This once-small operation in Baltimore has grown over the last 25 years to become the powerful change agent that the Center for Urban Families is today, a national presence and a renowned leader in this work. The Urban Visionary Awards give us a chance to celebrate all we’ve achieved in service of families, honor our partners on this journey and turn our eyes toward the future.
As we gather at the American Visionary Arts Museum, we will look at where we have been, where we are and where we are going.
Some who will join us are just learning about our sophisticated approach to seeding legacies for the future. Others have been with Joe Jones since the beginning and walked with him from Baltimore neighborhoods to the State House in Annapolis to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. — and many other places from the Aspen Institute to Harvard University.
Our two honorees, Congressman Kweisi Mfume and Danielle Torain-Victor, have been true partners to CFUF, unrelenting and inspired. The current guard and the new guard. Both are personal friends, Kweisi, a brilliant legislator and profoundly respected advocate who carries the hopes and dreams of Baltimore families in his heart; Danielle, a dynamic innovator who is unapologetic about her love for the city and devoted to creating transformative solutions. We recognize you, and we thank you both.
On behalf of Joe and the senior leadership team, I want to also express gratitude to the CFUF staff for their commitment. Regardless of your role on Monroe Street, you make a difference and contribute to the trust and respect CFUF has in the community.
Since 1999, CFUF has touched the lives of more than 100,000 men, women and children in a city of 570,000 people. The mere number itself is a reason to applaud, but it’s the stories behind each of those lives that motivate and guide us.
To my fellow board members, through your networks and relationships, you have used your credibility to help so many see and understand the extraordinary work that’s happening at CFUF. As we commemorate the past quarter century and step into the next one, please knowyour contributions have been invaluable.
Kenneth M. Jones II Board Chairman
This is what it means to seed legacies for the future.
Our mobility coaching and ever-evolving signature programs teach parents how to find jobs and build careers, live responsibly, successfully transition after incarceration, buy a home, create a legacy and pass generational wealth onto their children. In that work, we stand with them as they change their lives and the way they parent. What always strikes me is the spark of recognition that CFUF ignites: I can do great things. I can give my children a better future.In each of these stories, a common theme emerges. That is, from Penn North and Park Heights to Oakland and Harlem, CFUF is the catalyst for a generation of children who will find more stability and greater opportunity than their parents.
Congressman Kweisi Mfume
URBAN VISIONARY AWARDS
Kweisi Mfume (pronounced Kwah-EE-see Oom-FOO-may), was born, raised and educated in the city of Baltimore and it was here he has followed his dreams to impact society and help shape public policy.
He graduated magna cum laude from Morgan State
2024 Honoree
University and later returned as an adjunct professor teaching courses in Political Science and Communications and was voted the University’s 2013 Alumnus of the Year. Mfume earned a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University and has
been conferred honorary doctoral degrees by Brandeis University, the University of Maryland, Loyola University Maryland, The University of the Virgin Islands, Meharry Medical College, Morgan State University, Morehouse College, Maryland Institute and College
of Art, Sojourner Douglass College, Washington College and Howard University.
Mfume’s political career began with his first election to the Baltimore City Council at age 31. During his 7 years of service, he chaired the Committee on Health Policy and led efforts to diversify city government, improve community safety, enhance business development, and divest city funds from the thenapartheid government of South Africa.
At the age of 38 he began the first part of his federal political career with election to the United States Congress. Mfume consistently advocated for landmark business and civil rights legislation, including co-sponsoring the Americans with Disabilities Act and strengthening the Equal Credit Opportunity Law. He also sponsored legislative initiatives banning assault weapons and establishing stalking as a federal crime.
Kweisi Mfume left his Congressional seat to become President and CEO of the NAACP in February of 1996 after unanimous election, serving 9 years. He significantly raised the national profile of the NAACP while helping to restore its prominence, including establishing 75 new college-based NAACP chapters across the nation and securing official United Nations’ Status as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
He has served on the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis; People for the American Way; the Meyerhof Scholars Advisory Board of the University of Maryland; the Senior
Advisory Committee of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; the African American Advisory Board of PepsiCo; the American Society of Association Executives; the National Advisory Council of Boy Scouts of America; the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central Maryland, the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees, the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH, the Board of Research America and the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture.
In 2010 Mfume was named “Marylander of the Year” by both the Baltimore Sun newspaper and Maryland Magazine. That same year he was hired as Executive Director of the National Medical Association (NMA), founded in 1895 as the nation’s oldest African American Medical Association.
Mfume’s second round in federal politics began when he was sworn in as a member of the 116th Congress on May 5, 2020, after winning a special election to fill the remainder of the term vacated by the death of his friend of 42 years (and successor in Congress), Congressman Elijah Cummings.
He serves as a Subcommittee Ranking Member on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2023, Mfume was appointed to serve on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus,
the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Caucus, and the Congressional Labor Caucus, among others.
Mfume currently sits as Chairman of the Morgan State University Board of Regents. He is a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the Gamma Boulé Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, and a 33° Prince Hall Mason.
Mfume also celebrates a 20+ year background in broadcasting, including hosting the nationally syndicated “The Remarkable Journey” for 3 years. In 2000, he was on the Entertainment Weekly Magazine annual list of the “101 Most Powerful People in Entertainment.” While a member of Congress he was the recipient of the NAACP Image Award for national leadership and later the 2005 Telly Award for the Television documentary “Ticket to Freedom.” His autobiography No Free Ride was a bestseller.
2024 Honoree URBAN VISIONARY AWARDS
I‘m passionate about helping our communities thrive by supporting local leaders with the resources they need. It‘s all about making a positive, lasting difference in Baltimore and beyond. Danielle Torain-Victor, J.D.
Danielle Torain-Victor is a proud Baltimore native committed to deepening public and private investment in communities and leaders of color, building inclusive local economies, championing philanthropic innovation, and leading with an explicit racial justice and intersectional equity lens.
Thus far in her 15+ year career, Torain-Victor has led the community participatory planning and institutional formation efforts of the Baltimore Children & Youth Fund, served as Senior Associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation leading place-based strategies in workforce development and economic inclusion, resident leadership, and community capacity building, as Senior Director of Strategy and Development at the Center for Urban Families; and as Criminal Justice Associate at the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. In the wake of Baltimore’s 2015 Uprising following the death of Freddie Gray, Torain-Victor launched several initiatives aimed at connecting local activists and organizers with the philanthropic resources needed to carry out their work.
Most recently Torain-Victor served as the executive director of Open Society InstituteBaltimore. Her tenure focused on tackling racial disparities in funding among leaders of local grassroots movements, and publicprivate initiatives focused on curbing the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities of color. She also served as director of Leadership & Innovation -
Open Society-U.S., a national division focused on strengthening investment in leaders of movements for racial justice across the country. As a part of a global restructuring, TorainVictor led a $20 million fundraising campaign and change management effort to facilitate the responsible sunset of the 25 year-old OSIBaltimore institution.
Torain-Victor is a graduate of the University of Richmond and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and a 2012 graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee’s flagship program The Leadership. She has been recognized as a CLLCTIVLY’s Change Maker, a Maritime Magic Rising Star of Baltimore and as the Red Cross of Central Maryland’s Spirited Woman Rising of Maryland as well as one of Maryland Daily Record’s Top 100 Women and Baltimore Business Journal’s Leading Women.
Torain-Victor now leads a strategy and management consulting practice where she focuses on delivering organizational development, change management, facilitative, and executive management support to philanthropic, public, private and grassroots leaders committed to the pursuit of racial and economic justice. She serves on a number of boards, including France-Merrick Foundation, The Funders Network, and the W. Haywood Burns Institute and maintains an enduring commitment to supporting grassroots leaders throughout the city.
