In the November 2022 election, Marylanders voted in favor of the most diverse statewide leadership in the history of our state. Maryland voters advanced racial and economic justice by voting to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, which begins to set right the harms caused by the criminalization of cannabis.
We congratulate Wes Moore and Aruna Miller for their historic win in the 2022 election. Wes Moore will be Maryland’s first Black governor, and the only Black governor in the nation. Aruna Miller will be the first woman of color and first immigrant to serve as lieutenant governor. Representative Anthony G. Brown has been elected as Maryland’s first Black attorney general. Delegate Brooke Lierman is the first woman independently elected to statewide office and will become the first female comptroller of Maryland.
We believe that Maryland can yet make a year for another first by creating a seat at the table for Maryland’s nonprofits. We propose the Moore administration place the people closest to the problem on his transition team by creating a Nonprofit Partnerships Working Group.
The partnership between governments and the nonprofit sector is key to advancing quality of life and equity in our great state. Around our state, nonprofits employ nearly 13% of Maryland’s private sector workforce and provide essential quasi-governmental services including pre-kindergarten through higher education, adoption and foster care, healthcare and economic and workforce development. We believe that good government includes the people closest to the problem as we work towards solutions.
The nonprofit sector has long-served on the front lines of the struggle for racial and economic justice. Nonprofits have long been the chosen vehicle for seating community leadership and mobilizing equity-centered reforms, in collaboration with government, business, school, religious institutions, and more.
A Nonprofit Partnership Workgroup would empower the Moore administration with an expanded network that understands the complexities of multi-generational poverty. The Workgroup would intentionally focus on generating upward mobility, removing barriers to basic needs, and reforming systems that produce reliably inequitable outcomes. By working together, we will create prosperous communities full of opportunity for all Marylanders.
Congratulations again to Governor-elect Moore, Lieutenant Governor-elect Miller, Comptroller-elect Lierman, Attorney General-elect Brown and all those who won elected office In the November 2022 Maryland election. We look forward to working with you and your respective transition teams.
(Maryland Nonprofits is a nonpartisan 501c(3) nonprofit organization that does not support or oppose candidates or political parties for election.)