We Work to Revitalize Dundalk. Every Day.
Dundalk Renaissance is a non-profit 501 (c)3 community development organization dedicated to revitalizing greater Dundalk. Our mission is to mobilize people to invest in greater Dundalk’s neighborhoods, economy and quality of life. Formed in 2001, our organization’s work has grown to include:
- Community events
- Supporting local businesses in the Historic Dundalk Town Center (HDTC)–a certified Maryland Main Street
- Helping future home buyers and homeowners through our HUD certified housing counseling program
- Assisting low and moderate income households file their taxes
- Helping our seniors age in place
- Creating space in the HDTC for local artists to share their work–without a gallery fee
- and so much more!
Our work is supported by government and private grants, sponsorships, individual donations, bequests partnerships and volunteer hours.
Our Housing Work
Our housing program aims to help stabilize our community, which is why for years we ran a Senior Home Repair program before joining forces with Baltimore County to provide age friendly upgrades in southeast Baltimore County through Baltimore County Age-Friendly Upgrades for Seniors.
Our housing work also seeks to attract the next generation of home buyers. Since 2014, we’ve incentivized homebuyers to move to call Dundalk home through our Dundalk-wide grant which can be used for down payment or closing cost and requires the grantee to live in the home for five years (or pay back the grant if they move before then).
In 2020, we became a HUD certified housing counseling agency and began offering Home Buyer Education Classes which are accepted by the county and state for any grant or mortgage program that requires home buyer education. By 2022 our housing counseling work extended to reverse mortgage counseling and foreclosure assistance.
We also work to incentivize developers to create quality renovations in Dundalk through our Market Boost program which requires developers to give the buyer $3,000-$5,000 seller concession.
Our Financial Counseling Work
Since 2020 we’ve provided free financial counseling to 630+ Baltimore County residents. Our counseling helps prepare individuals and families for home ownership; work on budgets; plan savings goals; improve credit scores and help families and individuals get financially fit. In addition to individual counseling, we also offer financial literacy workshops and tax filing.
Senior Home Repair Program in Action
Our Main Street Work
The Historic Dundalk Town Center is a vibrant, diverse Maryland Main Street with numerous small businesses. The affordable rent prices allows artists, makers and entrepreneurs to rent a store front and take their passions to the next level. We aim to support these small business owners through grants and Main Street programing aimed to drive foot traffic to the shops.
Each year we host six Main Street events–including Family Fall Festival, Holiday Hoopla and Makers Market.
We seek to help bolster small businesses by providing business development counseling and creating pop up shop space in the Forge where small businesses can test out operating a store front without a long term lease.
Since 2022, we’ve converted wall space in the Forge into gallery wall space where local artists are able to display and sell their work with no cost to them beyond printing and some framing costs. Each artist is able to set their gallery hours and events. We invite the public to a gallery opening and closing for every artist.
Our Strategic Plan
For more detail on why we do what we do, please see our latest Strategic Plan, which guides our work and describes the process of community engagement we used to develop our plan.
By the Numbers
