The Solutions Summit is a free, full-day event, open to the community, which will bring together community leaders, elected officials, issue-area experts, on-the-ground activists, and concerned residents in order to come up with practical solutions to some of Baltimore’s most intractable issues.

The purpose of the Summit is to discuss and agree on an action plan to present to Mayor Elect Catherine Pugh, who will attend and offer a welcome address, and our new City Council, many of whom will also attend. It builds on the work done at three half-day forums focused on Jobs, Justice, and Behavioral Health. At the Summit, the recommendations that came out of those forums will be debated and we will collectively vote on the priorities for our leadership over the next 12 to 18 months.

The Summit was created to harness the energy and ideas that came out of the Baltimore Uprising. Many events over the past 18 months have focused on the deeply entrenched problems in Baltimore. The Summit is an attempt to pivot and focus instead on solutions. The Summit comes at a crucial moment for Baltimore. On November 8th, we elected a new mayor and 8 out of 15 new city council members. The Summit aims to seize this opportunity to focus our new leadership on the priorities that are most important to the community. After the Summit, OSI and partners will publicly monitor the mayor and city council’s progress on those priorities.

The Summit will include a keynote address from Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF). Ifill, a longtime civil rights champion, is on the Open Society Foundations Global Board. The program will also include all four event co-chairs, including former Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Chair and CEO of Brown Capital Management Eddie Brown, former Obama administration Treasury official Mary Miller, and former Legg Mason CEO Mark Fetting.

It will also include presentations and discussions of potential priorities in each of the three key issue areas. At the end of each section, using mobile technology, those assembled will vote on the priorities they think are most important. The Summit will also be a celebration of civic participation, with spoken word and musical performances, art on display, and food.

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