EMERGENCE BALTIMORE

A Force For Local Businesses

This holiday season means life or death for hundreds of small businesses across Baltimore. It's up to all of us to ensure that they make it through.
How You Can Help Local Businesses
Emergence Baltimore

A Force for Local Businesses

Small Businesses are in danger - and it's up to all of us to ensure that they make it through COVID.
Emergence Baltimore

A Force for Local

Businesses

Entrepreneurs

Artists

Musicians

Empowerment

Emergence Baltimore is a nonprofit dedicated to supporting localism in Baltimore.

Our mission is to increase the competitiveness of small businesses by advocating for their needs, promoting their offerings, and matching them up with local talent.

Our Programs

3 Ways You Can Support Local

Supporting local businesses is a necessity, but we understand that it's not always clear how you can help. Our three programs make it easy to support Baltimore's local businesses - check them out below!
Buy Local Business Navigator

It can be hard to shop local if you don't know all the wonderful businesses that Baltimore has to offer. Use the Buy Local Baltimore platform to explore hundreds of local businesses, sorting by business type, products, and more

Launch the Business Navigator
A Force for Local

Are you passionate about supporting local businesses? Sign up for a Force for Local, a volunteer program that allows individuals help small businesses with marketing, content creation, website development, and other capacity-building tasks. In partnership with Equalyze.

Learn About the Force
Quick Local Gifts: BMore Baskets

Do you want to simplify your holiday shopping and ensure your dollars stay local? Order your Holiday Gifts via BMore Baskets, which creates gift baskets full of Baltimore small business products. Give awesome gifts while shunning Amazon: that's the holiday spirit.

Shop BMore Baskets
A Force for local

Sign Up to Support Small Businesses

Are you a small business in need of help, or an individual who wants to help Small Businesses? Sign up to the Force for Local, which connects small businesses in need of assistance with free talent
Join the Force
NAME NAME, Founder of Chocolit
Local Sauce brand by entrepreneur
Woman Woman
About Emergence

Supporting Local Businesses isn't Charity - it's a Necessity

Local businesses make up the fabric of our community, economy, and society. However, during COVID, local businesses have struggled to compete as foot traffic has plummeted, people have shifted their purchasing online, and large stores have leveraged economies of scale to out-compete local shops.

40%
of the US workforce is employed by Small Businesses
70%
of local businesses may close due to COVID
28%
of all jobs will disappear if this happens

Over 100,000 small businesses have already shut down due to COVID, and even more stand to be permanently shuttered. Emergence Baltimore is doing our small part to help prevent this from happening so that we all can continue to enjoy the magic that local businesses bring to our community.

Explore Baltimore Businesses
Our Keystone Program

The Emergence Fellowship

COVID has forced many small businesses to compete digitally, even though many small business owners do not have the time, resources, or technological capacity to drive the same volume of digital sales. In the Emergence Fellowship, six Fellows form a Force for Local Businesses, executing on initiatives that help local businesses promote and sell their products.

Small Businesses

If you are a Baltimore-based businesses in need of assistance on your website/e-commerce setup, product photography, social media management, or digital marketing, apply to be one of six businesses selected for the Spring 2021 Emergence Fellowship cohort

Learn More

Fellows

If you are an individual with digital skills who is passionate about supporting small businesses, apply to be an Emergence Fellow, where you will live on-site for 6 weeks at Emergence as you work alongside five other passionate fellows to help execute on projects submit by local businesses

Learn More
01
Buy Local Baltimore
The Buy Local Baltimore Navigator lets you explore hundreds of local businesses in Baltimore
02
A Force for Local
A volunteer program matching local talent with small businesses in need of assistance
03
BMore Baskets
BMore Baskets sells gift baskets with 100% local business products, purchased at full price
A Force for Local

A Force for Local is a grassroots campaign that enables anyone to help local businesses

Everyone can support small businesses, but it's not always easy to know the best way to help (other than shopping local!)We've partnered with Equalyze to launch the Force for Local program, where anyone can help a small business with social media marketing, delivery, content creation, outreach, and other capacity-building tasks.

It doesn't take a village - it takes a Force. Join it today.
Join The Force
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Our Mission
We know that local businesses are what make our city amazing, and we are laser-focused on helping them succeed. Through our Buy Local Baltimore Navigator, Force for Local Campaign, and BMore Baskets program, we're helping raise awareness of local businesses, build their internal capacity, and encourage local purchasing.

Only together can we shift the trend away from corporatism and bring about a resurgence of the local businesses that make our communities great places to live, learn, and work.
Kevin Carter
  —  
President of Emergence Baltimore
Help us Help Local

Donate to Emergence

Emergence Baltimore, Inc. is a Baltimore-based nonprofit (501(c)3 pending).
Your 100% tax deductible donations allow us to keep our our platforms and programs free of charge to small businesses and participants
Support Our Efforts

Latest News from Emergence Baltimore

Want to catch up on all the news & happenings in the world of Emergence Baltimore? Take a look through our blog posts that highlight our local initiatives as well as the small businesses that we serve.
All Posts

How to Become a Force For Local in Baltimore

Dec 2, 2020
 in 

Supporting Baltimore's Local Businesses Isn't Charity; It's a Necessity

Nov 20, 2020
 in 

Emergence's No Trick, All Treat Giveaway: Supporting Baltimore's Local Businesses

 in 
Who We Are

Meet Our Team

The Emergence Baltimore team is a group of entrepreneurs and creatives who believe that the success of small businesses means the success of our city. We volunteer our time to run these programs in order to give back to the community we call home
President
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Kevin Carter

Kevin Carter is the co-founder of the accelerators at Johns Hopkins University. After attending Georgetown University, Kevin was recruited by Johns Hopkins to spearhead the development of FastForward U, the university's entrepreneurship division. He also co-founded a venture that helped raise awareness of local businesses, and has worked with 1776, a renowned accelerator in Washington, DC. Kevin was a Venture for America fellow, and has risen within the organization to become a program mentor for incoming fellows.
Treasurer
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Les Gray

Les Gray is a Baltimore based artist and teacher. She taught at the John Hopkins Baltimore Youth Film Arts Program and is the film and photography instructor at the Baltimore School for the Arts. Les is also a certified 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher instructor and will be lead the cohort's daily movement and mindfulness practices.
Vice President
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Daniel DeVivo

Daniel DeVivo is a filmmaker and Fulbright Fellow who graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Social Anthropology. His documentaries adopt opposing-viewpoints with the aim of encouraging public discussion around complex social issues. Crossing Arizona, for example, examines the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment and migrant death along the US/Mexico border. The film was an Official Selection of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and is used as an educational resource to date. Daniel is eager to use his creative skill set to promote entrepreneurship and community resilience in Baltimore City.
Buy Local Navigator Lead
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Pava LaPere

Pava LaPere is a serial entrepreneur, having founded two nonprofits related to entrepreneurial education, a for-profit company that pioneered the use of AI in entrepreneurial ecosystem mapping, a web development company, and the official accelerator programs at Johns Hopkins University, where she is also an alum. Pava focuses on how we can build more equitable and accessible entrepreneurial ecosystems using innovation and technology, and is passionate about entrepreneurial education.
Social Media Lead
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Ali Rachidi

Ali Rachidi graduated in 2020 with a bachelor in Computer Science and International Studies from Johns Hopkins University. As a personal trainer, he enjoys sharing his passion for fitness, self-care and mental health. He currently works as a machine learning engineer at Sonavi Labs, a startup that creates medical devices and software rooted in AI and applied to auscultation.
Content Lead
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Kham Owens

Kham Owens is a cinematographer from Washington, D.C. with a passion for the arts, filmmaking, and photography. A graduate of Baltimore's Notre Dame, Kham is excited about creating content that will help rising entrepreneurs get noticed and reach their goals.
BMore Baskets Lead
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Emani Symone

Creative Lead
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Simdi Onyilofor

It Takes a Force

Our Partners

Emergence Baltimore would not be possible without the support of our Partners, who help us execute our three initiatives
EcoMap Technologies

EcoMap builds platforms to help people navigate entrepreneurial communities. Parter for our Buy Local Navigator

Equalyze

Equalyze connects small businesses to college and university students who can provide low-cost services. Partner for a Force for Local.

Urban Harbor Media

Urban Harbor Media is a web design and development agency that builds beautiful, responsive sites. They designed this site!

Let's Chat

Contact Our Team

Do you want to learn more about Emergence Baltimore or partner on one of our initiatives? Get in touch with our team below!

Let's Chat

Send us a message and our Emergence Baltimore team will get in touch shortly.
1 S. Wolfe St., #203 Baltimore, MD, 21231
team@emergencebaltimore.org
+1 (443) 610 2828
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