How the Weinberg Foundation Is Working to Move the Needle on Poverty in Baltimore

Baltimore, Maryland. Jon Bilous/shutterstock

There was a time, not so very long ago, when Baltimore seemed to be turning a corner, with a relatively affluent metro area, new development, and rising incomes during the 2000s. But economic gains were distributed highly unequally, and since the 2015 death of Freddie Gray and the unrest that followed, the city has continued to struggle. Baltimore has the second-highest murder rate in the country; 23% of adults and 33.3% of children in the city are living below the poverty line. Baltimore has been plagued by police brutality and has an incarceration rate three times the national average.

Despite these daunting challenges, the Baltimore and Honolulu-based Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is working hard to make positive change in Baltimore — and singing the praises of a dynamic and multifaceted city.

“Look, I think we are a tale of two cities,” said Rachel Garbow Monroe, president and CEO of the Weinberg Foundation. “And that’s becoming even more polarizing, like many other issues in the United States. You could come to Baltimore and you could give us four hours, and we could show you why this city is falling apart. Or we could show you why this city is just excelling and succeeding in such extraordinary ways. We choose to look at the realities of the challenges and try to have an impact on them. We’re not going to throw up our hands and say, ‘This is complicated. We’re walking away.’ If anything, we’re going to say we’re digging in to try to make a difference.”

Established by billionaire real estate and transportation mogul Harry Weinberg in 1959, the foundation, named for him and his wife Jeanette Weinberg, has the overall mission of “meeting the basic needs of vulnerable people and families experiencing poverty.” When Harry Weinberg died in 1990, he left roughly $1 billion to the foundation. The foundation now has $3.3 billion in assets and has given away $2.7 billion in grants. 

“The entire frame of our grantmaking is to give grants to nonprofits supporting individuals and families experiencing poverty, period. No advocacy, no policy, no fundraising,” Monroe said.

Weinberg moves approximately $150 million in total grants per year in the areas of housing, health, jobs, education and community services, giving preference to organizations based in Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Honolulu, Northern Pennsylvania, San Francisco and Israel, all places of significance to either Harry and Jeanette Weinberg or the foundation’s trustees. More than $30 million a year goes to organizations in Baltimore.

Real place-based strategies

When it comes to place-based grantmaking, “we want to hold the Weinberg Foundation accountable to the highest standards, the same standards that we hold our grantees to,” says Aaron Merki, chief program officer. “One of the ways that we’ve done that is to adopt what I would call ‘real place-based strategies’ in the communities that we serve. So not just writing checks to high-quality organizations, which we still do sometimes, and that’s very meaningful work, but actually deeply researching and defining problems because we want to help move the needle in a community.”

For example, in partnership with the Abell Foundation and Annie E. Casey Foundation, Weinberg funded a wage record study through the Baltimore Workforce Funders Collaborative. The BWFC contracted with the Jacob France Institute at University of Baltimore to compare pre- and post-training earnings for participants of Maryland’s workforce development programs. So far, 19 organizations have submitted demographic and outcomes data for approximately 3,500 Baltimore City residents. Recently, the study showed how a lab associate’s annual earnings increased from $15,069 to $44,292 after participating in a workforce development program.

The Wage Record Study, which brings together funders and nonprofits, is emblematic of Weinberg’s commitment to collaboration, Monroe said. Weinberg’s work in Baltimore “is with partners or not at all. We are ineffective alone. We partner both with other funders and with the nonprofits doing the hard work of the service delivery. Baltimore is a very collaborative community, more so perhaps than other cities. And part of that might be the history of philanthropy here. We’re small enough to be able to know one another and we’re large enough to try to make a difference.”

Weinberg works with many local and national funders to support Roca, an initiative designed to transform the lives of young men in Baltimore City at high risk of involvement as victims or perpetrators of gun violence. The program recently concluded its third year in Baltimore.

“It starts with this intensive outreach where the [program staff] do everything in their power to track down these young men, whether that’s calling their girlfriend or knocking on their grandmother’s door. It can take months and months to really get someone on board, but once you’re in this program, you really don’t leave,” said Darius Graham, Baltimore program director. The program also provides cognitive behavioral therapy, prevocational training and transitional employment.

According to data from the Weinberg foundation, of the 31 participants actively enrolled in the Roca program for two years or more, only two have been arrested and re-incarcerated. In other words, 94% avoided further involvement in the criminal justice system. Roca currently serves approximately 200 people in Baltimore City.

Relying on data from organizations such as the National Summer Learning Association showing that summer programs benefit children in high-poverty environments, the Weinberg Foundation was a catalyst for Baltimore’s Promise Summer Funding Collaborative. Since 2015, SFC has offered summer programs providing academic support and enrichment, job opportunities and recreation to thousands of young, low-income Baltimore City residents. SFC’s budget has grown from approximately $2 million to over $5 million in grants and from three funders to 13. This summer, the collaborative awarded $5.3 million in grants to support 93 summer programs. Collectively, SFC has funded as many as 9,000 program spaces out of 25,000 available seats for city students. 

“We need to go deep for a long time”

In 2012, Monroe met with then-CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, Andres Alonzo. “I said, ‘Hypothetically, if Weinberg gave the school system $1 million a year for 10 or 15 years, what difference could it make? And [Alonzo] took some time and then he came back to me and said, ‘Rachel, pick one thing and stick with it for 20 years and make a difference.’”

The result is an ambitious program to design, build, equip and staff new or renovated libraries in partnership with the public school system. The initiative will complete 19 Baltimore City elementary and middle school libraries next year, which will serve more than 10% of the city’s students. Monroe points to 71 evidence-based studies that show a strong library improves every metric at a school, improving numbers on obesity, suspensions, attendance, parent or guardian involvement, and literacy scores.

“We made a big bet and we’ve given $15 million that has leveraged more than $30 million in additional philanthropy and government money. We have 35 partners from the Maryland Food Bank to [the Enoch Pratt Free] library, to the Baltimore Sun, to summertime programming in those libraries. We would get on a bully pulpit and talk to someone who’s a skeptic pretty hard about why the libraries make a difference.”

Success stories like this make Program Officer Aaron Merki feel “uplifted and optimistic about philanthropy in Baltimore. The bench of talent in the nonprofit sector for a city of this size is really incredible,” he said. “I could name a dozen Rhode Scholars and Ivy League people coming here with huge credentials, who could go into any sector in any city and make a ton of money. And instead, they’re here in Baltimore, leading nonprofits and just making a huge impact. I wish the narrative on TV were different, but working here in the city, there’s so much to be really hopeful and happy about.”

Julia Baez, CEO of Baltimore’s Promise, leads a group of Baltimore teens who are part of a Weinberg-funded program called the Youth Grantmaker Initiative, a citywide grantmaking program that puts young people at the center of decision-making. She sees positive change every day.

“I work with these kids every Saturday. Many of them are facing housing insecurity but they come every Saturday. Change happens here. The question is scale.”

Baez believes substantial change can only come when Baltimore deals with the structural and institutional racism that exists in the city.

“We will not affect population-level changes on the outcomes of Baltimore City youth with short-term solutions built in silos,” she said. “To see deep and lasting change, we must advance efforts that change and foster coordination across systems — public systems, policies, and systems of power — because it is these systems that impact young people broadly.”

Baez said she values Weinberg’s flexible approach to philanthropy as well as their success with bringing other funders to Baltimore’s Promise programs.

“Philanthropists need to step back from assumptions about how best to get this done. Outcomes tell us we’re not there yet. Traditional programs may not work. We have to have a willingness to innovate. But we’re not going to change institutional racism in one summer. We need to go deep for a long time,” she said.

Baez believes philanthropists and nonprofits need to “share decision-making power with communities,” as they are doing with programs such as the Young Grantmaker Initiative.

“As one community partner said to me, ‘You should fund us like you want us to win!’ What would that look like? We need to continually learn more and ask more questions.”