The Summer Funding Collaborative (SFC) is a partnership between 10 public, private, and nonprofit organizations that supports high-quality summer programs serving children and youth from low-income backgrounds in Baltimore City. The SFC values the perspectives of community members (e.g., young people and their adult caregivers), and includes them in the funding decisions that impact the opportunities available in their communities.
Each year, Baltimore's Promise, the administrative backbone of the SFC, facilitates a community review process for all SFC applications. Youth ages 14-24 and parents/caregivers of youth ages 0-13 review all SFC applications and evaluate them based on a Community Review Rubric. The SFC uses the feedback from community reviewers to inform 100% of their grantmaking (about $4 million) decisions for summer funding.
Watch our videos to learn more about how the process works, and, to hear from previous community reviewers.