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September 29, 2025 • 14 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight, presented by Rosedale Bank.
Each week we hear from one local business owner letting
us know where they are in their business journey and
how they got there. I'm here today with Franklin Baker,
President and CEO of the United Way of Central Maryland.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome and thank you for being here.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Now for those who might not know, tell us that
we've heard about the United Way for all of our lives.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
But tell us about exactly what do they do? What
do you do?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah? For the past Bob, ten decades, as you said,
you matter, VERSI ofce of Maryland has really been helping
individuals and families to thrive right. And we do that
in three primary ways. On the impact side, we operate
dozens of programs and initiatives in the spaces of youth opportunity, health,
healthy communities, financial security, but also community resiliency. And on

(00:50):
the philanthropy side, we partner with employers and a lot
of other key stakeholders to improve lives by just empowering
leaders so we can overlize the carrying power of our
communities and the endgame is to advance the common good.
And then, lastly, on the partnership side, we found many
nonprofits to help them build their capacity to just strengthen

(01:12):
their impact right in their communities.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Well, give me one example of how you would help
a nonprofit. Can you give me an example.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yes, we have every year what we call neighborhood grants.
We end up using about five hundred thousand to seven
hundred thousand dollars of the dollars we receive in from
so many different companies and employers and their employees, and
we help those who have less than fifty thousand dollars

(01:44):
in revenue, and we really do help them to build
their capacity with a bright idea in a local community.
Last year we were able to give out eighty of
those grants and it was incredible to see how much
the dollars really helped them.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
And I assume you're associated like the United Way has
like this broad mission nationally, but Central Maryland has itself
it's unique challenges.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
How does your team.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Tailor to the strategies of you know, the United Way
nationally to meet the local needs most effectively.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yes, so glad you asked that, because to your point,
they're about nine hundred local United Ways in the US
with another one hundred and about thirty four countries and
their broad strokes of community resiliency, financial security, healthy community,
and youth opportunity is what we've recently adopted. So your
question is so timely. We've recently adopted that same approach

(02:41):
here in Central Maryland, and so we are able to
really be aligned from our branding but also marketing and
an impact perspective to a broader global United Way worldwide.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Wow, and and housing and education. You guys are deeply
involved with that, right percent.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
We have done so much to the space of housing stability.
So since twenty and twelve, we're able to stately house
thousands of families. Ninety nine point five percent of the
families have remained stately house and about ninety eight point
seven percent of the students have remained in their school
of origin. That helps them from a persistency in their studies,

(03:22):
the teachers, the familiarity, so they end up doing better
in school. So for our perspective, forty three percent of
those families that have been involved with US, I've actually
had higher incomes. Helps them to sort of migrate through
the process of learning apprenticeships, internships, core work programs that
involved them in a way that helps them to arrive

(03:44):
at higher levels of income. So I'm really proud of
that in Central Maryland. We're doing it since twenty twelve,
and we're just excited about what's to come for that.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
That's incredible. And how long have you been with the company?
Been a while?

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Right? Well? Yeah, I had been in the nonproit accepted
for the past twenty plus years, but in twenty sixteen
I responded to a proverbial job announcement for president CEO
this organization as the previous leader was transitioning. And for
the past nine years, it's been an incredible ride of impact,

(04:19):
changing lives at scale and arriving at a place where
we are now really seen in a different light. For
five consecutive years, we've gotten the Baltimore Sun's Top Workplace
and the bbj's Balbara Business Journal Best Place to Work awards.
So there's a lot of really good things happening at
our organizations, but more so in the community because of

(04:40):
our impact.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
What is something about your work at the United Way
of Central Maryland that the people might not expect or
be maybe like surprise to hear that you guys.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Do One of the things that people are surprised is
we do have a program called Veterans Treatment Court, a
program that impacts veterans who have committed minor offenses, but
they now need a way to build a pathway back
to their families and in the communities and to be
gainfully employed and have a pathway to continue to increase

(05:15):
their employee as well as their the dollars. And so
we have done that successfully in Baltimore and in around
the county, and we just received dollars from the state
to be able to expand this to all of our
jurisdictions in Central a Maryland. It's like so excited about
that because it's so successful over the years, it's done

(05:35):
an incredible job for lots of our veterans.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's fantastic. Wow, God, you guys, you do so much
and so much. I don't know how you guys like
keep track of it all, you know, because it's it's
a lot in.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
A good way.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's a it's kind of a use kind of like
cast a wide net, I would think.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Right of so many people.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
We also try to say we also try to stay
as focused as we can because you know, with the pandemic, Bob,
when it hit, we hadn't been doing at scale some
of the addiction prevention work, or mental health support work,
or digital divide. But because of the trust in our
market and all the various companies in the government, they
gave us lots and lots of resources to help in

(06:19):
those three spaces and more so now we're really really
continually doubling down on more and more initiatives. That just
requires confidence, requires the level of passion for the space,
and listening to our community partners. That's what we do.
If we have any superpower to share with you, Bob,
would be United Central Maryland. One of our superpowers. That's listening. Yeah,

(06:40):
we really do that very very well to the community.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
If you look past, if you look at the past year,
say the past twelve months, and you might have already
mentioned it, But is there something you're particularly proud of,
something an accomplishment the United Way of Central Maryland has done,
reached a goal of some kind, depending on what category

(07:04):
it is, whether it be school's, nonprofit, whatever.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, we have a program. This is a very good question.
We have a program called young Men United and these
are high schoolers that are in Title I schools that
come from what we call ALICE households. ALICE is an
acronym that stands for asset limited, income constrained but employed.
So these individual young men and several different high schools
in Baltimore City, they come from very struggling families and

(07:31):
households trying to make ends meet, and they come into
our program to tend grade and they stayed through the
twelfth grade and into either a career or college. Well,
this past graduation cycle of the co work, this is phenomenal, Bob.
We had an actual high school graduation rate eclipsing the
state average was literally right at ninety three percent. And

(07:52):
then we had a college acceptance rate which was previously
for these same young men the same profile previously about
forty two percent. Was actually seventy four percent of the
young men and our high schools that are part of
our Young Men United program actually received college acceptance, which
is phenomenal. Very excited about the next cohort coming.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
That is incredible.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Man, your work and the people that you work with,
and it's got to be a big staff.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'm thinking right we'll over two hundred.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yes, you all must feel you must get such a
great feeling of accomplishment every day, even though I'm sure
there are big challenges that come across. It's got to
be great work when you go to bed at night, like, ah, man,
we accomplished something today.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, it is an incredible feeling. We were so excited
because just recently we were able to partner with Excellent
and BG and literally providing resources to those who were
most hit by the raising of the utility impact for

(08:58):
pricing and that sort of thing. So at the end
of the day, we're able to get almost thirty thousand
households additional financial support to meet some of their needs
in the utility space right And it's just an incredible accomplishment.
We started in July, we're just finishing now being able
to sign those dollars to as credits to over almost

(09:21):
thirty thousand households in Central Maryland. It's a phenomenal accomplishment
and I'm so proud of our team.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
So great, so great. Listen, I want to bring up
the benefit concert that's coming up. We'll talk about that
in a second, but I want to talk about the
future of the United Way of Central Maryland. What are
things you're working on right now that I'm sure you're
going to accomplish. What is down the road, what is
the future?

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, in the big scheme of things, we want to
enlarge bob our influence not only in central Maryland and
not only through the State of Maryland, and partnership with
the Governor's offered so many of the partners. But we
believe our impact will extend in some ways nationally by
some of the things we're involved in, And so I
would just share that for starters, we will continue its

(10:08):
probably imagined to double down on education, housing, and economic advancement,
health in so many other areas that we're really trying
to do our best. And we'll continue to share best
practices read large through lots of nonprofits and other government
agencies and legislative officials and looking for best practices to
tackle transportation and all these big, big issues. So we'll

(10:31):
continue to do that in the years to come.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Cool awesome. Do you is there a need to partner
up with other branches outside the state? Does that ever happened?

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Just curious?

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh yeah, we meet quarterly. We meet with our other
United Way quarterly. We just had one on Tuesday this week.
So funny you asked the question just met with them
to talk about advocacy, joint collaboration on fundraising, to talk
specifically about how do we better support the Alice households
sets are limited but the income is constrained, but they're employed.

(11:03):
And also to really sort of caucus around this huge
issue that we're facing federally with the lack of funds,
the lack of federal dollars. How do we actually maximize opportunities?

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, okay, I want to talk about the United Way
of Central Maryland's one hundredth anniversary. It's this year. It's
a big benefit concert. Give us all the information, When
is it happening, where is it happening, and who's going
to be there, How can we get tickets, the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Oh, yes, thank you so much for that question. So
on October eleventh, we'll host our centennial benefit concert at
the Meyerholl Symphony Hall right here in Baltimore, going to
be headlined by the Grammy Award winning artist Common Cool,
with performances from C. C. Peniston such a beautiful voice
and long history Alicia Jefferson who is on the voice

(11:54):
Whiskey Feathers, a local phenom talent right here in Baltimore
and the Baltimore Any College Choir. We'll be backing up C. C.
Peniston and singing our fresh United Way song, and so
we are excited about that. Folks can go to two
sites that they like, either what gets you to where

(12:14):
you need to go relative to the tickets, which is
WWWUWCM dot org Forward Slash one hundred or Forward Slash Concert.
Either way we'll get you to the page you need
to order your tickets. They are going. As you can
imagine the more and more information like this that's being
pushed out, more and more people are going in and

(12:37):
we're seeing the numbers increase for ticket purchases. We will
really encourage people to enjoy the music the fellowship, but
also we want to connect with people Bob who may
not know much about United US and your Maryland and
be able to connect emotionally with them so they can
join our movement. So they can decide if I want
to get more involved in volunteerism, or want to get

(12:58):
more involved in advocacy the issues I care most about,
or if I want to donate some of my dollars
and resources to the cause. We'd love to have more
and more people to come for that reason alone. If
nothing else, it's.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Going to be a great event.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
I urge everybody to buy tickets and for more information
on the United Way of Central Maryland.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Is it that same website?

Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yes, UWCM dot org.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Franklin, is there any anything else you want to mention
before I let you go? Something I've missed, something you
really want to get out there. I don't want to
miss anything.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
I would just say that this is not just about
the past, this concert and the celebration. It's really about
how do we align ourselves with community in such a
way in partners so we can make our second century
service that much Richard, that much more effective and do
even more work at higher level of scale. So this
is a great kind of celebration that marks that, but

(13:54):
it's more about looking forward to the future.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
October eleventh, at the Joseph Meer Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. Franklin
Baker of the United Way of Central Maryland, thank you
so much for your time. I enjoyed talking to you
and have a wonderful.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Day you as well. Thank you so much for the time.
Appreciate it.
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