At the corner of North and Cecil Avenues in Central Baltimore sits the newly constructed home of Roberta’s House. The building represents a transformational investment designed to bring new life to a vacant block that was previously occupied by rowhomes. This piece tells the story of lessons from the Greenmount Life, Opportunity, and Wellness (GLOW) Initiative, a new effort to concentrate financial and social investment in select neighborhoods that have long experienced underinvestment.

When place-based funders from 12 regions across the country formed a learning group in 2020, chronicled in this five-part series, they shared practical, tactical steps to grapple with a range of thorny questions. When they turned to engaging stakeholders, the funders focused on three core challenges to building community partnerships.