Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement Call for Community-Based Organizations to Contribute to Baltimore Resource Landscape Analysis
March 16, 2023
Contact: Office of Advancement and External Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA), part of The University of Baltimore's Jacob France Institute, is joining with the Baltimore Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) in inviting community-based organizations in Baltimore City to complete a brief survey that will help identify strengths and gaps in the existing network of providers and organizations serving residents.
"The work of reducing violence in our city requires that we leverage its greatest asset—our community. As the stewards charged to carry out Baltimore's Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan, we rely heavily on our CBOs to ensure that this work remains anchored within the community," says MONSE Executive Director Shantay Jackson. "Baltimore is a resource-rich city. This landscape map will allow us to aggregate all of our resources, both traditional and non-traditional, into a publicly accessible platform so that all Baltimoreans can take full advantage of what lies at their fingertips."
BNIA Director Amanda Phillips-De Lucas says the collaboration with MONSE serves as a reminder of the power of local neighborhoods to take on problems.
"The capacity of Baltimore's traditional and non-traditional community organizations is an essential, although often overlooked way to understand how neighborhoods come together to solve shared challenges," Phillips-De Lucas says. "BNIA is excited to partner with MONSE to better map the many resources in our city and understand how our community organizations maintain, grow, and measure their programming."
The work is outlined in Pillar Two (Community Engagement and Interagency Coordination) of Baltimore's Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan. Recognizing that the city's community-based assets are critical to the co-production of public safety, MONSE says, the goal of this landscape analysis and capacity-building plan is to amplify the effectiveness of community violence intervention strategies and the provision of direct services and wraparound supports, to name a few.
Baltimore City organizations, including community associations, religious organizations, family and peer support organizations, and grassroots organizations are encouraged to contribute to the analysis by completing the online survey by May 5, 2023. The 28-question survey is intended to collect information about how each organization sustains their services and what practices they use to maintain, expand, and evaluate their programing.
Participation in the survey will allow MONSE and BNIA to develop a capacity-building plan to strengthen community-based efforts and the overall violence prevention landscape citywide. The landscape analysis will also integrate the efforts underway by Baltimore's Promise to aggregate resources for Baltimore City youth.
"Baltimore's Promise looks forward to working with MONSE and its partners to integrate the Baltimore City Youth Opportunities Landscape into a larger picture of resources for all Baltimore residents,” says Julia Baez, chief executive officer of Baltimore's Promise. "This is a critically important project for Baltimore city as we work to be more equitable in our efforts and improve our collective knowledge and data capacity.”
Organizations may access the survey via this link.