Taking care of those who bring their hearts to the work

Jasmyne Gilbert, senior director of organizational culture at Baltimore’s Promise, thinks a lot about how to look after the Baltimore’s Promise team.

Her inspiration is clear: Across her own six-year tenure, Jasmyne said leaders have leaned into her professional and personal growth and focused on how to support her through challenging moments or the next career hurdle.

“People come to this work because they care about it and want to make an impact,” she said. “So, to me, it is important that nonprofit organizations invest in and care about their staff. People are bringing so much of their hearts—and themselves—to the work.”

Extension of the mission

Baltimore’s Promise’s commitment to equity extends into how we think about the hiring and retention process, which focuses on the human behind the role.

This shows up even prior to a member joining the team, through transparent salaries in job listings and paid time for certain activities during the hiring process, and extends after onboarding through our ongoing support of staff members.

“Overall, we’re working intentionally to hire people who reflect our community, to offer them leadership and professional development opportunities that allow them to grow within the organization, and to equip a new generation of leaders with skills to drive equity and meaningful systems change,” said Deputy Chief Executive Officer Bridget Blount. “We are building the capacity within our city to make the changes we hope to see.”

In 2022, Baltimore’s Promise formalized its longstanding effort to support professional development in ways that staff prioritized, in order to make their work more effective and rewarding. For example, we updated our customer relationship management system and trained staff to use it, paid for an employee to earn their human resources certification, and registered staff to learn about social impact as a nonprofit leader.

Baltimore’s Promise couples this investment in training with genuine interest in employees’ well-being. Senior leaders encourage staff members to take time off to rest and recharge, through generous paid time off and through perks such as Fridays off throughout summer and weeklong “pauses,” when the office closes for fall, winter, and summer breaks.

Focused on the bigger picture

The intensified commitment to staff well-being followed a rapid growth in the number of staff, many of whom joined during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have almost doubled in size every year since 2017, but a lot of that growth happened remotely during COVID lockdowns. Our team had all these new people who were being asked to implement systems change virtually from their living room or their home office,” Jasmyne said, adding the focus on staff members’ growth was a way of demonstrating their importance within Baltimore’s Promise’s larger mission.

Read more about our approach to compensation, benefits, and employee care on our benefits page. Interested in joining our team? Learn about open positions here!