Investing in Communities

Your support makes a difference!  Since 1968 we have assisted nearly1,900 projects – creating new parks and playgrounds, returning abandoned buildings to new community uses, beautifying neighborhoods and schools, and improving commercial districts.  In order to provide our services to these communities, a diversity of people support our mission – public agencies, foundations, corporations and businesses, and individuals (link to funders).  Every dollar in funding that NDC receives allows us to help communities leverage another three dollars in grants, pro-bono services, and in-kind donations.  For example:

• NDC helped the Druid Heights Community Development Corporation develop initial plans and a feasibility study for the conversion of an abandoned Baltimore City fire station into a community center.  Today, the Maggie Quill Community Center includes offices for the CDC, a business and computer learning center, and a host of other community resources.

• NDC worked with a coalition of waterfront communities to develop plans to show how the American Can Company could be renovated as a mixed-use project.  Today the complex is a vital commercial and business heart of Canton.
  
  
• The Town of North Brentwood received a State grant of $25,000 toward the building of a Memorial Garden.  NDC worked with community leaders to design a memorial garden to honor residents who gave their life in service to the country. 

 

• In 2007-2008, NDC assisted with a Facade Improvement Project that included over fifteen businesses in the gateway Arts District along Route 1.  Business owners will use the drawings to apply for grants and funding to upgrade their shops and restaurants as part of an area-wide economic development effort.
  
  
• In support of the Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative, NDC has worked with a dozen communities throughout Baltimore - providing community design guidelines, architectural renderings for exterior home and yard improvement projects, block projects, and other assistance to improve the housing value and marketability of each neighborhood.

• NDC worked with Neighborhood Housing Services and residents in the Irvington neighborhood of Southwest Baltimore to develop plans for exterior and yard improvements as well as the reclamation of a vacant lot.  As a result of this work, the Block Club was awarded a $3,900 grant to begin implementing Phase I of the project, which includes façade improvements such as coach lights, door and trim painting, mailboxes and number plaques.

• For the past five years, NDC’s Prince George’s County office has been the leading technical assistance provider to the County’s Livable Communities Initiative.  Since 2003, NDC has helped over 150 community groups and non-profits create planting plans to beautify schools, neighborhoods, and business districts
  
  
• Schematic designs for a recreation center for the Edgewood neighborhood in West Baltimore helped the community to receive over $700,000 in funding, becoming the first recreation center to be built in the City since the mid 1970s.