Rockefeller Foundation Accelerates U.S. Economic Solutions at “Big Bets for America: Baltimore”

BALTIMORE, April 21, 2026/ PRNewswire/– The Rockefeller Structure today hosted Huge Bets for America: Baltimore, combining more than 250 leaders covering policy, humanitarian, personal, and non-profit sectors in Baltimore to surface area, speed up, and scale enthusiastic services to the nation’s most important difficulties. With a Steering Committee– including Abell Structure, Baltimore Neighborhood Structure, Baltimore Homecoming, Greater Baltimore Committee, and The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Structure– and tactical partners Greater Washington Collaboration, Baltimore Advancement Corporation, and Johns Hopkins University, the Structure and occasion individuals, consisting of Maryland Guv Wes Moore, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, revealed brand-new efforts and ingenious cooperations to produce financial paths and advance chances for neighborhoods throughout the State of Maryland and across the country. In Baltimore, The Rockefeller Structure likewise introduced a $100 million dedication to link America’s employees to excellent tasks and its next class of U.S. Big Bets Fellows.

” For 250 years, America’s guarantee has actually been that effort results in a steady, dignified life,” stated Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Structure “Today, a lot of neighborhoods have actually been left up until now behind that this guarantee feels out of reach. With the dedications revealed today, The Rockefeller Structure is wagering on the durability of the American employee and the resourcefulness of our neighborhoods– and constructing the facilities to assist that bet settle at nationwide scale.”

Huge Bets for America is a nationwide series of convenings that unites leaders from throughout the United States to speed up financial development, stimulate action, and move neighborhoods forward. The Baltimore occasion develops on momentum from the series’ inaugural event in Oklahoma City in November 2025.

• The Rockefeller Structure Devotes $100 Million to Link America’s Employees to Excellent Jobs. The Rockefeller Structure introduced a brand-new three-year, $100 million dedication to assist neighborhoods throughout the nation link more individuals to excellent tasks and adjust to quick financial and technological modification. The method intends to benefit 10 to 20 million individuals throughout around 250 of America’s many distressed neighborhoods, assistance make it possible for the development of approximately 1.6 million extra excellent tasks nationally, and take advantage of lined up capital in collaboration with companies and public, personal, and humanitarian funders. The method concentrates on sectors with the greatest task development outlook: health care and the care economy, energy shift, food systems, and AI-enabled markets.
  
• The Rockefeller Structure to Increase Assistance for Buy Our Future. As part of The Rockefeller Structure’s dedication to advancing excellent tasks and constructing more powerful, more inclusive labor force systems, The Structure anticipates to offer over the next 3 years an extra $12 million to Buy Our Future, a pooled fund supported by RF Catalytic Capital, Inc., that sets in motion tidy energy chances to drive financial chance, consisting of tasks, in neighborhoods across the country. Considering that its launch in 2023, the effort has actually dealt with lined up funders to open numerous countless humanitarian dollars for tidy energy release and has actually revealed that integrating humanitarian capital, policy application, and strong cross-sector collaborations can quickly scale effect and turn tidy energy financial investments into genuine financial chances at the state and regional levels.
  
• Guv Wes Moore Reveals $1.5 Million in Philanthropic Awards to ENOUGH Communities. Guv Wes Moore highlighted the circulation of $1.5 million in humanitarian financing awards from the Sherman Household Structure, the Bainum Household Structure, David and Lucile Packard Structure, and The Rockefeller Structure to reinforce education and childcare gain access to in 9 ENOUGH neighborhoods– Maryland jurisdictions with high concentrations of youth hardship. The financing will support 9 sufficient neighborhoods as they release and sustain programs to reinforce education and childcare, consisting of through such efforts as lowering persistent absence through safe transport choices to school and establishing afterschool programs to improve literacy rates.
  
• The Rockefeller Structure Reveals 2nd Class of U.S. Big Bets Fellows. The Rockefeller Structure called 10 vibrant innovators to its 2026 class of U.S. Big Bets Fellows– operating in California, Central Appalachia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York City, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Structure on the inaugural 2025 class, this year’s fellows are working to broaden labor force paths and unlock capital for underserved neighborhoods. Throughout the four-month fellowship, The Rockefeller Structure will offer fellows with customized programs, peer networking, and expert advancement to hone their methods and scale their effect.
  
• The Engine Presents the Difficult Tech Map. The Engine introduced the Difficult Tech Map, a public interactive directory site linking Difficult Tech start-ups to sector- and geography-specific facilities– from nationwide laboratories to check beds and fellowships to incubators. Established in collaboration with the wider community, the map intends to centralize resources start-ups in environment, health, advanced calculate, and other Difficult Tech sectors require to scale. Discover more at www.ToughTechMap.xyz.
  
• LACI Broadens City Environment Development Difficulty to Baltimore & & 15 Other United States Cities. The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) revealed a brand-new accomplice of cities for its City Environment Development Difficulty, that includes Baltimore City and 15 others. The Difficulty assists cities recognize environment developments and cleantech business owners, pilots the chosen services, supplies technical support, and scales what works to much better enhance lives and incomes in metropolitan locations. Baltimore’s addition signals growing momentum for the program as it scales LACI’s special design of public-private environment partnership to cities throughout the nation.
  
• The Tidy Battle Reveals Growth of its National Implementation Grant Fund. The Tidy Battle revealed that its National Implementation Grant Fund, an effort that utilizes targeted catalytic grants of $50,000 to $250,000 to speed up the adoption of tested tidy energy services in homes, schools, and neighborhoods throughout America– focusing on susceptible and underserved neighborhoods– has actually gotten $1 million from The Rockefeller Structure towards its $10 million objective. The Fund’s design is constructed on the concept that moneying the right “very first” task opens much more: each grant is structured to produce the proof, funding design, or de-risked usage case that permits other neighborhoods to follow without continuous aid. In New york city, The Tidy Battle has actually supported 70 business and 22 release jobs with $5.4 million in catalytic grants, producing over 5,000 follow-on releases statewide and almost 1,000 tasks. The Rockefeller Structure’s contribution is assisting take The Tidy Battle’s design nationwide, with knowings shared broadly through open-source recommendation styles, application guides, and nationwide convenings.
  
• Huge Bets for America Series to Go to Cleveland. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and The Rockefeller Structure revealed that the next Huge Bets for America assembling will happen in Cleveland on June 9. More information about that program will be supplied in the coming weeks.

• Guv of Maryland Wes Moore: “When I devoted to an extraordinary attack on kid hardship in Maryland, I understood we required more than simply federal government on board. That’s why I’m grateful to our humanitarian partners who are stepping up together with us to make bets on services no federal government can take on alone. Today we’re taking another advance on a really collective method that unites federal government, philanthropy, and the economic sector to set the requirement for what real, structural development appears like, and making Maryland a design for the country.”
  
• Mayor of Baltimore Brandon Scott: “Baltimore was happy to host this event of public and economic sector partners devoted to fair, community-driven financial development. Particularly in locations that have actually traditionally dealt with deliberate disinvestment– like numerous communities in Beauty City– we need to be simply as deliberate with the methods we work to produce chance today. I’m grateful that The Rockefeller Structure shares that focus, and anticipate interacting on a lot of the collaborations revealed throughout this assembling.”
  
• Mayor of Cleveland Justin Bibb: “Cleveland is purchasing its individuals, its communities, and its future – and it’s working. The minute is here to bank on our city, to link citizens to chance, and to open financial investment at scale. We’re prepared to reveal the nation what inclusive development appears like in action.”
  
• Kate Frucher, CEO, The Tidy Battle: “This is the minute to make certain tested tidy energy services– ones that enhance lives today and develop durability for years to come– do not rest on the sidelines. Supporting the right initially task does not simply benefit one neighborhood, it produces an effective slipstream for everybody who follows. That’s precisely what our Implementation Grant Fund is constructed to do– utilizing the out of proportion effect that tactically put, small-dollar grant financing can have.”
  
• Emily Knight, The Engine: ” We constructed the Difficult Tech Map to open access to the facilities creators require to scale, not simply in significant centers, however all over. It works as connective tissue, assisting start-ups take advantage of shared Tough-Tech-specific resources so they can remain capital effective while turning advancement concepts into real-world effect.”
  
• Matt Petersen, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator: “LACI’s City Environment Development Difficulty was developed to assist city governments pilot and scale the very best cleantech services that enhance air quality, produce tasks, and grow the economy. Thanks to the assistance of the Rockefeller Structure and others, we are thrilled to release our next accomplice of 16 cities throughout the U.S, consisting of Baltimore, to increase access to trusted and inexpensive EV charging for each area, consisting of house occupants and underserved neighborhoods.”
  
• Derrick Adams, Beauty City Cultural Growing: ” I have actually seen how various cities have actually changed their neighborhoods into these kinds of neighborhoods where individuals can grow. We’re actually entering into an entrepreneurial culture today where there’s not going to be a great deal of huge market in the method it utilized to be. We persevere the more youthful generations, the method they are drawing up their future … if you wish to take a look at the method the economy is moving … individuals wish to remain in neighborhood, however we require to determine how this neighborhood can advance.”
  
• Torrey Smith, Benefactor, two-time Super Bowl Champ: “ The truth exists are a lot of more individuals doing way larger and much better things with less. Which’s why it is essential when you are the Baltimore Orioles or the Baltimore Ravens: You have the chance to boost individuals by utilizing your platform and supplying them with chances.”
  
• Kevin Slab, Under Armour: ” Throughout the nation, leaders are reconsidering where they invest, where they grow, and where they position long-lasting self-confidence since capital is moving. Skill is mobile and cities are either advance or falling even more behind. However Baltimore has whatever it requires to complete. … What is required now isn’t more agreement; it’s shared conviction followed by action.”

About The Rockefeller Structure
Investing $30 billion over the last 113 years to promote the wellness of mankind, The Rockefeller Structure is a pioneering philanthropy constructed on not likely collaborations and ingenious services that provide quantifiable outcomes for individuals in the United States and around the globe. We take advantage of clinical advancements, expert system, and brand-new innovations to make huge bets throughout energy, food, health, and financing, consisting of with our public charity, RF Catalytic Capital (RFCC). To find out more, register for our newsletter at www.rockefellerfoundation.org/subscribe and follow us on X @RockefellerFdn, Instagram @rockefellerfdn, and LinkedIn @the- rockefeller-foundation.

About The Engine
The Engine is a not-for-profit incubator and accelerator devoted to supporting early phase Difficult Tech business by supplying the facilities, programs, and community assistance they require to grow. Difficult Tech is transformational innovation rooted in advancement science and engineering, targeted at resolving the world’s most important difficulties. These business are capital-intensive, extremely controlled, and technically complex, needing specialized facilities, client assistance, and a resistant course from laboratory to market. Discover more at www.engine.xyz

About Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)
The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) is producing an inclusive green economy by opening development through scaling cleantech start-ups, changing markets through catalytic collaborations with policymakers, innovators, and market leaders in transport, energy, and sustainable cities, like the Transport Electrification Collaboration, and boosting neighborhoods through green tasks labor force training, pilots and other programs. Established as a financial advancement effort by the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water & & Power (LADWP) in 2011, LACI is acknowledged as one of the leading 10 ingenious company incubators on the planet by UBI. LACI has actually assisted 506 portfolio business raise over $1 billion in financing, created $344 million in profits, and developed 2,626 tasks throughout the Los Angeles area, with a long term financial effect of more than $733 million.

About The Tidy Battle
The Tidy Battle is a not-for-profit devoted to speeding up the adoption of environment services for 100% of the population – moving them into neighborhoods quicker, more cost effectively, and at scale. Through catalytic grants, release programs, and reward competitors, The Tidy Battle styles and provides adoption designs that turn one-off jobs into first-of-many. The Tidy Battle is supported by NYSERDA, the U.S. Economic Advancement Administration, and leading humanitarian partners. Discover more at thecleanfight.com.