The Greater Washington Partnership – a first of a kind alliance of the region’s leading employers from Baltimore to Richmond – features more than 35 diverse organizations, representing nearly 3,000 workers from across 1,200 different work sites throughout the region.
“Our unique value and differentiator is that we bring together a table of the region’s most prominent employers and C-suite leaders across all industries at the highest level, from aerospace and tech, healthcare, energy, sports and entertainment,” explains Greater Washington Partnership CEO Kathy Hollinger.
“And the goal as a collective for this table is to champion inclusive economic growth, and for this group to identify transformative opportunities to make the region vibrant, economically competitive and the best place to live, work and build a business.”
Two years ago, the group launched its Shared Prosperity commitment.
“We made a transformative pledge to collectively invest $4.7 billion over five years to catalyze emerging regional economies as well as small and diverse businesses from Baltimore to Richmond,” Hollinger says.
“In just two years, initial Shared Prosperity organizations invested over $3.2 billion towards inclusive economic growth, which is close to 70% of our five-year goal.”
Initial organizations to sign on included Clark Construction Group, EY, Dominion Energy, JPMorganChase, Northrop Grumman, Amazon, Truist Foundation, Inova Health System, Exelon and Wells Fargo.
The number of commitment participants has only grown since 2022, with organizations including CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Monumental Sports and Entertainment joining in.
So why are the efforts needed?
“This region is lagging other large cities and cross jurisdictional regions nationwide when it comes to racial inclusion and geographic prosperity,” Hollinger says.
“So, there was a recognition that there was work that needed to be done, and a recognition that inclusive growth should be at the forefront of business decisions for every company across the region. And this was an effort that was thought could only be done by breaking down long term barriers to economic opportunity and then also measuring the impact to advance inclusive growth.”
The work could result in tremendous economic expansion.
According to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, “there’s the potential to unlock an estimated $35 to $50 billion in GDP for the Baltimore to Richmond corridor by 2028,” Hollinger adds.
