Civic Works, Inc.
$200,000 / 2020 / Community Development
Civic Works’ Retrofit Baltimore program offers weatherization, home energy efficiency, and health and safety improvements to low- and moderate-income households. Utilizing competitive Maryland Energy Administration funding, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development grants and BGE utility rebates, the program expects to complete 375 energy audits, energy efficient weatherization improvements in 70 homes, bedbug remediations in 44 homes and screen all households for property tax credits, water bill discounts, and federal nutrition benefits. The grant covers expenses for staff to promote the program, screen applicants for benefits, establish scopes of work, manage contract implementation, and ensure quality control.
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
$60,000 / 2020 / Environment
Chesapeake Climate Action’s “Rebuilding Baltimore’s Workforce” initiative will advocate for a domestic Marshall Plan to create new jobs for unemployed and newly unemployed residents in Baltimore City. The intiiative builds on their track record of success in creating local jobs and job training efforts that address the global crisis of climate change. Massive urban investments to weatherize low-income homes, plant trees, and train workers for the solar and wind power and cleaner transportation jobs is intended to restart the economy and provide living wage jobs.
Benefits Data Trust
$50,000 / 2020 / Health and Human Services
Benefits Data Trust (BDT) is a national nonprofit organization that assists low income individuals to access state and federal aid programs to meet their financial needs. BDT leverages partnerships with government agencies to conduct outreach to individuals who may be eligible for government assistance programs that they are not currently receiving. Using highly trained screening and enrollment staff and customized technology, BDT screens these individuals to assess their eligibility for a range of public benefit programs, and assists them to enroll in those programs for which they are eligible, helping to lift them out of poverty. This grant supports BDT’s Maryland Benefits Center.
Baltimore Police Department
$200,000 / 2020 / Criminal Justice and Addiction
Funding from the Abell Foundation will assist the Baltimore Police Department and the City of Baltimore in reducing homicides and nonfatal shootings through the planning, implementation, evaluation and institutionalization of focused deterrence. Focused deterrance is a strategy based on an intensive partnership of law enforcement, community members and social service providers, who collectively engage with the small and active number of people involved in violent street groups. It pairs a credible message against violence and prior notice about the consequences of further violence with a genuine offer of help to those who want it.
Baltimore Office of Sustainability, Fiscally Sponsored by Civic Works, Inc.
$65,000 / 2020 / Community Development
The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative within the Baltimore Office of Sustainability will provide $65,000 in mini-grants to grassroots community organizations who are working hard and quickly to fill gaps in Baltimore’s larger emergency food-distribution system as the COVID-19 crisis escalates. Funds will be used for food, protective equipment for volunteers and nonprofit employees, transportation and fuel costs to supply food to those who are homebound, elderly, immuno-compromised, and living in poverty, most of whom are unable to access distribution centers, have lost their local pantry program due to COVID closure, or may have a gap without food while, for example, waiting for their Meals on Wheels registration to be processed or for SNAP benefits to be approved.
