UMB is awarded more than one hundred private foundation grants each year. Below is a selection of these grants, showing the source and the specified purpose. Corporate and Foundation Relations staff add value to many of the funded foundation proposals through sharing specific strategic advice and reviewing proposal documents.

Cigna Foundation

Title: Healing Youth Alliance

Term: July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2024

Amount: $225,000

Principal Investigator: Kyla Liggett-Creel, Ph.D., LCSW-C, Clinical Associate Professor, Director of The Collaborative: A Healing Centered Community University of Maryland School of Social Work

The Healing Youth Alliance (HYA) is a partnership between the University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW), the Black Mental Health Alliance, and Heartsmiles, who work to address the effects of untreated trauma and the stigma around receiving mental health treatment by training youth and youth program leaders on mental health in the African American community.

During the 3-year grant period, the HYA program provides various activities, including 10-week training taught by the Black Mental Health Alliance faculty. Youth learn about mental health, healing-centered engagement, suicidality, and coping mechanisms. The second activity is a trial presentation to volunteer social workers by youth ambassadors to exhibit what they have learned from the Black Mental Health Alliance. The third activity is a 10-week training with the UMSSW faculty focused on professionalism, facilitation strategies, and boundaries.

After graduating, youth host a national conference on mental health in the African American communities. Participants are invited to attend using social media, news outlets, and partner social media. Once the conference is held, HYA youth receive contracts from community organizations, city agencies, and higher education institutions for presentations and consultation.

JP Morgan Chase Foundation Advancing Cities Competition

Title: POWER: Prioritizing Our Women’s Economic Rise

Term: 2022 - 2025

Amount: $5,000,000 (UMB’s role is the evaluation for $500,000)

Evaluation is led by Christine Callahan, PhD, LCSW-C, Research Associate Professor, Chair of Financial Social Work Initiative, , UM School of Social Work.

POWER: Prioritizing Our Women’s Economic Rise collaborative is a three-year grant that’s led by the Latino Economic Development Center, in partnership with the City of Baltimore, University of Maryland Baltimore, Black Women Build Baltimore, Baltimore-D.C. Building Trades, and Baltimore Community Lending. The collaborative will increase economic development opportunities — small business, workforce, and real estate development — for Black and Latina women in West Baltimore.

The initiative seeks to reform the City’s vacant housing disposition process by removing barriers for small Black and Latina women developers to access properties in underdeveloped West Baltimore communities. Finally, the initiative will help Black and Latina developers access flexible capital, including grants to close the appraisal gap on vacant homes in West Baltimore neighborhoods.

Abell Foundation

Title: Rebuild, Overcome, and Rise (ROAR) Center

Term: 12/1/20 – 11/30/21

Amount: $100,000

Principal Investigator: Lydia C. Watts, Esq., Executive Director, Rebuild, Overcome, and Rise (ROAR) Center at UMB

The Rebuild, Overcome, and Rise (ROAR) Center of the University of Maryland, Baltimore is a “one-stop-shop” in Baltimore City where survivors of crime can access a full range of wraparound legal, supportive social and nursing care, and mental health services in one place, which research has shown provides the best outcomes for survivors, who are often managing myriad and complex needs.

In this grant, a ROAR’s staff attorney represented survivors of homicide, non-fatal gun shots, and those who are identified as being gang involved and/or involved in the juvenile justice or adult criminal justice system and have been victims of crime themselves. The vast majority of survivors of gun violence receive very little information and support from the Baltimore Police Department or the Baltimore City’s State’s Attorney’s Office, since these services are only available once an arrest has been made, which is achieved only in a minority of cases.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation

Title: PATIENTS/PATIENTS Professors Academy

Term: 1/1/22 – 12/1/22

Amount: $100,000

Principal Investigator: C. Daniel Mullins, Ph.D., Professor and Chair Pharmaceutical Health Services Research Department, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy

The PATIENTS Program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy provides a successfully proven approach to continuous engagement in patient-centered research. The PATIENTS Professors Academy (PPA) teaches the PATIENTS Program 10-Step Framework for continuous patient and stakeholder engagement. The framework equips patients and care providers to drive research in their communities.

This grant supports the development of PPA’s first year and will provide a 5-week program with interactive components from patient advisors and content experts. Graduates of The PATIENTS Professors Academy will be able to advise companies, government agencies, community-academic partnerships, and other entities on ways to make clinical and translational research more relevant, appealing, and diverse.