New Member Spotlight Series: Part 1
In an effort to amplify the work of our new community members, we are reinvigorating our member spotlight series. This will be a snapshot of what new members are up-to in the Baltimore & Maryland social innovation space and what they hope to achieve throughout their time co-working at Impact Hub. The idea behind this series is to showcase our new members in hopes to help connect and create a gallery to exhibit their meaningful work.
Charlie Cummings
Charlie directs the Nonprofit Program Management graduate program at the Do Good Institute (DGI), the University of Maryland’s hub for nonprofit management and social innovation. Charlie is excited about growing a graduate program designed for non-profit leaders because the students bring with them a lot of passion and impact. The program is able to help them improve their skills in strategy, fundraising and financial management while helping them advance their careers and elevate their impact. Charlie has always been interested in education, he started teaching 5th grade students, then became a teacher trainer and finally moved onto higher education.
A traveler at heart, Charlie found us through a long connection with the Impact Hub global network in South America. In 2018, Charlie and his wife were looking for adventure so they sold their home, found remote jobs, and moved to Medellin where they became members at Impact Hub Medellin and started volunteering with local nonprofits based at the Hub. They quickly immersed themselves in the local innovative community and learned Spanish to make new friends. Charlie’s time in Medellin lasted a year and half, after which their adventure took them to Mexico City where they again joined the local Impact Hub to continue their explorations. Shortly after, Covid19 hit and they escaped the big city to Playa Del Carmen for six months. After soaking in the sunny beach while quarantining, it was time to return home as they discovered they were going to have a baby girl.
The Impact Hub global community was instrumental to Charlie’s success in learning and integrating into the local culture. In Medellin, he helped a social enterprise coffee exporting company rebrand themselves and assisted in getting their cold brew bottling startup off the ground. Charlie also toured coffee farms and roasting labs to work on strategy and marketing assistance. In Baltimore, Charlie hopes to get involved with people and projects trying to improve communities making life better. The Do Good Institute has a lot to offer in terms of advancing non-profits’ skill sets to add capacity and help them scale up.
Charlie speaks fluent Spanish and loves to play tennis and other outdoor sports. He’s a recent transplant to Baltimore, falling for the energy and family-friendliness of the city. He would love to connect by email charlesgcummings@gmail.com.
Keisha Reed
Keisha is first and foremost a community builder, building a community of informed cannabis consumers in the state of Maryland. Her mission at Explore Maryland Cannabis is to make an impact by providing pathways for people who are looking to enter the cannabis ecosystem through education and access. With cannabis being uniquely connected to the local community, it was the perfect fusion of elements to create this community based organization. One of the ways Keisha is building community is through workforce development in the industry (dispensaries, cultivation and processors) because many don’t know it is an opportunity for them. An example of this is providing a pathway for returning citizens and bringing them back into the workforce. The long term goal is to transition the workers from the legacy market to the legal one. Keisha’s efforts act as the liaison when it comes to facilitating conversations about people reentering the industry, especially those who have been impacted by decades of negative targeting.
“It’s important in the growth stage of my business to be surrounded by other passionate, innovative community focused organizations and enterprises in Maryland while being centrally located in Baltimore” she says about the importance of being a member here at Impact Hub. Keisha is excited about having access to a co-working space after spending the last two years in her house behind a computer doing work as a new entrepreneur. She’s a people person who likes walking around the space and meeting new people to stir up conversations with. Impact Hub provides Keisha the variety of working from a bustling, high energy space or a secluded, quiet nook where she can dream and do. As far as what she is hoping to contribute back to our coworking community, Keisha offers digital marketing, strategy services and crafting impactful campaigns for entrepreneurs.
Keisha is originally from Washington DC and currently resides in the Baltimore region. She has been plugging into the Impact Hub network since 2014 in a variety of ways from learning about opportunities for women of color in the tech industry, attending community focused events such as GiveCamp, and watching local companies present at Tech Breakfasts and hackathons. She wears many hats and is pleased to have her entrepreneurial journey come full circle with building a social impact organization at Impact Hub Baltimore.
Follow along on Keisha’s podcast: Passport to Maryland Cannabis
Mark Simmelkjaer
Mark moved to Baltimore after spending time between DC, NYC, and here. He chose this city because it’s a middle ground between NYC and DC. The energy of Baltimore drew him in and while attending an event in the Sagamore Pendry, he bumped into a former member of Impact Hub. That’s when curiosity struck, and he found himself checking the coworking space out. Becoming a member at Impact Hub has meant making new friends and building community connections he otherwise wouldn’t have made. In July 2021 Mark became a Fell’s Point homeowner, providing him an opportunity to be close to Impact Hub and establish communities while he builds socially conscious companies.
During the pandemic, Mark was Chief of Staff for a socially responsible investment company in NYC. After realizing the gap in the industry, he transitioned to becoming a social entrepreneur. Baltimore has allowed him to pursue his passion for building companies in the climate change age that address energy efficient solutions to everyday challenges. ‘Lawnless’ is one such platform that hopes to connect local plant nurseries to homeowners looking to move beyond their grass focused yards to sustainable micro-ecosystems. Mark’s plans to disrupt the lawn care industry in favor of native vegetation can only happen by getting off the couch and building connections, “you only get so far if you’re working in your backyard.” The Impact Hub coworking space means he can get involved with other innovators and receive feedback on his projects.
Mark hopes to contribute by showing that you can have a socially responsible company that is also for profit and to continue expanding his love for the local Baltimore community.
Check out Mark’s website for more info: North Ave Ventures
Girls in the Game
Kelsey McLaurin & Sara Moore are staff members of a new office tenant, Girls in the Game, a non-profit that provides after school programming for young girls attending elementary, middle and high schools in Baltimore city. The mission is to enable every girl to find her voice, discover her strength, and lead with confidence through fun and active sports, leadership, and health programs. Supporting young girls to feel empowered is at the heart of Girls in the Game’s operations and both ladies share that vision.
Sara Moore is Baltimore City Manager overseeing all aspects of after school programming and teen programs. Sara is originally from Pennsylvania and moved to Maryland for college. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, and a Master of Nonprofit Management from the University of Baltimore. Sara is excited about providing quality programming that has been well received since the inception of Girls in the Game Baltimore in 2015. She believes that after school programming is a valuable part of youth development because growing up she didn’t have access to similar programs and she is glad to see local schools signing up to be on the waitlist. Being previously involved in youth programming in Baltimore, Sara took the opportunity of doing it full-time rather than as an after work activity. A big portion of Sara’s work is building partnerships with local schools that are heavily based on existing partnerships that were carried over and new partnerships made this year.
Kelsey McLaurin is Baltimore City Coordinator overseeing the teen programs. She moved to Baltimore three months ago and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. She is a recent May 2021 college graduate and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. After graduation Kelsey was looking for work opportunities in social justice. Feeling adventurous she decided to do a year of service through Lutheran Volunteer Corps with Girls in the Game in Baltimore. Kelsey is excited about the team program’s emphasis and leadership component of Girls in the Game. She is passionate about helping students through the process of figuring out what they want to achieve and encouraging them to try new things. She feels connected to the students because she is not far removed from high school and hopes to help the students navigate through the different aspects leading up to college or career. Kelsey is working on building the Teen Squad program and networking events where students can earn points to raise individual educational scholarship funds.
Girls in the Game has three part time staff based in their Baltimore office, including two students through their partnership with Morgan State University who work on after school programs and coaching for elementary and middle school students. Some local schools they partner with are Patterson Park Public Charter School, Armistead Gardens, Hamilton Elementary Middle School, Baltimore Design School, and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. Girls in the Game maintains a long-term relationship with the community they serve. Students who are involved in programming grow up to become volunteers, staff, and in one case a director with the organization. Some individuals have been involved with Girls in the Game for over 15 years speaking to the strength of the program and shows that keeping relationships going with your community provides longevity to the organization. In Chicago, where programming has been going on since 1995, there are numerous alumni staff individuals who went through the program as young girls. In Baltimore, one young woman started volunteering because her sister would do the programming at Hamilton School so she decided to get involved based on that.
Being part of the Impact Hub community means that both Sara and Kelsey can network and get to know other members doing student based programming work. As fairly new member tenants, they have been approached by tenured tenants who are curious about the services they provide, and to discuss the possibility of collaborating. Networking is a big factor for their decision to be here at Impact Hub, and one of their favorite things about the coworking space is the variety of different work spaces they get to choose from. They especially like having space to get creative using the whiteboards in our huddle rooms. Girls in the Game hopes to contribute to the Impact Hub Baltimore community by sharing their experiences and partnering on events. In Baltimore as a whole, they hope to be able to provide assistance to Baltimore city schools to host students to have fun with their friends and get together after being quarantined and practicing social distancing for so long. Girls in the Game is also finding ways of supporting young girls of color in Baltimore schools.
Plug into Girls in the Game through their Instagram handle @girlsinthegame
