I write this letter with a deep sense of gratitude, and an equally deep sense of responsibility.
2025 was Bob Embry’s final year leading the Abell Foundation, closing out nearly four decades in which he transformed the institution into something Baltimore, indeed most communities, had never seen: a foundation willing to use every tool in its kit — grants, investments, loan guarantees, research, lawsuits, phone calls, and yes, weekend trash pickup along Roland Avenue — in service of a single, stubborn belief that Baltimore could deliver a better future for all its residents.
The organizations he helped build and sustain over the years — Center for Urban Families, Thread, Turnaround Tuesday, the Ingenuity Project, CollegeBound, and so many more — are not abstractions. They are, quite simply, the reason thousands of Baltimoreans enjoy a path forward that did not exist before Bob decided to build one. I am one of them. There is no version of my own story, or of Baltimore Corps, without Bob’s early and unwavering support. I am honored to follow him and to collaborate with our team, partners, and communities to write Abell’s next chapter.
2025 was an important and challenging year for Baltimore and for Abell. A federal stop-work order upended refugee resettlement overnight, and our grantees — the International Rescue Committee, Global Refuge, and World Relief — had to hold together housing, jobs, and legal support for families who had been in this country for mere months. Federal safety-net changes put SNAP and soon, Medicaid out of reach for refugees who had already been extensively vetted. Against that backdrop, our grantee partners did not just hold the line — they innovated. Moveable Feast proved that medically tailored meals cut hospital visits by nearly a quarter and returned $3 for every dollar spent, a finding substantial enough to help unlock a $13 million state investment. The CASH Campaign helped Baltimoreans claim $13.8 million in tax credits they had earned but might otherwise have left on the table. Housing counselors, tenant attorneys, and organizers won real policy change — pre-eviction notice requirements, expanded access to counsel, and mold and lead protections — that will outlast any single grant. And Roca, PIVOT, HOPE, and a growing constellation of reentry organizations kept proving that the choice between public safety and second chances is a false one.
Across every program area, Abell awarded $11 million in 2025 to organizations doing this work — in health and human services, community development, workforce development, education, criminal justice and addiction, and the environment. Behind every figure in this report is a Baltimorean who is more stably housed, better employed, more likely to graduate, and now living in a safer city.
So where do we go from here?
Economic mobility is the through-line connecting nearly everything the Abell Foundation touches: a family’s chance to build wealth, a young person’s path to a good job, a small business’s ability to take root in a neighborhood long denied investment, a start-up bringing innovation to the market and opportunity to the city. These strategies address the same problem from different angles. That will be my lens as president and CEO: sharpening Abell’s focus as a driver of upward economic mobility for the people of Baltimore, and holding fast to Bob’s conviction that this city’s residents — particularly those who have been locked out by segregation, disinvestment, and discrimination — are not a problem to be managed but an asset to be invested in and supported.
Abell also has a role to play beyond Baltimore’s city limits. People and communities everywhere are asking questions and searching for answers about how to achieve their American Dream at a time of sweeping, dramatic, and dizzying change. We intend for Abell to be a lighthouse in that sense – a place whose light is visible well past our own harbor, illuminating what works, so that other cities and other funders can see a way through the same waters.
Bob Embry built an institution capable of that kind of ambition. My job now is to make sure it lives up to it. Thank you for reading this report, and for believing, as we do, that Baltimore’s best days are ahead of it.
Fagan Harris
President & CEO