A colorful digital graphic featuring a castle, a tower, a lion illustration, a palm tree, a stylized torch, and abstract shapes in purple, orange, yellow, and white.

Baltimore

Chamber of Connection

Colorful geometric abstract illustration featuring a tree, a slice of citrus fruit with a straw, a clown face, a castle, and crafting elements on a purple background with yellow borders.
Colorful geometric abstract illustration featuring a tree, a slice of citrus fruit with a straw, a clown face, a castle, and crafting elements on a purple background with yellow borders.

Baltimore

Chamber of Connection

Three young men are laughing and talking on a city street. They are dressed casually with jackets and hats. The background shows buildings, parked cars, and a lamppost decorated with holiday ribbon, indicating a festive season.

A City Shaped by Place and Possibility

Baltimore is one of America's oldest and most storied port cities—a place of deep history. With more than 250 neighborhoods, Baltimore offers a richness of local identity and belonging. Yet for all its size and history, Baltimore has an unmistakable closeness to it—a "Smalltimore" quality where communities overlap, familiar faces reappear, and connections form more naturally. Our city is filled with people who care, who are warm and welcoming, quirky and down to earth, who care about community. Baltimore has always been a city that builds things, and today it has an extraordinary opportunity to build the social fabric that helps people truly belong. Baltimore is on its way to being the most welcoming, well-connected city in America.

About Baltimore Welcome Week

Baltimore has always been a harbor city — a place where people arrive, settle, and put down roots. This Welcome Week, we're making sure they don't do it alone — one invitation, one open door, one new neighbor at a time.

Stylized purple castle with yellow background.
Stylized purple castle with yellow background.

We’re Looking for Connection Builders

Join one of our three connection builder programs and become part of our community - meeting other connection builders at regular special events and socials.

Baltimore Ambassador Network

The Baltimore Ambassador Network is for people who love this city and want to help newcomers find their way in — without a heavy lift. You'll be matched with a newcomer, meet them once in person, and check in a few times over their first 90 days.
Commitment: 1 hour per month

Meet the first Ambassadors.

Baltimore Welcome Community

The Welcome Committee helps you go deeper and become a leader in your neighborhood. Get trained by the experts at the US Chamber of Connection and become part of a national community of fellow neighborhood leaders. Commitment: 5 hours per month.

Baltimore Community Builder Network

Join 100+ leaders who run clubs and activity-based communities in the Baltimore area. Attend our monthly peer learning and collaboration circles and get the support you need to continue to build connection in Baltimore. Learn how the most successful clubs secure sponsorship, attract members, build strong communities, and engage volunteers.

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The Missing Infrastructure: Connection

Group of women and girls in colorful traditional Mexican dresses dancing outdoors in front of a large wooden tower, with trees and cloudy sky in the background.

Baltimore is so rich in relationships. We have extraordinary organizations and leaders building community. But these efforts are rarely aligned. They often miss people at the moments when connection matters most—during major life transitions like moving, changing jobs, becoming a parent, navigating health changes, or entering retirement.

We lack the infrastructure for social connection. We have built world-class systems for work, health, and education. We now have the opportunity to do the same with connection, by bringing coherence to all the incredible efforts in Baltimore that already exist. For Baltimore, strengthening connection is not just a social good; it is an investment in the city’s long-term vitality.

Our Vision

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As a Founding Chapter of the United States Chamber of Connection, we are working to make social connection a core part of Baltimore’s civic infrastructure.

Our goal is to bring together leaders, organizations, and residents to strengthen relationships across communities and make it easier for people to build meaningful connections. Our role is not to replace the work already happening across the region. It is to align leaders, amplify what works, and help build the shared infrastructure and resources needed for connection to thrive at scale.

We are focused on four initial efforts:

1. Launching a State of Connection Report

A regional assessment based on the Six Points of Connection framework to understand where connection is strong, where it is breaking down, and for whom. This will provide a shared baseline for the city and help guide collective action—informing priorities, investment, and coordination across sectors for 2027 and beyond.

2. Building a Connection Council

A cross-sector group of leaders from business, government, nonprofits, healthcare, education, art & culture, and community organizations. The Council will develop a shared regional agenda and coordinate efforts to strengthen connection across systems, while elevating and resourcing the organizations already doing the work.

3. Welcoming Newcomers

We are building a set of events and volunteer opportunities to help welcome new residents. From our Ambassador Program to the Welcome Committee to Welcome Week (Sept 26 to Oct 4) to Activity Club Fairs we are helping new people make connections and find community.

4. Growing the Community Builders Ecosystem

A network of people across Baltimore who are already creating spaces for connection, from neighborhood organizers to cultural leaders to social club hosts. This network provides support, tools, visibility, and pathways for collaboration across communities. 

Chapter Founder

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Alex Zhu

Let’s Connect

We would love to have you join us. We are currently looking for sponsors, volunteers, and partners. To stay connected and receive our latest updates, please subscribe and join our community.

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