This brief highlights the challenges facing nonprofit developers in Baltimore neighborhoods, particularly the financial and policy constraints shaping their work. It also offers solutions to help the nonprofit development sector continue to grow and thrive in Baltimore. 

Why This Matters 

Baltimore City has experienced population decline, disinvestment, and rising vacancy rates since the 1950s. More recently, the public, private, and nonprofit sectors have coordinated efforts to reduce vacancy and abandonment. State- and city-level initiatives, such as Reinvest Baltimore and the Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Initiative (BVRI), seek to increase coordination and leverage public and private funds for whole-block revitalization projects. 

While these initiatives have helped, nonprofit developers often work on properties in neighborhoods with high vacancy rates and face numerous challenges in achieving scale. Funders and policymakers looking to strengthen vacancy efforts, particularly at the neighborhood level, could design new funding programs and change policy to support nonprofit organizations. 

Key Takeaways 

• Nonprofit developers would benefit from increased private and philanthropic enterprise-level investment that supports their core operations and enhances their capacity to compete for more traditional financing sources.
• Baltimore’s community development financial institutions need access to flexible funding to provide capacity building and technical assistance many nonprofits need to successfully use their lending products.
• A locally led, well-resourced collaboration mechanism is needed to align the work of on-the-ground nonprofit developers and service providers, coordinate resources, and strengthen neighborhood-level redevelopment efforts.
• Collaborations across different organizations—such as between the private and mission-driven development industries, nonprofit developers and service-providing organizations, and nonprofit developers and the network of housing counselors who provide training to first-time, low- and moderate-income homebuyers—can increase efficiency and ensure that rehabbed homes are swiftly sold to legacy households. 

How We Did It 

The recommendations are based on our work with the Housing Innovation Program cohort of nonprofit organizations, community development corporations, and lenders in Baltimore; interviews with community development financial institutions, mission-driven lenders, local banks, and intermediary organizations operating in Baltimore and similar places; and a scan of available housing development and homeownership financing sources in Baltimore.