When Diana Morris was tapped in 1997 to head the Open Society Institute's Baltimore office, she thought she would disperse $25 million to worthy causes here over five years and be done with it.
Almost eight years later, Morris has been challenged by her boss, billionaire and OSI founder George Soros, to raise $20 million to keep the office open. Soros has already spent $50 million - twice the amount he originally promised - in the city he refers to as a "laboratory" for reform.
Now, he's dangling an additional $10 million to tempt locals to step up.
Morris - an attorney who worked for the Ford Foundation for 10 years in Africa and Europe - is in hot pursuit of the money.
She says she and Soros are going to target individual donors, people who see the wisdom of giving to an organization that can use their millions to leverage millions more. Foundations and local businesses are also being asked to help.
Soros, a retired international financier who is worth more than $7 billion, suggested last week that Baltimore's financial institutions - T. Rowe Price and Legg Mason, for example - could step up.
"There is a financial industry in Baltimore that could be a Robin Hood," he said.
At a news conference Thursday at City Hall squeezed between meetings with potential donors, Morris said more than $1.4 million in contributions had been pledged so far. The Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national children's advocacy organization based in Baltimore, has committed the bulk of that amount - $1 million over five years.
That pledge is a small fraction of the commitment needed to keep OSI-Baltimore offices open when Soros funding runs out Dec. 31, Morris said.
Part of the challenge Morris faces is telling potential donors just what has been accomplished with the $50 million Soros has spent so far.
Until recently, her foundation has been deliberately low key - working to strengthen existing organizations and to persuade government agencies to work with them and provide funding.
As a result, there are lots of grateful do-gooders willing to sing OSI's praises but relatively few program successes that the foundation can claim as uniquely its own.
Still, Morris says she is confident Marylanders will come through, once they realize the foundation's commitment to dealing with the city's core problems of drugs, education and the re-entry of ex-cons into community life.
"OSI has a track record in Maryland of doing good work," said Morris, who lives in Lutherville. "We have a lot of partners now and the momentum is there to really address some of the root causes of problems in the city. If we don't act, these problems will continue to eat away at the fabric of this community."
Morris says she has a great story to tell. Since 1998, OSI has:
Helped cut fatal drug overdoses to their lowest level in five years, in part by funding a controversial project to train heroin addicts to use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and to inject Narcan, an antidote that can revive someone who is near death from an overdose.
Helped raise $25 million from private and public sources to fund after-school programs for 14,000 city school students.
Contributed $5 million in seed money to create the Baltimore Fund, a community development and venture-capital fund that creates new jobs for low-income people through investment in local businesses. The fund, which started with $15 million in 2002, is part of a larger, $50 million fund run by the venture capital arm of The Reinvestment Fund headquartered in Philadelphia.
Launched an urban debate league now in 26 city high schools. The league has been credited with training young people to be campus leaders and encouraging them to pursue a college education. The program, which has become a national model, is administered by the Baltimore Urban Debate League, a nonprofit group that partners with the public school system and Towson University.
Provided $5 million in grants to support "Reason to Believe," an expansion of the city's "Believe" campaign. The group works to strengthen programs that improve the lives of children and fight crime and drug abuse.
Provided 42 grants totaling $7.2 million to support drug treatment programs and initiatives in the city. Grants to the Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, a nonprofit arm of city government that deals with drug abuse, were used to recruit and train staff, as well as perform strategic planning. The money also paid for reports documenting the benefits of drug treatment, which in turn, advocates say, helped to leverage more state funds.
Worked with local organizations to leverage more than $20.3 million in public and private funds to help ex-prisoners become productive citizens upon their release. Recently, the state has begun to reform its parole practices and improve prison drug treatment and transition services. OSI has also funded an experimental prison methadone program to help incarcerated addicts.
Funded lobbying to increase federal and state funding for drug abuse treatment in Baltimore from $23 million in 1997 to $60 million in 2003.
Helped boost the number of treatment slots from 4,100 in 1996 to 8,597 in 2005, according to city officials. Local clinics will serve an estimated 22,074 people this year.
Awarded 70 community fellows grants worth $48,750 each since 1998. Fellows have used the grants to start a community conferencing center to work with juvenile offenders, launch a program that teaches inner-city students about community law, and provide professional, affordable video and film production to social justice activists.
