The Annie E. Casey Foundation ? the 12th-largest private foundation in the country with more than $3 billion in assets ? has improved the lives of disadvantaged children and their families for more than 50 years.
Its presence and financial impact has been felt since it moved to Maryland in 1994.
“We put a considerable amount of investing into Baltimore directly,” said Tony Cipollone, the foundation?s vice president.
“We feel that we?ve got a special responsibility to Baltimore, given that it is our home.”
In 2005, the foundation provided grants totaling $4.8 million to organizations and programs in Maryland, as well as $2 million in various program related grants for the city?s Eastside Redevelopment Initiative. For that initiative, the foundation also has provided $1.5 million in supplemental relocation benefits for Eastside residents and Casey, along with Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Abell Foundation, have guaranteed $15 million in loans for the project during the next 10 years.
Nationally, it contributed $197 million to support programs and organizations that help underprivileged children.
The foundation considers its work in Baltimore?s eastside key to improving the quality of life for some of the city?s most disadvantaged residents. The Eastside Redevelopment Initiative is an $800 million, 80-acre urban redevelopment effort that will bring new jobs, new homes and a variety of human services to Baltimore?s eastside.
“It?s the largest redevelopment that Baltimore has ever undertaken,” said Cipollone. “We?ve made a sustained effort to help and support the eastside redevelopment project so that the families who have historically lived in that community benefit from the redevelopment.
“If you look at the track record of most urban redevelopment efforts nationally, they may have been able to create new communities and new neighborhoods with new buildings and new houses, but far too often the residents who have lived in those communities have not benefited economically or by the better services in those communities.”
Robert Penn, executive vice president of East Baltimore Development Inc., the organization heading up the redevelopment effort, said the project would not have moved forward without the Casey Foundation?s help.
He said that the foundation?s financial contributions to the project have been instrumental in moving it forward, and the personal involvement of Douglas W. Nelson, the foundation?s president who serves on the board of directors and chairs the board?s housing and relocation committee has been unprecedented.
“Without his personal involvement and the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this initiative would not be able to make the progress that it has to date.”
