Spotlight on BCYF
How BCYF Is Spending the Off-Season Getting Operationally Ready
The Baltimore Children & Youth Fund exists because Baltimore voters said yes to it. The fund was created after a charter amendment established a permanent funding stream for youth programs, following years of community calls for greater investment in young people. Today, BCYF distributes millions of dollars annually in grants to community organizations across Baltimore: organizations doing things like running summer camps for young people, supporting residents with career development, and delivering programs that make a real difference in neighborhoods across the city.
Behind all of that grantmaking is a process. And like any process that serves a lot of people across a lot of organizations, it had room to get better.
The goal was simple: make compliance feel less like a burden. E.TBD worked with BCYF to optimize their grants management process, starting with conversations with both BCYF program officers and the grantees receiving funding. The aim was to understand what was working and what could be smoother, for everyone involved. From those conversations came recommendations around technology, process redesign, and how to make the entire grants management experience clearer and more manageable for both sides.
The result: a six-step process became four. E.TBD helped BCYF move from a six-step grants management process to a streamlined four-step process. The tech stack was reorganized so systems talk to each other more effectively. And the parts of the process that grantees interact with most were simplified so organizations can spend less time navigating compliance and more time delivering impact.
That's the point underneath all of it. When grants management compliance is less of an operational burden, something opens up. Program officers and grantees can focus less on paperwork and more on the work itself: technical assistance, partnerships, learning from each other, and advancing the mission they share. For BCYF, that mission is empowering young people across Baltimore. Better systems make that possible.
While the systems work continues, the community-facing work hasn't slowed down. This summer, BCYF is running its Summer of Possibilities Fund, which provides grants and support to community organizations offering summer programming for Baltimore youth. The goal is to expand access to safe, enriching summer experiences, especially through grassroots organizations serving underserved communities. That includes summer camps, arts and cultural programs, STEM programs, mentoring, wellness and recreation, academic enrichment, youth leadership development, and employment and career readiness opportunities. BCYF also recently hosted a Summer of Possibilities Fair, connecting Baltimore families with more than $2 million in free summer camps and youth programs.
That's the story underneath the story. While families across Baltimore are connecting with summer programs made possible by BCYF's grantmaking, BCYF's own team is using this season to strengthen the systems that make all of that grantmaking work: simpler, faster, and more relational for the organizations doing the work on the ground.
Learn more about BCYF
Want to learn more about BCYF? Visit their website here. If you're connected to families or organizations in Baltimore, share the Summer of Possibilities Fund so more kids can access these programs this summer. And if you're looking for a way to support the mission directly, consider donating or following their work by subscribing to their newsletter on their website.