Strengthening communities, preserving home ownership, shining a light on the best neighborhoods have to offer—these are the core tenets of our Neighborhoods Path.

Our Neighborhood Grants Program, which offers small grants to neighborhood groups so they can get more people involved and develop new leaders, received a big boost in 2008 with creation of the William Donald Schaefer Civic Fund, an endowment for the program. We’re delighted to perpetuate Governor Schaefer’s lifelong love for Baltimore’s neighborhoods through this Fund.

Neighborhood grants have taken on a decidedly green hue of late thanks to a new partnership with Parks and People Foundation. We’re greening Baltimore one neighborhood at a time! Neighborhoods are also a focus of BCF’s work on behalf of both the Cleaner Greener Baltimore Initiative and Baltimore’s sustainability plan. We’re helping neighborhood groups promote recycling to their residents, explore ways to take control of empty lots for community gardens and green spaces, and catch the competitive spirit of conservation with the Baltimore Energy Challenge launching this year.

In our Healthy Neighborhoods (currently 35 city neighborhoods are participating) positive organizing and marketing efforts over several years have helped maintain confidence during the recession—more homeowners than ever are making improvements to their properties and renewing commitments to their communities. Because Baltimore City and County comprise hundreds of neighborhoods, we rely on intermediary organizations to extend our reach, funding organizations like Citizens Planning and Housing Association, Baltimore Neighborhood Collaborative, Community Law Center and the University of Maryland School of Social Work to support more neighborhoods than we can reach individually.

Download the 2009 Neighborhoods Path Report 
PDF Download

Invest in Neighborhoods right now. Make a donation.

BCFs Neighborhoods Path focuses grants on:

• Increasing residents and businesses involvement in their communities and nurturing resident leadership;
• Improving communication among neighbors;
• Making communities more welcoming and diverse;
• Improving neighborhood housing markets while preserving affordable housing;
• Promoting Baltimore City neighborhoods;
• Supporting advocacy to increase the availability of community development funds.

A large part of BCFs work in neighborhoods is through our Neighborhood Grants Program (NGP), which offers funding for community organizations in Baltimore City and Baltimore County neighborhoods. NGP grants focus on:

• Mobilizing residents to complete a community project;
• Building new leadership or strengthening existing leadership within neighborhoods.

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 Neighborhoods.