In the past 5 years, the Baltimore City Intergenerational Initiative for Trauma and Youth (B-CIITY) has proven the concept of community led grant allocation, connected resources to trauma informed care programming and youth-centric mental health providers, and increased the capacity of front line, community based organizations.

B-CIITY is now preparing for the next phase of its evolution: to become a standalone, cooperatively owned and led organization, and to create a shared digital infrastructure that allows its members to more effectively and collaboratively provide services to the community.

For the past year, a team of Zebras Unite Co-op staff and members have been working with B-CIITY on the design and strategy for a data co-operative for and by frontline, grassroots groups in Baltimore.

Join B-CIITY's Candace Chance in conversation with Zebras Unite's Kate "Sassy" Sassoon, moderated by Zebras Unite co-founder Astrid Scholz as they talk about their journey.

Candace Chance is a Baltimore City native (with Guyanese roots) who spent a decade exploring the dynamics of social & economic ecosystems. She has been developing strategies to serve the development of regenerative and self-determined communities. Candace founded The V.P.I. Firm (Vision, Performance, & Impact): a process and strategy design firm for community development & social impact. She also co-founded Momo|Wucha, an equity real estate development firm. As if that wasn’t enough, Candace is also the Interim Executive Director (previously founding Board President) of BCIITY (Baltimore City Intergenerational Initiative for Trauma & Youth), a community-managed alliance of over 60 organizations and social enterprises, disseminating over $3.5 million to community-grown solutions. Other volunteer work includes sitting on theboard of Maryland’s 1st Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts & Entertainment District in West Baltimore, advisor for CLLCTIVLY and Project Niche, and member of the Alumnae & Alumni of Goucher College’s Public Service Award Committee.

Kate “Sassy" Sassoon has spent over 20 years turning her passion for efficiency, effectiveness, and equity into Sassy Facilitation, a cooperative-centered consultancy offering facilitation, training, and organizational design to social enterprise organizations. She develops inclusive collaboration frameworks, energetic dialog spaces, and authentic connections and her work is known for being joyous, empowering, and deeply caring. She brings all that energy and a lifetime of personal experience with co-ops to the role of Culture Circle Lead at Zebra’s Unite. She holds 2 degrees from UC Berkeley - one in art and one in science, and approaches the world (and the work) with one foot firmly in each. She delights in deep questions, unexpected connections, and doing well by doing good.

Dr. Astrid J. Scholz is a co-founder of Zebras Unite, a growing global hybrid cooperative enterprise of founders, investors, and allies who are creating a more ethical, inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable approach to building businesses. She leads Zebras Unite’s Capital Circle. Astrid is also Managing Partner of Armillaria, a system design and technology collective dedicated to co-creating global, distributed, democratic infrastructure for mobilizing the data, innovations, and capital to solve today’s wicked problems using principled design. Astrid was previously President of Ecotrust, a conservation-based development organization with $150M in assets under management. She holds degrees from the Universities of St. Andrews, Bristol, and California at Berkeley.

Co-operatives & Liberation: Why Black community leaders in Baltimore are forming a data co-op