• OSI and Charm City Tribe talk about opioids and stigma

    On Wednesday night, OSI joined Jewish community group Charm City Tribe at Max’s Taphouse for its first-ever “Beit Midrash” (House of Study) event, on the subject of “Opioids in Our Communities.” Rabbi Jessy Gross, the director of Charm City Tribe, began the event by sharing texts from the Jewish tradition with relevance to the conversation, including […]

  • Baltimore Police Monitoring Team Calls for Neighborhood Liaisons

    This week, the Baltimore Police Monitoring Team, which was put in place as part of the Consent Decree, issued a Request for Applications (RFA) for neighborhood liaisons. Neighborhood liaisons will facilitate the Monitoring Team’s community engagement efforts by providing localized points of access to the Monitoring Team across the City. The Monitoring Team will hire up […]

  • 2017 Community Fellow Shantell Roberts on The Last Advocate podcast

    Recently, 2017 OSI Community Fellow Shantell Roberts was a guest on the podcast The Last Advocate, a forum that focuses on advocates and the work they are doing to better their communities. Roberts spoke to host Marche Templeton about her beginnings as an advocate, as well as how she started Touching Young Lives, Inc., a […]

  • OSI to co-host Social Innovation Lab’s Impact Workshop

    On March 24 OSI-Baltimore and Baltimore Corps are co-sponsoring the Johns Hopkins University’s Social Innovation Lab’s Impact Bootcamp. The Bootcamp, which is a one-day, condensed version of Social Innovation Lab’s application-based program, is designed for people who want to gain or enhance the skills essential for launching and leading a community project, nonprofit, or mission-driven […]

  • MD Safe Consumption Bill approved by Senate Finance Committee

    Above: Interior of Insite, Vancouver This week, an amended version of Senate Bill 288 was approved by the Maryland Senate Finance Committee, and is expected to go to the Senate floor for a vote within the next week. Introduced by Senator Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery County), the bill will prevent overdose deaths in Maryland by allowing […]

  • OSI grantee criticizes youth sentencing bill, launches “Rethink Baltimore”

    Recently, the Baltimore Sun published an op-ed by Maurice Vann, juvenile justice policy director at Advocates for Children and Youth (ACY), an OSI grantee, in which he expressed his organization’s concern that the recent increase in crimes will lead to the harsher, “broken windows” policing of the past and a “crack down” on youth crime. […]

  • OSI co-hosts “Story Circle Gathering” at Everyman Theatre

    On February 26, OSI Baltimore and University of Maryland, Baltimore are co-sponsoring “Story Circle Gathering: Long Day’s Journey into Night,” in partnership with OSI grantee the BRIDGES Coalition. In this free community event, participants will share first-person stories involving addiction that draws on themes and topics from the Eugene O’Neill play Long Day’s Journey into Night. The goal […]

  • OSI and UB Law School present 10th annual Urban Child Symposium

    On April 4, OSI-Baltimore and the University of Baltimore Law School’s Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) present the 10th annual Urban Child Symposium, “Restorative Practices and the Urban Child: Rethinking School Discipline.” The free (registration required) one-day symposium will examine alternatives to the punitive and adversarial practices that are […]

  • OSI-Baltimore Statement on the Gun Trace Task Force Convictions

    CONTACT: Evan Serpick, Open Society Institute-Baltimore evan.serpick@opensocietyfoundations.org; 410-234-1091 We are grateful to the federal investigators and prosecutors for their work bringing members of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force to justice after their outrageous criminal activities. Trial testimony implicated officers beyond members of the task force and, combined with citizen reports of misconduct […]

  • OSI’s Young, Gifted and Underfunded report in the news

    Last week, Open Society Institute-Baltimore released a new report, “Young, Gifted, and Underfunded: Strengthening the Relationship Between Philanthropy and Youth-Led Movements,” as part of a multi-step effort to build and strengthen connections between local funders and youth-led organizations that drive essential change in our region. The report, which was overseen by Glenn R. Love of Equilove […]