Key Takeaways from UMA’s 2023 National Gathering: Baltimore

Across three sun-kissed days in October 2023, more than 150 practitioners from all over the country came together in Baltimore to ask questions and dream up answers to questions like:

• What do communities, businesses, residents, leaders, and other stakeholders need to understand in order to achieve true, deep impact?
• Where does the power for action live, how can it be accessed, and what must change to reach this new impact?

They shared conversations on school buses between tour stops of local manufacturing companies; during a dozen breakout sessions with topics ranging from how to support home-based businesses scale to designing successful succession strategies; at Coppin State University, an Historically Black College and University on Baltimore’s West Side; and on neighborhood walks we used to warm up and kick off each day.

This report documents those critical conversations that took place at Baltimore Unity Hall at a time when our country confronted overlapping challenges and opportunities: long simmering manufacturing job shortages, historic economic inequality across place, demands for higher job quality and benefits, the passage of historical federal legislation to support the sector, and ongoing racial justice reckonings within and around businesses and communities.