support to public middle-school students as they make the transition to high school; and
• A Baltimore-specific initiative  and a cross-city (Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.) collaboration to improve the prospects for African American boys and young men.