What We’re Learning

What We’re Learning

We believe that a community of creative problem-solvers, faced with complicated, seemingly intractable challenges, is well-served by thought-provoking, research-based information and analysis. We support the development and dissemination of research in two ways:

Abell Reports

Abell Reports are commissioned reports by subject matter experts, academics, and investigative journalists that provide studies of selected issues on the public agenda.

Abell-Supported Research

These projects – undertaken with grant funding by academics and nonprofit research and advocacy organizations – advance learning on issues key to Baltimore City.

Featured Reports

Abell Report: Entry and Exit of Baltimore City Teachers Before and After COVID

In 2022, after increasing pressures from the COVID pandemic and a shifting political climate, the nation’s largest teachers’ union warned that over half of teachers were considering exiting the profession. This report investigates whether Baltimore City Schools has experienced changes in teacher supply due to COVID.

Photo by Wide Angle Productions, a social enterprise of Wide Angle Youth Media

2022 Annual Report

Our 2022 Annual Report profiles several of Abell’s grantees, providing a snapshot of the many ways Baltimoreans are working to help their neighbors secure stable housing, better jobs, brighter futures for their children, and for those who need one, a second chance.

Abell-Supported Research: Long-Term Services and Supports in Baltimore

A framework for improving job quality and creating a highly trained direct care and services workforce.

Publications Library

Protecting Baltimore’s Water Supply from “Forever Chemicals”

This Abell Report outlines how the federal and state governments can mitigate the threat of “forever chemicals” in our drinking water.

Cooling Cities, Slowing Climate Change and Enhancing Equity

With funding from the Abell Foundation, the Smart Surfaces Coalition analyzed the costs and benefits of adopting “smart surfaces” in neighborhoods of Baltimore City where a high proportion of residents have low incomes.

2020 Annual Report

Our 2020 Annual Report highlights programs that are creating a more digitally equitable Baltimore, reducing gun violence, decreasing racial disparities in chronic disease, supporting tenants facing eviction, helping Black entrepreneurs access capital and small-business loans, advancing medical innovation, and providing job training for graduates of Baltimore City Public Schools that will provide pathways to careers and higher education.

Greenhouse Gases from Maryland’s Landfills

How much greenhouse gas is emitted from municipal waste landfills in Maryland? And what does that mean for the health and safety of our environment? With support from the Abell Foundation, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) examined the data and, in this report, share their very sobering findings.

HECM Activity in Baltimore, MD from 2010-2020

Concerned that the economic distress of the pandemic might lead to an increase in the number of Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM), the Abell Foundation funded The Reinvestment Fund to do an analysis of HECM originations in Baltimore City.

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    Header photo courtesy of Venture for America.