The Baltimore region should be a place where residents are healthy, children live in safe and nurturing families, and older adults remain active and engaged members of the community.

Today, thousands of area residentsdue to poverty, social isolation, frailty, addiction, illness, and agedo not receive the opportunities and support they need to succeed. The Baltimore Community Foundation recognizes the enormous and unmet potential of these most vulnerable Baltimoreans. We must extend the reach of proven programs and invest in helping people become self sufficient.

BCFs Human Services Path focuses grants on:

• Aging with a special emphasis on helping seniors remain in their homes and actively engaged in their communities;
• Health including advocacy for better access to quality health care as well as maternal, infant and child health, mental health and treatment of chronic diseases;
• Child welfare focusing not only on preventing childhood abuse and neglect, but also on promoting healthy family life and ensuring child safety and well-being;
• Maryland Opportunity Compact for Public Safety a specific initiative that aims to increase drug treatment and reduce off ender recidivism, while at the same time lowering costs to Maryland taxpayers;
• Family economic success including a variety of related efforts to prevent and alleviate homelessness, help people find, keep, and advance in jobs, ensure access to public benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, and teach working families about saving, managing, and growing their wealth beyond earned income.

BCF invites all who share our vision for this region to join us and Invest in Baltimore. We believe that no one path leads to our common goal, but that by investing strategically in many paths we can create a Baltimore with a growing economy in which all have the opportunity to thrive. BCFs grantmaking is built around these nine paths, one of which is Human Services.